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Messages - OliverC

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31
Interesting Play Hands / An Imaginative Defence
« on: January 14, 2018, 05:12:10 PM »
Michael (rite bid) starred with an imaginative opening lead on this hand that worked spectacularly well:

Love All, Dealer North
East opens 1 !D, West responds 3NT and all pass.

North
!S 94
!H 105
!D K832
!C 109873

What's your opening lead? There are various options here: The !C 10 (or the 9 if playing Strong 10's) or the !D 2 are the "obvious" ones. On the other hand, North has no likely entries if the !D Ace is on their left, and West's hand is clearly weighted to the Minors (no 1M bid), so looking to find Partner's long suit in a Major is a clear winner here. The !H 10 could be (and would have been) misinterpreted, and Michael chose the !S 9, which worked spectacularly well:

East (Dummy)
!S AK102
!H K643
!D Q1095
!C K

                North
                !S 94
                !H 105
                !D K832
                !C 109873

Declarer took the opening lead in Dummy with the King, South encouraging with the 5. Declarer cashed the !C King and then crossed to hand with the !H Jack. Now they led a !D towards Dummy, Michael ducked and Dummy's Queen felled South (obviously singleton) Jack. The !D 9 followed, on which South discarded the !C 6. Michael won and continued the !S attack. Declarer ducked in Dummy and Partner's 8 won the trick, Declarer contributing the !S 7. South continued with the !S Queen, West and North discarding Clubs and then the Jack when Declarer ducked in Dummy (West and North both discarding Diamonds).

When Declarer now led a Heart off the table South took their Ace and a 5th Spade for -1.

Declarer could play this hand a lot better, it's true. Clearly it's best to force out the !H Ace first, since you have no control over who wins that trick. The opening lead makes it look as if any Spade length is probably with South, and Declarer can always keep South away from the lead in Diamonds, by running the Queen and then the 10 if necessary.

This hand is actually cold for 10 tricks from the word so, even with a Spade lead. Without North's imaginative lead at trick 1, however, there is almost a zero chance of stopping this contract. That lead gave the defence a tempo, however, so that Declarer couldn't afford to make any mistakes. Conceding a Diamond to North before forcing out the !H Ace was the mistake.

32
Interesting Play Hands / A Dodgy Slam
« on: January 14, 2018, 04:30:04 PM »
Michael and I ended up in a somewhat dodgy slam today, but it was a nice sequence :) .

North (Dummy)
 !S AKQJ95
 !H J6
 !D AJ2
 !C KQ

!D 4 led

South
 !S 106
 !H A732
 !D 9763
 !C A54

Bidding (Opps silent)
North     South
1 !C        1 !S
1NT(1)    2 !H (2)
2 !S (3)    2NT(4)
3 !S (5)    4 !C (6)
4 !H (7)    5 !H ( 8 )
6 !S (9)         All Pass

(1) Beta
(2) 4 Controls
(3) Iota in Spades
(4) !S xx
(5) Repeat Iota (Sets Spades as trumps)
(6) Still !S xx :)
(7) Epsilon in Hearts
( 8 ) 1st Rnd Control of !H , no 2nd or 3rd Rnd control
(9) This pretty much needs South to have !C AJxx, since I must have !H Axx(x) and cannot have the !D King. A rush of blood to North's head, perhaps LOL.

What to do on the lead of the !D 4? It's possible that West might have led from !D KQxx, in which case the !C Jack will suffice for 12 tricks here. Much more likely, in my opinion, that the lead is from !D K10xx(x) or !D Q10xx(x), in which case East will have to play their honour in order to beat the 9. At any rate, that is what I played for and East duly won trick one with the King and switched to a Club.

I eventually took the Diamond finesse against West for my 12th trick. Nice result, but it's worth noting that for this slam to succeed, you 100% need West to lead a small Diamond from their hand at trick 1. Almost no other lead will allow you to make this. Even the !D 10 lead defeats the contract because of the finesse against the 9 on the way back.

Bidding a slam on the basis of Partner having to have cards they've not shown can be a little dodgy. Bidding a slam knowing you have multiple "holes" ( !D and !H here) is doubly so. Nice when you can enlist Opps' help to allow you to make it, though LOL.

