The Aces on Bridge: Friday, March 27, 2009

Dealer: South Vul: None		North
		♠	9 6 5
		♥	Q 7 5
		♦	A J 10 7
		♣	7 4 2
West				East
♠	K 8 2			♠	J 7
♥	9			♥	A K J 8 6 4 2
♦	K 9 8 6			♦	4
♣	10 9 8 6 3			♣	Q J 5
		South
		♠	A Q 10 4 3
		♥	10 3
		♦	Q 5 3 2
		♣	A K

South	West	North	East
1♠	Pass	2♠	4♥
4♠	Dbl.	All Pass

Opening Lead: ♥9

“Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied.”

— Pearl S. Buck

In today’s deal, it did not hurt that West could not see through the backs of the cards, but declarer did earn his good result.

Against four spades doubled, West led the heart nine, to the five, jack and 10, then discarded a small club on the heart-ace continuation. South correctly ruffed the heart king with the trump 10. West did well not to overruff, discarding a second club.

Now declarer needed trumps to break, and he decided that East was likely to hold the spade jack because West might have overruffed with that card. While the diamond finesse was likely to work, there was a real risk of a 4-1 split. Trying to avoid letting the defenders get a cheap ruff, he cashed the spade ace. When both defenders followed, he advanced the diamond queen, hoping for the reflex cover by West, and got it. Then a trump to the jack, queen and king left West on lead.

That player innocently exited with the club 10 (a diamond would have been more testing), and declarer captured this with the king as East followed with his five. The club ace drew the jack from East, and now declarer tried to count out the hand. East’s original shape was now known to be either 2-7-2-2 or 2-7-1-3, and declarer inferred that the play in clubs suggested he had the queen-jack.

Accordingly, diamonds were 4-1, so South boldly led a low diamond to dummy’s seven and claimed the rest when East showed out.

BID WITH THE ACES

South Holds:

If you would like to contact Bobby Wolff, feel free to leave a comment at this blog. Reproduced with permission of United Feature Syndicate, Inc., Copyright 2009.