The Aces on Bridge: Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Dealer: North
Vul: None |
North | ||||
♠ | A Q 9 | ||||
♥ | 10 8 4 3 | ||||
♦ | K 2 | ||||
♣ | 8 7 6 2 | ||||
West | East | ||||
♠ | K 7 | ♠ | J 6 4 3 | ||
♥ | Q J 7 2 | ♥ | — | ||
♦ | 7 6 3 | ♦ | Q J 10 9 8 4 | ||
♣ | K Q 10 4 | ♣ | 9 5 3 | ||
South | |||||
♠ | 10 8 5 2 | ||||
♥ | A K 9 6 5 | ||||
♦ | A 5 | ||||
♣ | A J |
South | West | North | East |
Pass | Pass | ||
1♥ | Pass | 2♣* | Pass |
4♥ | All Pass |
*Drury: a maximum pass with heart support |
Opening Lead:♣K
“Sailin’ ’round the world in a dirty gondola
Oh, to be back in the land of Coca-Cola!”
— Bob Dylan
If a contract looks impossible, relinquishing the lead to the opponents at an appropriate moment can have a remarkable effect. In the 2001 Bermuda Bowl the VuGraph audience in Paris applauded when Jacek Pszczola (then of Poland, now of the United States) known to everyone as Pepsi, brought home his contract of four hearts against Indonesia, despite the vile trump break.
The contract was the same at both tables, both Easts having intervened in diamonds. In the Closed Room, after a diamond lead taken by the ace, declarer cashed a top heart and discovered the poor break. He continued with a spade to the nine and jack, and now the contract had to fail.
On VuGraph, West led the club king, won by South. After the heart ace had brought the bad news, Pszczola exited with his club jack to West’s queen. Declarer won the diamond switch in dummy, ruffed a club to hand, then finessed the spade queen. He ruffed dummy’s last club, then cashed the diamond and spade aces.
Now came a third round of spades to East’s jack. In the three-card ending, dummy had three trumps, while declarer held the K 9 of trumps plus the spade 10. West had Q J 7 of trumps left, and whether East led a spade or a diamond, West could do no better than ruff high to prevent dummy’s 10 from scoring. Then he was forced to lead a heart into declarer’s trump tenace: contract made!
BID WITH THE ACES
South Holds:
♠ | 10 8 5 2 |
♥ | A K 9 6 5 |
♦ | A 5 |
♣ | A J |
South | West | North | East |
1♣ | Pass | 1♥ | |
? | |||
For details of Bobby Wolff’s autobiography, The Lone Wolff, contact [email protected]. If you would like to contact Bobby Wolff, please leave a comment at this blog. Reproduced with permission of United Feature Syndicate, Inc., Copyright 2009. If you are interested in reprinting The Aces on Bridge column, contact [email protected].