The Aces on Bridge: Tuesday, December 30th, 2014
by Bobby Wolff on
January 13th, 2015
With regard to excellence, it is not enough to know, but we must try to have and use it.
Aristotle
| South | North |
|---|---|
| Both | ♠ K 4 2 ♥ Q 6 4 3 ♦ 8 ♣ K J 10 3 2 |
| West | East |
|---|---|
| ♠ J 7 ♥ A K 8 7 5 ♦ 9 7 6 4 ♣ 8 4 |
♠ A 9 5 ♥ J 10 ♦ K J 10 5 ♣ 9 7 6 5 |
| South |
|---|
| ♠ Q 10 8 6 3 ♥ 9 2 ♦ A Q 3 2 ♣ A Q |
| South | West | North | East |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1♠ | Pass | 2♠ | Pass |
| 3♦ | Pass | 4♠ | All pass |
♥K
It is tempting to do more than raise to three clubs, but bear in mind that a singleton diamond is not exactly an asset, your spade king looks poorly placed, and your heart queen my well be worthless. Three clubs is quite enough here – though to do less would be extremely cowardly.
BID WITH THE ACES
| ♠ K 4 2 ♥ Q 6 4 3 ♦ 8 ♣ K J 10 3 2 |
| South | West | North | East |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1♦ | Pass | ||
| 1♥ | 1♠ | 2♣ | Pass |
| ? |
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Bridge-related
The Bridge player's 10 Commandments should definitely feature a prohibition on leading your partner into error, together with instructions on how to steer him away from the faulty path.
On the hand above from the Marlboro Bermuda Bowl in 1995 far too many of the defenders in the West seat were in an impious mood. They led a top heart, and on observing their partner’s jack had to continue with a second top heart, in case their partner had started with a singleton.
But what next? The popular decision seemed to be to play a passive heart eight — which might even promote the spade jack into a trump trick if your partner were dealt specifically the doubleton spade queen-10. You can however see the denouement; East trustingly ruffed the third heart, and declarer overruffed and later played the remaining trumps to be 2-2, thus making his contract.
This was short-sighted defense by West; the actual layout in trumps is quite predictable and much more likely than finding East with a very specific doubleton. In addition, if declarer needs one discard only, say for his third club, he can always take it later. It must be better simply to exit with a diamond (which is not doing anything for declarer that he cannot do for himself) and hope to leave declarer to do all his hard work on his own.