The Aces on Bridge: Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Dealer: South
Vul: E/W |
North | ||||
♠ | 10 6 2 | ||||
♥ | Q 9 5 4 | ||||
♦ | A K 9 3 | ||||
♣ | 8 5 | ||||
West | East | ||||
♠ | 8 | ♠ | A J 3 | ||
♥ | K 10 7 2 | ♥ | A J 8 6 | ||
♦ | Q 10 8 5 4 | ♦ | J | ||
♣ | 10 9 2 | ♣ | Q J 7 4 3 | ||
South | |||||
♠ | K Q 9 7 5 4 | ||||
♥ | 3 | ||||
♦ | 7 6 2 | ||||
♣ | A K 6 |
South | West | North | East |
1♠ | Pass | 2♠ | Pass |
3♣* | Pass | 3♦ | Pass |
4♠ | All Pass | ||
*Long-suit game-try |
Opening Lead:♣10
“I only took the regular course … the different branches of Arithmetic – Ambition, Distraction, Uglification and Derision.”
— Lewis Carroll
Today’s deal, from a tournament in Australia, showed that the demise of a contract is frequently due to declarer’s taking his eye off the ball when things look too easy. That is precisely the moment to concentrate, trying to work out what might go wrong.
First let’s look at what happened to South in four spades. The opening lead of the club 10 went to the ace. Declarer could see that unless he lost two spade tricks, he would be home. He led a diamond to dummy’s ace and a spade back to his king. He then cashed his second top club and ruffed a club. Now, when he led a second trump from dummy, East rose with the ace and thoughtfully underled his heart ace to put his partner in with the king. West returned the diamond queen, and East ruffed away dummy’s diamond king and exited with a club, forcing declarer to ruff in hand. As there was still another diamond to lose, declarer finished down one.
While a low diamond lead would have defeated the game, declarer should have considered the risk of the defenders getting a ruff, even on a club lead. To prevent this, the winning line is to start cutting the defenders’ communications by leading a low heart at trick two. Declarer wins the club return, crosses to the diamond ace, and plays a trump as before, then takes the club ruff for the second trump play, and East is helpless.
BID WITH THE ACES
South Holds:
♠ | 10 6 2 |
♥ | Q 9 5 4 |
♦ | A K 9 3 |
♣ | 8 5 |
South | West | North | East |
1♠ | Pass | ||
2♠ | 3♣ | Pass | Pass |
? | |||
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].