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11
Interesting Play Hands / Re: An Instructive Hand for Assumptions & Counting
« Last post by brian_m on January 05, 2022, 06:11:55 AM »
To anybody reading this who might feel a little overawed by Oliver's hand reading and card play - in my opinion, the most important point is in Oliver's last sentence.

No matter what level you play at, if you find yourself in a contract where you can see no legitimate way to make it, the final chance is always to see whether you can find a mistake that an opponent could make to give you the contract, and then you play to try to give that opponent the best chance to make that mistake.
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Interesting Play Hands / An Instructive Hand for Assumptions & Counting
« Last post by OliverC on January 04, 2022, 08:36:15 PM »
Hi All,

This was a very instructive hand I came up against earlier today while playing with Servet.
You are South at Green vs Red and end up in 3NT after the following auction:

North
!S 982
!H A95
!D 94
!C AJ1074

South
!S K4
!H QJ7
!D A102
!C KQ985

Bidding:
North     East    South    West
No          1 !D     1NT       No
3NT       All Pass

Yes, my 1NT was a little pushy, but Servet's 3NT was bang on.
West led the !D Jack which did not look too promising for the Diamonds splitting 4-4. That won the first trick, East's King took the second round and East then continued the !D 7 on the 3rd round, West following with the 3 and then the 6, while I discarded a Spade from Dummy on the 3rd round. How do you take stock of the hand? At first sight it looks fairly hopeless as Opps will almost certainly make 3 Diamonds, a Spade and a Heart.

Well firstly, you have to make the assumption that the Diamonds really are 4-4, because on the bidding East surely has the !S Ace and !H King to go along with the !D KQ. If East has 5-card Diamonds you are definitely off. In retrospect the best tactic here is to play a Club to the 10 and lead a Spade, because East is more likely to hold up their Ace (which is essential for you) if you play a Spade early on.

I decided to put them under a little pressure first, however, and get a better count on the hand so I played 4 rounds of Clubs ending in Dummy, to which West played 2 Clubs and 2 Hearts and East played 1 Club, 2 Hearts and a Spade.

East had to be 4441 and West 4342 to start with if our assumption about the Diamonds is correct. Now I played a Spade and went up with the King with East played low. Now I had him: I cashed my 5th round of Clubs (East throwing a Spade) and then exited with a Spade to endplay him. He could take his !D Queen, but then had to lead away from !H Kx.

A simple enough endplay but easy to miss if you're not counting the hand. Once you make the assumption that the !D's have to be 4-4 that really limits the number of HCP that West can have when they do not bid 2 !D with 4-card !D support for partner, which 100% rules out them having the !H King. When they show up with the !D Jack at trick 1, the most they can have is the Jack or possibly the Queen of Spades. Also, once East shows up with only 1 Club, they have to be exactly 4441 if you assumption about the Diamonds is correct or they would have opened a 5-card Major. Once you have that straight it's easy to count their discards and even drop their !H King if they get tricky and blank it in order to keep 3 Spades.

A better player than the East I faced might well have discarded 3 small Hearts and only a single Spade on the last Club to try to fool you into taking the !H finesse. They would certainly have spotted the endplay coming a mile away and gone up with the !S Ace on the first Spade trick, cashing the !D Queen and then exiting with a Spade to wait for their !H trick. You have to give Opps a chance to go wrong when the situation seems hopeless, though.

The full hand: https://tinyurl.com/yyztts6n
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Interesting Play Hands / Double Bath Coup and a Triple Squeeze!
« Last post by OliverC on January 02, 2022, 01:05:58 PM »
I really enjoyed this hand in a TM with Servet today:


North
 !S AJ
 !H Q7
 !D K10973
 !C K876


 !C 3 led


South
 !S Q103
 !H A63
 !D J54
 !C AJ95


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


Dummy's !C 6 could have won the first trick, but I took it in hand with the 9 and led the !D 4 to West's Queen, Dummy's King and East's Ace. East thought for a while and then switched to a Spade, taken by Dummy's Jack. I decided then that West had started with !S Kxxxx, !H Kxx, !D Q and !C Q10xx to justify his 2 !S bid and that he was vulnerable in 3 suits . To make sure I took the !D Jack and another !D (West showing out as expected).

