Should You Lead an Ace
Against a Six Bid?
|
|  8 6 4 3 |
|
|
 J 10 7 6 5 2 |
|
|
 6 5 |
|
|
 6 |
|
| 9 7 5 |
|
------ |
| K |
|
Q 9 8 4 3 |
| A J 9 8 7 3 |
|
4 2 |
| 9 4 2 |
|
Q J 8 7 5 3 |
|
A K Q J 10 2 |
|
|
A |
| Vul: N-S |
|
K Q 10 |
| Contract: 6 spades |
|
A K 10 |
| Opening lead: ? |
It was a rather remarkable hand, in terms of results. What is the best line of play? Can the heart suit be set up? Ruffing? How many cards do you have to ruff in dummy? Well, no, the heart suit cannot be set up, even if the opponents displayed the distribution. A little ironically, since your only entries to dummy are minor suit ruffs, if you have enough entries to do something with the hearts, you've already ruffed all the cards you need to ruff, which is two, in which case you can't use the hearts.
So the best line of play is a fairly simple one. You ruff out minor suit losers, no? If the J of diamonds falls doubleton, you need ruff only once. And if trump split a benign 2-1, you'll have all you need and a novice could make the hand. But they don't split 2-1. So you've got to get those ruffs before drawing the last trump.
Anyway, here is why the results were rather interesting. Only two people went down, while 27 made 6 spades. Does that reflect how easily the hand could be made? Not on your life. Of the 27 who made the contract, no fewer than twenty got the ace of diamonds opening lead! Of the 7 defensive pairs who didn't open with the ace of diamonds, no fewer than four gave a later gift. Three returned a diamond into the Q 10 after picking up the K with the ace, and that was real nice for declarer. A fourth, after declarer had taken two rounds of trump, failed to lead the third round and thus inhibit a second ruff. So that means only three made it by their own steam, three misplayed the hand (two were down and one gave the defense a chance to beat him (the one who knocked out the A of diamonds after two rounds of trump), and 23 weren't tested. The defense was so kind.
So . . . declarer takes the opening lead, call it a heart (a club lead was also common and no gift), takes a round of trump, notes the split, ruffs out the 10 of clubs, leads a diamond, the K going to the ace, regains the lead, ruffs out the 10 of diamonds, re-enters the closed hand on a high ruff of a heart, draws trump and claims. Not difficult. It requires only counting winners, or if you prefer, taking care of every loser in the closed hand (which works just as well on this hand). Either way would tell you that given the loss of the A of diamonds, you simply can't afford to lose a trick with either of your minor suit tens.
Some years ago, I postulated the notion that within limits, you should be glad about the difficulties that a hand presents. The limit, of course, is a series of bad breaks when you are slightly overbid. I'm not suggesting that you should be glad when you're in a hopeless contract. Nevertheless, for starters, a few difficulties are what make bridge the interesting game it is. You don't want a game where you merely cash top winners and get onto the next hand, do you? That's not bridge. And secondly, those difficulties are what allow you to pull ahead of the so-so players. Anybody could make 6 spades on a 2-1 trump split, here, the careless and the careful, the novice and the expert. But when trump don't split 2-1, then you hafta use a little acumen and common sense. It's up to you. True, only two failed to find the solution to this rather elementary hand, but then, only five were put to the test to make the hand without a defensive gift!
Should you lead an ace against a six bid? Well, obviously no one can give a flat answer to that question. It's bound to be a winning decision on some occasions, a losing on others, and there's no magic formula for determing which. I personally think it unwise considerably more often than not, especially in an IMP event where giving up an overtrick isn't likely to do much harm to your score. And this was an IMP event. But keep your eyes peeled and draw your own conclusions.