33
Interesting Play Hands / Make a Plan, Part 37 of 100 :)
« on: January 13, 2018, 08:33:24 PM »
Making a plan is one of the essential igredients of Declarer play (and defence). I seem to remember saying that somewhere before :).

Coupled with that is the ability to judge what's going on on the hand and respond accordingly.

You are North, playing in 4 !S. The bidding doesn't really matter, but for the record,  You passed, Partner opened 1 !D, and the bidding went No - 1 !D - 1 !S - 2 !S - 3 !C - 4 !S

South (Dummy)
!S K954
!H Q65
!D KQJ104
!C A

!S Jack led

North
!S AQ632
!H 72
!D 8
!C KJ982

You draw trumps in 2 rounds ending in Dummy. How do you plan the play?

(1) Ruff the Clubs good. Any 4-3 Club split will accommodate this line, but you might run into problems when the Clubs are 5-2 or worse with West.
(2) Better: Force out the !D Ace and discard 3 Clubs on the winning Diamonds. This gives 10 tricks guaranteed on any distribution whatever (Just conceding 2 Hearts and the !D Ace).

At trick 3, Partner cashed Dummy's !C Ace and then led the deceptive (LOL) !D 10 from Dummy. Amazingly, both Opps ducked!!!

Now we're guaranteed 11 tricks on absolutely any distribution, and are possibly making all 13 when, as seems likely, West has the !D Ace and either the Diamonds or the Clubs are behaving. We just take the ruffing finesse in Diamonds, discarding a Heart from hand. If East wins the Ace we lose only 1 Heart and 1 Diamond. If the 2nd Diamond wins, we repeat the ruffing finesse and now we're losing no Hearts at all!

Partner had other ideas, however: She cashed the !C Ace and then ruffed a small Diamond, cashed the !C King (West played the !C 10, Dummy discarded a Heart) and ruffed a Club (West discarded a Diamond). Now another Diamond ruffed in hand (East discarded a Heart).

At this point the distribution of the hands is known beyond a shadow of a doubt, West with 2452 distribution and still holding the now singleton !D Ace, and East with 2425 distribution, and still holding !C Qx. The ruffing finesse in Clubs is now marked for 11 tricks. Partner, though, just completed her complete cross-ruff and conceded 2 red-suit tricks at the end for just 10 tricks.

The overtricks are no big deal, but on another hand you might need those tricks just to make your contract so it really pays to try to find the optimum line to make the most tricks possible safely.

34
Interesting Play Hands / Desperate Measures...
« on: January 13, 2018, 07:08:31 PM »
Some hands really do look impossible (and some really are impossible, of course). Sometimes, all you can do is to make assumptions that the distribution is such that if offers you a chance of making, even if you're unlikely to find that exact lie of the outstanding cards.

EW Game, Dealer East

You are South:

South
 !S AK7
 !H J5
 !D KQ54
 !C K1082

Bidding
East     South     West     North
2 !S      2NT         No         3 !D
No        3 !H         All Pass

North (Dummy)
 !S 85
 !H K8732
 !D A986
 !C 74

!S 6 led

South
 !S AK7
 !H J5
 !D KQ54
 !C K1082

West leads the !S 6, Dummy goes down and East plays the !S 9. Prospects do not look promising because of the lack of intermediates in Hearts and the prospect of a poor trump split. How do you plan the play?

I decided to play for West having both of the outstanding Aces and for East to have exactly !H Q10 or Q9. Often I would have false-carded on this trick, playing the Ace in order to encourage a Spade continuation by West. That didn't suit me on this occasion. If I'd been more confident about East's !S length I might have even cashed the !S Ace, but I'd have had to be much more confident about an even trump split before I did that on this hand.

I won trick 1 with the King, therefore (so it was obvious I had the Ace as well) and crossed to Dummy's !D Ace (everyone followed small). At trick 3 I put my plan into operation and led a small Heart from Dummy. What I wanted was to get trumps drawn without allowing East to gain the lead to fire a Club through my hand. East played the !H 10 and when my Jack forced West's Ace, I knew I had much better prospects of making this hand. West switched to a second Diamond, which ran to East's  10 and my King.

Now another Heart and when West played small I went up with the King and dropped East's Queen, so the Heart position was now clear (West left with !H 96). Dummy's !H 8 now forced out West's 9 and I was home (I had 4 tricks already. Whatever West returned ( !H , !S or !D ) I could win, draw their last trump if necessary, and still had 2 Diamond tricks and a Spade ruff to enjoy for 9 tricks. In practice, West ran out of patience and led the !C Ace, so I ended up with 10 tricks - Bid Up! LOL.

