The Aces on Bridge: Monday, October 4, 2010
Dealer: South
Vul: None |
North
♠ K J 5 4 ♥ A K Q ♦ 9 8 2 ♣ J 8 3 |
|
West
♠ Q ♥ J 10 6 4 3 ♦ Q J 7 6 ♣ K 10 4 |
East
♠ 10 6 ♥ 9 5 2 ♦ A 5 3 ♣ A Q 7 6 5 |
|
South
♠ A 9 8 7 3 2 ♥ 8 7 ♦ K 10 4 ♣ 9 2 |
South | West | North | East |
2♦* | Pass | 2♥ | Pass |
2♠ | Pass | 4♠ | All Pass |
*Weak two in either major, or 22-23 HCP |
Opening Lead: ♥ 3
“This life’s five windows of the soul
Distorts the Heavens from pole to pole,
And leads you to believe a lie.”
— William Blake
To mark this year’s world championships, being held in Philadelphia, all this week’s deals come from the last world championships, held in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Lynn Deas and Beth Palmer defended expertly on this deal from their round-robin match against Jordan. In the other room Kerri Sanborn had made 10 tricks in two spades, collecting six spades, three hearts and one diamond. But there was more at stake in the closed room, where the Jordanians had reached game.
Deas (West) led the heart three. The Jordanian declarer, Randa Saket, won, drew trumps, and cashed the other two hearts, discarding a club from her hand. Then she called for a club, Palmer as East rising with her ace and shifting to a low diamond, which was ducked to West’s jack. Now Deas set out to help declarer misplace the diamond honors. Instead of leading the club king, she played a low club to the jack and queen, ruffed by South.
Declarer, thinking that East had false-carded on the first round of clubs from the ace-king-queen, now knew that East was unlikely also to have the diamond ace and to have stayed silent at her first turn. She crossed to dummy with a trump and played a diamond to her 10. Deas produced the queen and returned a diamond for down one and six IMPs to USA-1, instead of a loss of the same number.
LEAD WITH THE ACES
South Holds:
♠ | Q 10 4 3 |
♥ | 10 6 2 |
♦ | A 3 |
♣ | J 8 4 2 |
South | West | North | East |
Pass | 1♥ | ||
Pass | 4♥ | All 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 2010. If you are interested in reprinting The Aces on Bridge column, contact [email protected].
It is (almost) guaranteed that I will not find jack of clubs in opposite hand…
Hi Toldo,
Good imaginative overall defense by Palmer-Deas.
Sometimes, in order to mislead a shrewd declarer, some chances need to be taken, and although they, in real life, don’t always work, for bridge column purposes they will, otherwise there wouldn’t be much purpose for the column.
You must guard against losing perspective. Being optimistic will work at bridge much more often than it doesn’t.
Thanks for writing.