Aces on Bridge — Daily Columns

The Aces on Bridge: Wednesday, August 17th, 2011

by admin on August 31st, 2011
Vulnerable: Both

Dealer: East

 North

♠ K 8 5 3

♥ J 10 9 6

♦ A J 9

♣ 10 7
West

♠ A 6 2

♥ Q 2

♦ K 7 4

♣ K J 9 8 4

East

♠ Q 10 9 7

♥ 7 5 4

♦ 8 6 3 2

♣ 5 2
South

♠ J 4

♥ A K 8 3

♦ Q 10 5

♣ A Q 6 3

 

South West North East
Pass
1 NT Pass 2 ♣ Pass
2 ♥ Pass 4 ♥ All pass

Opening Lead: Diamond four

“I decline to buy repentance at the cost of ten thousand drachmas.”

— Demosthenes

I do not want the readers of this column to think I publish deals that involve me just to show myself in a good light. On the contrary, I am aware that a neutral observer would probably find more howlers than brilliancies if they were to scrutinize the record carefully. As Bob Hamman said: “The best play lousy, the rest worse.”

At the Forbo tournament a decade ago there was an introductory four-way international match. When U.S.A. played Italy, the two teams failed to land a blow in the first eight boards — but then came the deluge in favor of Italy, and I started the flood.

Here I opened a strong no-trump and declared four hearts after a Stayman inquiry. Receiving a diamond lead, I won the jack and made what I thought was the natural play when I ran the heart jack at trick two. When Alfredo Versace won this and returned a heart, I took this in the dummy and found that I could no longer ruff two clubs in dummy because of the 5-2 club split, and so had to go down.

By contrast, Norberto Bocchi for Italy accurately took a club finesse at trick two and won the diamond return to play the club ace, then ruff a club high. When East discarded on this trick, Bocchi crossed back to hand in trumps to ruff a second club, then played off the second top heart to drop the queen offside. With the spade ace his only other loser, he made an overtrick for a gain of 13 IMPs.

BID WITH THE ACES

South holds:

♠ Q 10 9 7
♥ 7 5 4
♦ 8 6 3 2
♣ 5 2

 

South West North East
1 ♣ Dbl. 1 ♦
Pass 1 ♥ Dbl. 2 ♣
?
ANSWER: With the opponents coming to a stop in two clubs, you have just enough to compete to two spades. Because you know your partner was eager for you to compete, your four-card spade suit should entitle you to bid now. That you did not bid one spade at your first turn limits you to at most a five-count.

 

For details of Bobby Wolff’s autobiography, The Lone Wolff, contact theLoneWolff@bridgeblogging.com. If you would like to contact Bobby Wolff, please leave a comment at this blog. Reproduced with permission of United Feature Syndicate, Inc., Copyright 2011. If you are interested in reprinting The Aces on Bridge column, contact reprints@unitedmedia.com.

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