I was, perhaps, a little lucky to find East with exactly what I was playing for, but even if East goes up with the Queen, my Jack will now force out the Ace on the next round so I'm in with a chance. Psychologically it's almost impossible for East to get this right and play the Queen on the first round. If West turns out to have !H AQxx I'm no worse off and there's always the chance of !H 109 doubleton with East. Worth noting that if I start with a small Heart to the King, I'm inevitably doomed to lose 3 Heart tricks including one critical one to East.


Unfortunately some EW idiot went -2 in 4 !S XX, so although we had the best result in Hearts (by 2 tricks), this triumph of hope over expectation only got us a couple of IMPs.

35
Interesting Play Hands / OCP delivering the Goods!
« on: January 13, 2018, 05:24:30 PM »
OCP really delivered the goods on this hand I played with Eszter yesterday:

EW Game, Dealer North

You are South, with:

South
 !S K863
 !H 93
 !D J1084
 !C A62

Bidding (Opps silent)
North     South
1 !S        1NT
3 !C        ??

Knowing Partner probably has !S AQxxx, and !C KQxxx makes it very easy to visualise 10 tricks wherever their red suit distribution was, so I had no problem bidding 4 !S even though we had to be well sub-minimum.

Eszter didn't quite have that hand, and that gave rise to an interesting issue in the play:

South (Dummy)
 !S K863
 !H 93
 !D J1084
 !C A62

!H 5 led

North
 !S A9542
 !H J2
 !D A
 !C KQ943

East led the !H 5. West took the !H AK and switched to the !S Jack. How should you play? At first sight it makes little difference. If the Spades are 2-2 you're never losing a Spade trick as long as you play for the drop. Similarly, if the !S Jack is a singleton, you are always losing 1 Spade trick, because East will have !S Q10x. What if West started with QJx or J10x, however, particularly the latter? If you win trick 3 in Dummy after East plays their singleton Queen, you now have a tenace of !S A9 sat over West's !S 107, but if you win this trick in hand, you must lose a trick to the !S 10.

For that reason, it's better to let this one run to Dummy and take the finesse on the way back if East "overtakes" Partner's Jack with the Queen

36
Interesting Play Hands / Re: Playing downstream
« on: January 13, 2018, 05:01:30 PM »
Hand 1 (Complete Layout). I demand a redeal - the !S Queen is missing and North only has 12 cards :)

Hand 2 is lovely. You have to assess this hand accurately: You need to engineer an entry to the North hand in Diamonds. No other suit will do. You can afford to lose 2 Diamonds tricks in order to achieve that, as long as you give yourself the best chance of reaching Dummy's Hearts.

(a) If the Diamonds are 2-1, reaching Dummy is never a problem (neither is getting 12 tricks). (b) If East has all three, you're irrevocably stuffed, but (c) when West has all three outstanding Diamonds, you can assure yourself of the entry by cashing the !S Ace at trick 2 and leading the !D 7 at trick 3. If West follows small, you overtake in Dummy. If East wins, the !D's are 2-1 and (a) above applies. If West wins trick 3 and East shows out, you simply win the return in hand, and lead the !D 5, once again overtaking if West plays low. If West goes up with the King, the 5 is now an entry with your carefully preserved 2. Cashing the other top !S at trick 2 is just in case Opps decide to give me a ruff 'n' sluff in Spades - doesn't really change anything)

Like I said, a peach of a hand. I just wish I could be confident that I would find the answer if presented just as a hand, without any suggestion that it was a problem! :) This is more of a problem at Match-pointed Pairs, of course. Do you give up the chance for 1 or 2 overtricks (by playing as above) or do you just lay down the Ace, hoping for a stiff King or any 2-1 split? At IMP scoring you would definitely play as above, assuming you analysed the problem correctly, but at MP Pairs I think you're effectively forced to get this one wrong by the scoring method.