So we now have

North
 !S A
 !H Q7
 !D 107
 !C K87

South
 !S Q10
 !H A63
 !D -
 !C AJ5

The key to making 12 tricks was now a bath coup in both Majors: I led the !H 7 to my Ace and the !S 10 back to Dummy's Ace and then ran the last two Diamonds, discarding Hearts from hand. On the last Diamond West, now down to !S K, !H K and !C Q10x had to let something go and discarded the !S King. Now I could cross back to the !C Ace in hand and cash the !S Q, squeezing him again in !C and !H .

...before the last Diamond:

North
 !S -
 !H Q
 !D 7
 !C K87

South
 !S Q
 !H 3
 !D -
 !C AJ5

The opportunities for triple squeezes don't come up very often. It was satisfying to spot the opportunity as early as trick 2, based on the bidding and the fact that East couldn't beat the !C 6 on the first trick and West obviously having the stiff !D Queen at trick 2.

Making 3 overtricks was a great result. At the other table the same contract got a !S lead. Declarer won with the !S Jack, took the losing !C finesse and when West knocked out the !S Ace at trick 3 Declarer was unable to recover and went one off.


https://tinyurl.com/y4px66sy
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Correct (?) Answers to Bidding Problems / MOVED: is motor on ? can north bid transfer to spades after the dbl? thanks Mark
« Last post by brian_m on December 03, 2021, 08:10:06 PM »
This topic has been moved to the Simple system forum.

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Interesting Play Hands / Re: Double dummy play problem.
« Last post by iamadeus on October 13, 2021, 03:51:47 PM »
The problem becomes more interesting after a diamond lead, which cuts off communication to the diamonds if we try to draw trumps. We need to play a high diamond, letting West ruff, then plan to ruff a diamond high to set up the suit. The timing is definitely off, so grand slam doesn’t make on this lead.

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Interesting Play Hands / Re: Double dummy play problem.
« Last post by brian_m on October 12, 2021, 06:44:04 PM »
You're right, six is easy. It was the need to immediately ruff a heart that I missed.
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Interesting Play Hands / Re: Double dummy play problem.
« Last post by IBracem on October 12, 2021, 06:13:21 PM »
ace h
rough h  with the 3 c
play two rounds of clubs ace and qc

hook the ks. 

now squeeze east in d and s

clear trumps now after s finesse.

go to daimonds on board throw last h
 
s can hook   or diamond is good six on board if east has been pitching them.   if they have thrown s then is easier.   

makes 7 I think
Mark





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Dealer Scripts / Re: Vul NT vs nv NT opener script
« Last post by brian_m on June 24, 2021, 08:08:41 AM »
A bug rather than deliberate non-implementation, then. Well done for the detective work.
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Dealer Scripts / Re: Vul NT vs nv NT opener script
« Last post by abby cj on June 24, 2021, 02:33:04 AM »
1NT vul/nv Opener
I was wanting to set a teaching table so that the script for NT opener was either 10-12 OR 13-15 based on vulnerability, but was unable to do so.  At best I could get every other hand to be vul and wasn’t able to adjust script accordingly.  This meant that I had to discard every other hand.
Here is what I did find out regarding this:  There is a known bug in the system when trying to set up a practice bidding/teaching table and setting the vulnerability.  This has been identified and commented on by others trying to do similar vul /nv settings.
But I did find an acceptable work around for me. 
I wanted to be NS players.  When first sitting at new teaching table the NS hands are NV.  If this is desired, then, under Deal Source/Advanced, enter the desired script under the ‘Use This Input for the Dealer Program” and click on the box. (I used script specific to only N hand being 1NT opener with nvul range).  Under Dealer do not have any position designated as Dealer (u will have to go in here and unclick all 4 positions). Click on the X in upper right corner to close the box. I now find that all subsequent redeals had N as Dealer, NS nvul and my desired hand type and hcp range for 1NT opener worked every time.
When wanting NS to be VUL, if just setting up table, redeal until have NS vul.  Then under Deal Source/Advanced, enter the desired script (again I used script specific to N hand only but this time with vul opening range) under the ‘Use This Input for the Dealer Program” and make sure the Use this Input box is checked.  Again under Dealer do not have any position designated as Dealer.  Close the box.  Again I found that all subsequent redeals had N as Dealer, NS Vul and my desired hand type and hcp range for 1NT opener worked every time.
Now I am able to practice bidding and responding to 1NT openers based on consistent vulnerability status without having to discard every other hand.
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Dealer Scripts / Re: Vul NT vs nv NT opener script
« Last post by abby cj on June 21, 2021, 11:46:10 PM »
ok...tx :)
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