Hand of the day #293
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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Today's deal reminds me of an expression my grandmother used to use: "He was so sharp, he cut himself."
Opening Lead: ♥K
The exact auction was different at the various tables, but East frequently opened three diamonds and South overcalled four spades. West leads the heart king and switches to the diamond eight. Plan the play.
You are not sure whether East has six diamonds or seven for his opening pre-empt at favorable vulnerability, so it looks dangerous to duck the diamond. The problem is that if you win and play a spade to the queen and another spade, West may win his ace and play a second diamond. Now a third round of diamonds may promote a trick for his presumed spade 10.
One declarer, alert to this danger, found a neat solution. At trick three he crossed to dummy’s club ace and played the heart queen, discarding his second diamond from hand. This play was designed to cut the communications between his opponents’ hands so they could no longer get the trump promotion.
Or could they? While declarer had neatly protected himself against an imaginary danger, he had created a new and fatal problem. The real layout was as shown in the diagram.
When West won the heart ace he continued with a second round of clubs. He then won the first round of trump with the ace and gave his partner a club ruff. One down!
Note that almost any other “normal” line of play would have succeeded.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 2♣
I like to play that the one-spade rebid shows at least four clubs. (With only three clubs and 4-3-3-3 pattern I rebid one no-trump over one heart.) Accordingly, I can raise to two clubs with a clear conscience; with the spade king instead of the queen I might well have bid three clubs instead, but this hand looks just short of invitational values.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.