37
Interesting Play Hands / A New Concept in Play
« on: January 13, 2018, 03:33:30 PM »
I had a bit of an uncontrollable giggle on this hand (which nobody else heard but me, of course). Imagine this hand:

Game All, Dealer West

You are North, holding

North
 !S K3
 !H K9652
 !D K7
 !C Q654

Bidding (Opps silent)
North     South
1 !H        1NT
2 !C        3 !C
All Pass

South (Dummy)
 !S 64
 !H Q10
 !D J865
 !C AKJ109

!S Ace led

North
 !S K3
 !H K9652
 !D K7
 !C Q654

East follows the !S Ace with the Queen, West echoing with the 7 and then the 5. You play 2 rounds of trumps ending in hand. West discards a small Diamond on the second round of trumps. Now a Heart to the Queen loses to West's Ace and their return of the !H 3 crashes your King, Dummy's 10 and East's Jack.

Partner (Paula in the North seat) ruffed a Heart in Dummy, cashed one more round of Clubs (on which West discarded the !S 8) and then led a Diamond off Dummy, on which West played small and East contributed the 9. A second Diamond from Paula was won by East's Queen and they now played a 3rd round of Diamonds, their 10 covered by Dummy's Jack and West's Ace and ruffed in hand.

What now?

Declarer, if they've counted the hand, should know exactly where every card that matters lies:
We've won 8 tricks. The position is now known to be

                 South (Dummy)
                 !S -
                 !H -
                 !D 8
                 !C K

East                           West
 !S ?                            !S ??
 !H 7                            !H -
 !D -                            !D -
 !C -                            !C -

                 North
                 !S -
                 !H 96
                 !D -
                 !C -

You've heard of "Loser on Loser" plays. Well this contract was never in doubt and 3 !C was a very good score, because lots of NS Pairs either stretched too far and/or didn't get the considerate lead of the !D Ace at trick 1, but Paula now came up with a new concept, the "Winner on Loser" Play :) :

The !H 9 was good and the !D 8 was good (East had played the Q, 10 and 9, West the Ace and West discarded a small Diamond on the 2nd trump), so Paula had multiple options here to take the last 2 tricks: cash the !H 9, discarding the !D 8  and then ruff the !H 6, of ruffing either Heart and then cashing the !D 8. Paula chose a 3rd option, which was to lead the !H 6 (the losing Heart) and then discard the good !D 8 when West covered with the 7.

A "Senior Moment" or a misclick, I suspect, but it was quite funny at the time. :)

38
Interesting Play Hands / Letting the Defence do the work...
« on: January 13, 2018, 01:42:52 PM »
Sometimes you just have to sit back and let the defence do the work. Give them enough rope to hang themselves! I couldn't really have played this hand any differently, to be honest, but some Declarer's clearly felt they had to try to actively make the hand rather than allowing the Defence to make it for them.

Love All, Dealer West

You are South, holding:

South
!S -
!H KJ94
!D K7653
!C A765

Bidding (Opps silent)
North     South
1 !S        1NT
2 !S        2NT
3NT        All Pass

North (Dummy)
!S AK8542
!H Q106
!D 8
!C KJ10

!D 4 led

South
!S -
!H KJ94
!D K7653
!C A765

East wins the opening lead with the !D Ace and returns the Jack. Do you win? NO! You want Opps to establish Diamond tricks for you if possible. Moreover Opps might switch to Clubs (which takes the Club finesse for you) or Hearts (which gains you a tempo and saves you the trouble of forcing the Ace out yourself.

I therefore ducked this trick, West overtook the Jack with the Queen and continued with the 10, on which East followed with the !D 2.

I won this trick (shedding Spades from Dummy). What now? Since I have to force out the !H Ace at some point, I chose to do it now. I played a Heart to the Queen (EW ducked) and continued with the 10, which West won with the Ace. West cashed the !D 10 and now switched to a small Club - 9 tricks for us.

It might seem tempting to attack the Clubs as soon as possible, but you have a 50% chance of simply giving the defence another trick. Clubs was absolutely the last item on my Agenda here: 3 Hearts, 2 Spades, 1 Diamond and 2 Clubs is 8 tricks. I need to know exactly what the !D position is before I do anything. That is why the duck at trick 2 is so important: If the Diamonds are 5-2 I have to hope East has the !H Ace and I will need 3 Club tricks, but I can always deny an entry in Clubs to West.

