Aces on Bridge — Daily Columns

The Aces on Bridge: Wednesday, June 19th, 2013

He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.

Thomas Paine


South North
East-West ♠ Q 7 6 2
 7 5
 8 6 5 3 2
♣ J 10
West East
♠ —
 J 6 3 2
 10 7 4
♣ A 9 8 6 4 2
♠ J 10 4 3
 Q 10 8 4
 J
♣ K 7 5 3
South
♠ A K 9 8 5
 A K 9
 A K Q 9
♣ Q
South West North East
2♣ Pass 2 Pass
2♠ Pass 4♠ Pass
6♠ All pass    

♣A

In today's six-spade contract, there are two potential problems that declarer might be faced with. The first is a bad trump break; the second is a bad diamond break. With considerable shortage of entries to dummy, against which of these problems should you protect — or can you guard against both of them?

When West began with two top clubs South ruffed with the nine and saw the only dangers for the contract were the 4-0 break in either trumps or diamonds. She could not play either suit without loss if West had four cards there. Entries were such that she could only manage to pick up diamonds by drawing trumps first. However, that risked failing when East had four trumps.

Finally she came to the right conclusion when she decided to focus her attention on trumps and led the spade eight to the queen. When West showed out, she led a trump from dummy to the 10 and ace. She returned to dummy with a heart ruff, finessed against East’s spade jack, then drew East’s last trump with her king. When all followed to the diamond ace, she had 12 tricks.

Note that had spades broken 2-2, her careful play at tricks two and three would have left her two entries to dummy to take two diamond finesses. Had she ruffed the club low, there would have been only one trump entry to dummy, and thus no way to protect against 4-0 diamonds after leading a spade to the queen at trick three.


A raise to four clubs is simple and straightforward, and you have no reason to assume either that three no-trump will score better than a minor-suit contract, or indeed that three no-trump will be cold facing extreme shortage in one major or the other. A jump to five clubs would be premature without five trumps.

BID WITH THE ACES

♠ J 10 4 3
 Q 10 8 4
 J
♣ K 7 5 3
South West North East
1 Pass
1 Pass 3♣ Pass
?      

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 2013. If you are interested in reprinting The Aces on Bridge column, contact reprints@unitedmedia.com.