The Aces on Bridge: Monday, October 20th, 2014
Everything has its drawbacks, as the man said when his mother-in-law died, and they came down on him for the funeral expenses.
Jerome K. Jerome
| South | North |
|---|---|
| Neither | ♠ K J 9 4 ♥ A 4 ♦ 5 4 ♣ J 7 5 4 3 |
| West | East |
|---|---|
| ♠ 8 ♥ K Q 10 9 8 7 ♦ J 9 ♣ Q 9 8 2 |
♠ 7 6 5 2 ♥ J 6 5 3 ♦ K Q 3 ♣ K 10 |
| South |
|---|
| ♠ A Q 10 3 ♥ 2 ♦ A 10 8 7 6 2 ♣ A 6 |
| South | West | North | East |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1♦ | 2♥ | Dbl. | 4♥ |
| 4♠ | All pass |
♥K
Larry Cohen, of the "Law of Total Tricks" fame, publishes a free monthly newsletter on the internet, which is well worth checking out. That's where I found today's deal.
First, let’s start by taking the East hand. After two passes, South opens one diamond, and West overcalls with a weak two hearts. When North makes a negative double, it is over to you.
As partner has advertised at least six hearts and you have four, Cohen recommends that you bid four hearts — the level of the combined trump holding, putting maximum pressure on South.
Despite your best efforts, South bids four spades. Time to change seats — now you are South declaring that contract. West leads the heart king, won in dummy. What now? Diamonds need be set up before trumps are drawn. So lead a diamond to the ace and play another diamond to put East on lead.
Back comes a heart, and the crux of the hand has been reached. You need to ruff a diamond in dummy to set up that suit, and if you ruff this heart in hand, you will lose control against a 4-1 trump break. As there is an inevitable club loser, why not lose it now? Instead of ruffing, discard the club six.
A third heart can now be ruffed in dummy. Lead a club to hand for another diamond ruff high, draw trump, taking the 4-1 break in stride, and the South hand is now high.
With neither a heart nor club lead seeming to be in the slightest degree attractive, the question is whether to attack with a spade lead or go passive. The main strike against a spade lead is that it may solve an ace-queen guess for declarer, but then again, to defeat two clubs, we do need to find our partner with quite a good hand, and yet he never bid. I'll opt for the relative security of the diamond sequence.
LEAD WITH THE ACES
| ♠ Q 7 2 ♥ K 9 6 4 2 ♦ 9 8 2 ♣ A J |
| South | West | North | East |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1♣ | |||
| 1♥ | Dbl. | Pass | 2♣ |
| All pass |
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Bridge-related
Hello Mr. Wolff,
I’m not sure my local paper (Raleigh, NC) runs the the same schedule as shown on your blog here, as today’s newspaper column (coded 11-3-A) shows North hand as:
S- J 3
H- A 4 3
D- 8 2
C- A 8 7 5 4 2
Contract was 6H from South, and West lead of diamond K.
Your commentary indicates the key to making the contract is discarding a diamond loser from dummy on the third spade round, won by West. Then you imply West follows with a trump round. Following this logic, I see that the contract is made.
My question is why would West not continue Spades after winning the third spade round (rather than shifting to Hearts)? With another Spade, North must then trump high and subsequently will still have a diamond loser in hand so contract goes down.
What am I mis-interpreting or not seeing here?
Thanks for your insights!
Hi Al,
You are not confused nor are you mis-interpreting or not seeing, you merely are unfamiliar with our process.
Because of our running hands which occurred exactly 2 weeks ago in our regular column, so that my client newspapers can have original access to AOB, the hand you see today in the Raleigh newspaper is an altogether different hand from the one we are now discussing.
The present hand occurred on Monday, October 20th in your newspaper.
Since bridge is always relevant, where ever and whenever it appears and, of course, never loses its impact, I feel blessed in being able to personally discuss what the current bridge topic suggests.
Thanks for writing and don’t be a stranger.
Hi again Al,
I neglected to mention that since in what you know to be today’s real hand Nov. 3rd which will be shown on this site on Nov. 17th, I did not answer your question, but with your indulgence would prefer to wait until all our on site readers and contributors can see for themselves.
When answering your important bridge problems, the open forum which usually occurs always makes the party merrier, and even better, adds grist for the bridge mill.
A sincere thanks to you for showing the patience necessary for the common bridge education good.