39
Interesting Play Hands / Nice Defence by Paula
« on: January 13, 2018, 01:05:11 PM »
Paula and I found a nice defence on this hand when Opps overstretched themselves:

You are North, Game All, Dealer West:

North
 !S Q96
 !H QJ975
 !D K108
 !C K10

Bidding
West     North     East     South
1 !D       1 !H        1 !S      No
1NT       No           2 !S      No
3NT       All Pass

Paula led the !H Queen and Dummy went down:

East (Dummy)
 !S KJ1074
 !H 106
 !D AJ2
 !C  985
                North
                !S Q96
                !H QJ975
                !D K108
                !C K10

Partner (me) played the !H 2 and Declarer won with the King, cashed the !S Ace and then led a small Diamond to Dummy's Jack, which held.The King and Jack of Spades followed, Declarer discarding small Hearts and Partner following with the !S 2 and then the 5.

What now?

Paula did well to switch to the !C King (Clubs were what I'd been asking for with the !H 2 at trick 1) and we took the next 5 tricks (I had !C AQxxx) to defeat 3NT by 2 tricks. Clearly lots of Norths didn't, because NT contracts were often making 8 or 9 tricks. The Heart position was totally clear  and clearly the Diamonds and Spades give no prospect of tricks so the only immediate chance of taking the contract off was in Clubs.

40
Interesting Play Hands / Amazing Defence! - NOT!
« on: January 10, 2018, 08:12:57 PM »
Sometimes we get the most amazing and expected results from a hand. I was Dummy on this one playing with a pick-up Partner, who opened a 15-17 1NT at Game All. With some trepidation (waiting for the penalty double) I passed on:

North
!S 982
!H J1092
!D 108
!C 10972

...anticipating a bloodbath, despite my lovely intermediates.

North (Dummy)
!S 982
!H J1092
!D 108
!C 10972

!D 3 led

South
!S K73
!H Q765
!D AKJ97
!C Q

Well the opening Lead must have been a pleasant surprise for Declarer (Dummy's 8 was covered by East's Queen), who is now going to be a maximum of -2 if he cashes all of the Diamonds. My Partner played this very cannily (almost as well as EW defended appallingly LOL): He won the first trick with the Ace and switched to a small Heart, which was taken by East's Ace.

East cashed the Ace of Spades (so Declarer now only -1) and switched to the !C Jack, which trick was won by West's King, and they returned to Diamonds. Declarer won in Dummy and exited with the !H Jack. West took their King and persisted with the Diamonds (even though the 10 had won the previous trick LOL). Declarer cashed all the Diamonds, chucking Spades and Clubs from my hand, and then a Heart to Dummy's 10 and a Heart back to the Queen. Unsurprising. West was reluctant to part with their !C Ace (they'd started with AK stiff) and came down to  the stiff !S Jack, and East had already blanked their !S Queen, and Declarer made the last 2 tricks in Spades for two overtricks!

Just shows you should never give up. This was a hand from the vugraph archives. Originally 9 tricks were made by EW in Clubs at each table, but one pair were in 3 !DC and the other in 4 !C. I don't think 3NT +2 by South would have entered into anyone's imagination on this one LOL.

41
Interesting Play Hands / Passive Declarer Play
« on: January 10, 2018, 01:43:27 AM »
Most of you will be familiar with the term "passive defence", when the defence don't try to engineer anything and just make Declarer do all the work. Well two can play at that game, and sometimes Declarer needs to do much the same thing (well, try to, anyway):

Game All, Dealer South

You are South and opened 1 !S, West bid 1NT and Partner bid 2 !S, which ended the auction:

North (Dummy)
!S 1093
!H J532
!D 96
!C A832

!D 4 led

South
!S A8764
!H K1076
!D A8
!C Q10

How do you rate your prospect? Not good was my first reaction, because I want to lead Clubs and Hearts towards my hand, but can't get across to Dummy to achieve that. I'd have been quite happy (at that stage) to come out losing only -100 on this hand LOL. I decided to try to make West do all the work (if he would co-operate).

East played the !D King and I won trick 1 with the Ace and simply led back a Diamond, hoping that West would win the trick (which he did, with the Queen). I was quite glad to see the !D King, to be honest, because it limited what else East could turn up with. West switched to the Club Jack and I ducked in Dummy, making the assumption that West had the King (because I needed West to have it - if East had the !C King, West would pretty much have to have everything else, !H AQ and possibly even !S KQJx and I was irrevocably doomed. If West had !C KJ(xx), there was scope for East to have cards like the !H Queen and possibly even a Spade honour).

