Author Topic: Desperate Measures...  (Read 2478 times)

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Offline OliverC

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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.
« Last Edit: January 13, 2018, 07:11:44 PM by OliverC »
Oliver