ACES ON BRIDGE
“Despair is the conclusion of fools.”
— Benjamin Disraeli .....................
After North doubled one club, then showed his extra values and finally admitted to having three-card heart support, South planted the contract in four of his own suit.
Declarer won the club queen lead in dummy, dropping the four from hand to hide the deuce, and played a spade to the queen, naturally enough. He hoped that West would continue clubs rather than shifting to diamonds. Alas, West could see that his side would need tricks from diamonds, so he laid down the diamond ace. East encouraged with the nine and got his diamond continuation for one down.
West did well not to place too much faith in East’s club spot at trick one. However, South might have done better. West would have led a top diamond if he had both the ace and king. It would make little sense to open up clubs rather than diamonds at trick one, given that West was missing the club 10. In that case, West had to hold the spade king to make up his opening bid, so a spade to the queen was bound to see West win.
Declarer could have tried winning the club lead in hand and leading a low spade to the 10. This could easily catch West napping with the king and jack. If East could win the spade jack and return a club, declarer would probably need trumps to be 3-2; on a 4-1 break, he would be no better off playing along normal lines.
Here, West should not play low on the first round of spades, but we have all seen people go wrong in scenarios like this.
ANSWER: It is rare to issue a simple raise with five-card support, but I think this is one of those cases. Four hearts would be too much with defensive values and no shape, while a limit raise of three hearts would overstate the hand. Balanced hands with defense on the side are far more suitable for defense than offense. While you will happily compete to three hearts, you do not have to go overboard here.
If you would like to contact Bobby Wolff, e-mail him at bobbywolff@mindspring.com. Copyright 2023, Distributed by Universal Uclick for UFS