So I ducked in Dummy and my !C Queen won the trick Now I tried a small Spade towards Dummy, which was won by East's Jack, and East continued Spades (for which I was profoundly grateful because it meant the Spades were 3-2 :) ). I went up with the Ace and played a 3rd round of the suit. Again I was trying to be totally passive and make EW do all the work here.

East might have played on Diamonds, but I think my return at trick 2 might have convinced him that I had started with 4 Diamonds (which actually was extremely unlikely in view of my failure to try to ruff any of them). I was hoping he might play Partner for the !C 10 and switch to a small Club, but he went one better and switched to a small Heart, which ran to East's Queen and my King.

The rest was plain sailing and I simply conceded a trick to the Ace of Hearts and claimed the rest for an overtrick, more than I had any right to expect from this hand.

Sometimes, especially when one opponent is known to have most of the outstanding points, it really can pay to simply make or to try to persuade them to open suits up. On this occasion West did me proud! LOL

42
Interesting Play Hands / Tricky Splits
« on: January 10, 2018, 01:18:03 AM »
This was an interesting problem hand;

NS Game, Dealer East

Bidding
East     South     West     North
3 !S      No           No         X
No        4 !H         All Pass

North (Dummy)
!S K8
!H QJ92
!D AJ96
!C AQ7

!C 6 led

South
!S Q743
!H K1076
!D K3
!C J92

This looks like a reasonable contract. Possibly 3NT would be safer since it appears that West is void in Spades and it looks like 3 !S X would be well down, so you have to make sure you make this contract. How do you plan the play?

The initial problem is whether or not to take the Club finesse. If it loses, you will get the Ace of Spades and a !S ruff for sure, and still have the !H Ace to lose. On the other hand you're highly likely to run into a bad trump split on this hand, so maybe you have to gamble on West having the !C King at this stage.

That was the decision I made and I was very glad to see my nine win the trick (East played the 5). My pleasure didn't last very long, though, because a Heart to Dummy's Jack saw East discard the !S 6. Oooops! Now what?

Clearly East isn't going to be ruffing anything and West must have 8 cards distributed between the Minors, so my initial aim is to establish exactly what the distribution of the Minor suits is. I crossed back to the !D King, played one more round of trumps, which West again ducked, and took the marked Club finesse (East played the 3 - maybe an echo suggesting a doubleton, which would mean East had 4 Diamonds and West 3).

Now the !D Ace and a small Diamond ruffed in hand (East playing the 10). The Minor suit distribution was confirmed when I played a 3rd Club to Dummy's Ace and East discarded a Spade. I had 8 tricks and was guaranteed 2 more by ruffing Dummy's 4th Diamonds with my last remaining trump, the 10. Whether West ruffed this trick or not, he couldn't prevent me from making 10 tricks.

3 !S X is probably going for -3 and +500, but the vulnerable game was worth more. The apparent horrendous breaks were actually a blessing on this hand. I knew West couldn't lead Spades from the word go, and when the 5-0 trump break was revealed, it was a simple matter to engineer my 10 tricks.

Actually I did make one error in the play of this hand, which was the 2nd round of trumps. West could have make life difficult by going up with his Ace and playing a 3rd round and then I would have fallen back on the !D finesse (which was wrong). I had actually originally decided to  play West for the !D Queen (and take the finesse) just because I knew West had to have more cards in the Minors than East, but the !C 5 then 3 from East changed my mind, because if East had only 2 Clubs, they had to have 4 Diamonds. Having taken the 2nd Club finesse, though, better simply to play !D Ace and ruff a !D, back to the !C Ace and ruff the 4th Diamond high, and now West can't touch me.

43
Interesting Play Hands / Rollercoaster!
« on: January 08, 2018, 11:34:56 AM »
Sometimes you need a little luck or a mis-defence, even if you're getting the hand exactly right. I was a little lucky on this hand from a match with a decent (but non-OCP) partner, even though I assessed it right:

EW Game, Dealer North

You are North in a sequence of

1 !D - 2 !C - 2NT - 3NT

South (Dummy)
 !S K86
 !H K43
 !D K96
 !C A873

!H Queen led

North
 !S AQ5
 !H 8752
 !D AQ43
 !C 62

East leads the !H Queen. How do you assess your chances?
Not good, in 2 words, LOL!

