Gerben's Bridge Blog

So when do you underlead an Ace in a trump contract? The first rule you learn is: Never!

Here are some things that could go wrong:

* An opponent could win a trick with the King he would otherwise not get.
* Even if partner has the King, this might not gain a trick.
* Partner has the King and it would gain a trick, if only he knew to put it in. He expects declarer to have the Ace and will play accordingly!
* Partner has the Queen, the King is in dummy and declarer plays small and STILL it won't work, for example:

      KT3
A875       Q94
      J62

On the lead of the 5, dummy plays the 3. Now East will correctly put in the 9!

This was just a short list of horrible things waiting to happen to someone who underleads an Ace. But... as always there are exceptions.

Against a slam with a void
(1♥) 2♠ (3♥) 3♠
(4NT*) Pass (5♣ - 1 KC) Pass
(6♥) All Pass

You're on lead with:
♠ AJT743
♥ 432
♦ 8432
♣ -

Now the correct lead is the ♠3! We are likely to make exactly 1 Spade trick (declarer is not void because of Blackwood) so a ruff seems like the only possible way to beat it. We must hope partner has the King and then returns a Club to beat the contract.

Their contract will likely make and declarer has no control in the suit

The opponents bid unopposed:
1♠ - 2♥ (GF)
3♥ (extras) - 4♦ (non-serious cuebid)
4♥ - Pass

Now if you know that they would cuebid a singleton in opener's suit you may consider leading a ♠ or ♣ away from Axx. This is safer than usual since partner will know you have the Ace, but declarer will not. The lead away from ♠A loses some of its attraction if declarer can have a singleton Spade though.

You are playing your local club's mixed pair championship and get the following hand:

♠ AQ98
♥ T6
♦ AKQT6
♣ K6

You open 1♦, partner respondes 1♥ and since it is always good when you are declarer you rebid 2NT which is raised to 3. The lead is the 5 of Clubs and dummy tables:

♠ J76
♥ AQJ32
♦ J7
♣ Q83

You play small from dummy and the lady on your right takes the Ace since she always does. When North shows up with ♥Kxx you can quickly claim 12 tricks for a 50% score. You don't think much about it and go on to the next hand.

A few weeks later you visit the national mixed championship. You pick up:

♠ AQ98
♥ T6
♦ AKQT6
♣ K6

so you open a Diamond, partner bids 1 Heart. You rebid 2NT which is raised to 3. On the lead of ♣5 dummy shows up with:

♠ J76
♥ AQJ32
♦ J7
♣ Q83

You play small and the lady on your right who has some experience thinks about it for a while and ducks. I hate it when they do that - I will not get two ♣ now. I must play on ♥ since ♠ are too dangerous. ♥10 holds the trick. I decide to go all in since it's MP and I am a ♣ trick behind the field. 5 rounds of ♦ follow and another ♥ finesse. Wow, they are 3 - 3! That's my chance. 12 tricks are sure and on the last ♥ I have this ending:

♠J
♥2
♣Q

♠AQ
♥-
♣6

When I play the ♥ South who still has the ♣A must discard a ♠, so she has at most one of those left. If I play the ♠ next if she has the ♠K it will show up: A showup squeeze! As this works I have 13 tricks so taking the risk of the ducked ♥ paid off. This turned out to be worth 80% of the MP.

Finally, the stage switches to the World Championships in Verona - the mixed pairs. Against a lady you don't know you pick up:

♠ AQ98
♥ T6
♦ AKQT6
♣ K6

You open 1♦ and partner responds 1♥. You rebid 2NT which is raised to 3. LHO on the other side of the screen leads the ♣5 and the hand has something familiar about it. Partner has:

♠ J76
♥ AQJ32
♦ J7
♣ Q83

and the lady thinks about it for a while and... takes the Ace?! Well, that's 2 Club tricks for the good guys. After making all the tricks when LHO shows up with Kxx of ♥ you end up with 12 tricks for a 25% score. Funny, you'd think at this level they would know about ducking a trick like this. Then she says: "I had to take the Ace otherwise I would've been squeezed..." Okay, she knew!

Welcome to the World Championship :)

(Note: the Verona bulletin had this hand but against me it happened as I described it - against someone else)

Hi, I know it has been a long time since I posted something here but I will try to make more frequent posts now.

Recently a pair of not so experienced players in my club started to play a Strong Club system and what happened was frightening: total chaos. So how important is system really?

Let's start with the club level. Here system is completely irrelevant. Players make so many other mistakes that are not system related, not just in the play but also bidding judgement. It doesn't matter what system you play, just get those other things right first.

Let's look at an example. Partner opens 1 Heart (natural of some sort), RHO doubles and you have:

♠ QJxxxx
♥ KQJx
♦ x
♣ Jx

Does it matter if you are playing "really cool Precision", "Magic Diamond" or "Stone Age Acol"? No! The player here redoubled since he had 10+ HCP (or perhaps added some distribution points?). UNTIL you get these kinds of bids right you have no business investing much time in a brand new system. The correct answer here is not to Redouble for strength but to make a forcing raise of Hearts like 2NT Truscott, or if system allows showing some other feature at the same time like 2♠ Fit Showing Jump.

Never mind the bidding problem, but if you Redouble here no system can save you. It is true that some systems will be more fun to play than others, and some will give you good results because they apply pressure on your opponents, but what use are those good results if you are throwing out points on the other side at an even greater speed?