If the opening lead is to be believed, West will have the Ace, singleton or doubleton, so clearly I'm ducking at trick 1. West rises with the Ace and switches to the Spade 10. Now what?

The !H position was clear and now it seems likely that West probably has 5+ Spades. Prospects still don't look good unless Diamonds are 3-3 (or 5-1 with West holding a singleton 10 or Jack, but that doesn't seem very likely). Maybe something can be engineered in Clubs and I'll delay attacking the Diamonds as long as possible. I won the Spade switch with the Ace in hand and tried the !C 6, hoping to duck a Club into the West hand. East was having none of that, though and played the !C 9, so I won with the Ace and started on the Diamonds. Those, however, turned out to be 4-2 with West. On the 3rd round of Diamonds, though, East discarded a small Club.

The position was now:
South (Dummy)
 !S K8
 !H K4
 !D
 !C 873

North
 !S Q5
 !H 875
 !D 4
 !C 2

With the lead in my hand, I've taken 5 tricks and have 3 more on top, but not much chance for a 4th. I decided to play for East having started with !C KJ94, K1094 or J1094 as my only chance. I exited with a small Club towards Dummy. If the layout was as I'd hoped, East would obviously play their smallest Club that would beat Dummy's 8 and West would either have to overtake or might be trapped into overtaking so that they could cash their now good !D 10.

...and so it proved: West had started with !C Q10x and overtook West's Jack in order to cash the !D 10. It may even be that they feared I had started with !C Kxx and !S Ax and this was their only chance to make their Diamond. Either way, I was now home. West cashed their Diamond, on which I discarded a Heart from Dummy, and then exited with a Club on which I discarded a Heart and East took their King. Now the !C 8 provided my 9th trick.


If West didn't get greedy and allowed the !C Jack to win, East can clear the Hearts and still has their !C King as an entry to enjoy them.

Phew! I needed a miscalculation by East or a favourable !C position (!C QJx or KQx with West) here and got it, but the seeds of that we (1) not being tempted to cover at trick 1 and playing at least one round of Clubs before attacking the Diamonds (if East had played a small Club, I duck in Dummy, win the !S return in hand and play another Club to the Ace before touching the Diamonds). I couldn't allow East to gain the lead that early, though.

44
Interesting Play Hands / Illogical Play!
« on: January 07, 2018, 12:43:40 PM »
Some lines of play are completely illogical and just cannot possible gain under any circumstances. In many ways it comes down to this: Make a provisional plan based on where you think cards might be. Sometimes there is absolutely no evidence on which to base this and you have no real clue, but still, make an assumption and stick to it! Take this hand:

Love All, Dealer West

You are North, holding:

North
!S A64
!H AKJ
!D A8762
!C 72

Bidding (Opps silent)
1 !C - 1 !D
1NT - 2 !D
2 !H - All Pass

East leads the !H 9 against your contract:

South (Dummy)
!S 952
!H 106532
!D KJ5
!C Q5

!H 9 led

North
!S A64
!H AKJ
!D A8762
!C 72

That's a very friendly lead for you and you're already ahead of the game: West plays the !H Queen and you draw trumps in a further 2 rounds, East discarding a small Club on the 3rd round.

(1) Can you make any assumptions about the probable distribution of the outstanding cards?
(2) What's your plan?

You can't really make any firm assumptions, but it seems likely that East doesn't have any shortages, as such, because they led trumps rather than trying to get a ruff (so 4 Diamonds with West is unlikely) and probably East doesn't have another obvious or attractive lead (eg: !S KQJx or !C AKxx). There are 9 Clubs outstanding and East's discard of a small Club might indicate that they have 5 Clubs, but without the AK. That's about as far as you can go, though, because any conclusions you make at this stage are more speculation than anything else.

So far as a plan goes, the clear-cut winning line is to establish the Diamonds. You cannot possibly escape 2 losers in the black suits and might lose a Diamond as well, but hopefully you can come out with at least 10 tricks.

How to tackle the Diamonds, then? There are three likely candidates:
  • !D Ace, and then finesse the Jack (Playing East for !D Qxx(x) or !D 109xx
  • !D Ace and then a Diamond to the King (Playing West for !D Qx)
  • Diamond to the King (catering for !D Q stiff with West) and then run the !D Jack
  • Small Diamond to the Jack (Playing for any 3-2 split, and hoping for !D Q with East)

Any of those are respectable lines of play, but one of them is head and shoulders above the rest. The problem with (1) and (2) is that you've removed an entry from your hand solely in or der to guard against the possibility of losing to the singleton Queen in the West hand, which is a possibility, obviously, but a very low probability one. Moreover, if you adopt (1) and the finesse loses, you've blocked the Diamonds, and a Spade switch by West will guarantee that you probably only make 8 tricks on the hand.

(3) gets you 4 tricks on any 3-2 split, but it's catering for a tiny probability and is a line that can never obtain 5 Diamond tricks unless East has exactly !D 109.

Playing for any 3-2 split is nearly a 68% chance. (4) keeps communications between the hands open, guarantees 4 Diamond tricks on any 3-2 split and gets 5 Diamond tricks any time East has !D Qx or !D Qxx.

What Declarer did here was to find a 5th way of attacking the Diamonds that was somewhat illogical and which couldn't gain under any circumstances. They played a small Diamond to the King, led the !D Jack (ie: Option 3), and when West played the 10 under the Jack, went up with the Ace. A small Diamond back at least caters for !D Qx with either opponent.

As I said, 8 tricks here was never in doubt once the Hearts come in for no losers, but once East plays a small Diamond on the first round, there's no point in playing for (3) above.

45
Interesting Play Hands / Balancing Lines of Play
« on: January 07, 2018, 11:25:13 AM »
As Declarer we often have to weigh up different possible lines of play, balancing risks against possible rewards, and taking into account the bidding and early play when assessing the relative likelyhood of a given line achieving the desired result.

This was quite an instructive hand in this respect, I felt:

EW Game, Dealer South
You are North:

North
!S AQJ3
!H AJ9652
!D Q83
!C -

Bidding
South     West     North     East
No           1 !D       1 !H        1 !S
No           1NT       2 !H        All Pass

East leads the !D 4 against your 2 !H contract and Dummy puts down:

South (Dummy)
!S 105
!H 83
!D A10972
!C J1093

!D 4 led

North
!S AQJ3
!H AJ9652
!D Q83
!C -

How do you assess your chances and what is the best line of play?

Clearly West will have the majority of the outstanding hcp, the !D 4 is an obvious singleton, and the !D King is probably on your left with at least 4 others (otherwise East might have made a negative double). Going up with the !D Ace at trick one is indicated, therefore, because the likelyhood of a Diamond ruff looms if you duck).

Having won the !D Ace, how about taking the Spade finesse? Now we are into the territory of risk vs reward. This might be your only chance to catch West with the !S King, but against that you have to balance the possibility of the Spades being 6-1 and the likelyhood that the !S King will actually be on your left. The last thing you want here when East has the !S King is to give Opps the chance to cross-ruff Diamonds and Spades. Indeed the likelyhood is that once you've drawn most or all of Opps' trumps, the !S 10 might even prove to be an additional entry to Dummy.

Partner took the Spade finesse by running the !S 10. That lost to East's King but East switched to a small Club on which Dummy played low, West the Ace and Declarer ruffed. Now what?

The standout play at this point is Ace and another Heart. You've established 3 Spade winners in your hand and the main thrust of your line now has to be to draw Opps' trumps as quickly as possible to deny them ruffs in Diamonds and possibly Spades.

Instead, Declarer started cashing Spades! This cannot be right: If West is not ruffing Spades on the 2nd round, they will surely ruff the 3rd round, and then EW will be off to the races: With the KQ10 of Hearts outstanding, they could easily get 4 cross-ruffs in, plus the !D King to add to the Spade King.

West did, indeed, ruff the 3rd Spade (with the !H 4), cash the !D King and led a 3rd Diamond, which East ruffed with the !H 7. Fortunately, East returned another Club rather than the killing Spade, which now gave Declarer another opportunity to draw trumps and we still came out with 8 tricks.

Cashing Spades (and even taking the !S finesse, which was almost bound to fail) is a very high-risk strategy compared to playing 2 quick rounds of trumps. Even if the trumps turn out to be 4-1 (not impossible) you will have prevented the possibility of Diamond ruffs by East or Spade ruffs by West, depending on who has the long trumps. That is more likely to be West and you can use Spades as "trumps" against them.

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