Trumpace

These are the four hands: [hv=n=sxhkjxdkjxxxcktxx&w=satxxxxhatxxdxc9x&e=skxhxxxxdt98cqjxx&s=sqjxxhqxdaqxxcaxx]399|300|[/hv] Interesting change: What if south held Qxxx of spades instead of QJxx?

No.. that guy is still the dummy. LOL. :lol: I guess when someone tried to get in the "Survive Tourney with Luis" tourney, they would have been told, "How can you be such an idiot?" :P

Thanks! I guess that is the right way to look at it. Some ppl use dummy reversal to exclusively mean ruffing in hand... no matter what your trump length.. which seems silly to me now :lol:

1eyedjack, you are right. Spades were 6-2 (and seems likely from the bidding). We need hearts to be at least 5-3. LHO needs to have at least 2 clubs. So LHO cannot have more than 2 diamonds! So I think we should play LHO for 6-3-1-3, 6-3-2-2 or 6-4-1-2. (Anyway, assume you are given that spades are 6-2).

I am confused with the usage of the term "dummy reversal". I thought dummy reversal would be trying to ruff 2 clubs in hand? (South is the declarer) Trying to ruff spades would be the "normal unreversed" play...

I was kibitzing this hand: In a friendly rubber, you are South, dealer and hold: QJxx, Qx, AQxx, Axx. Playing SAYC, you open 1D (not 1NT, live with it :D ). The full bidding: 1D - (1S) - 2C - (P) - 3C - (P) - 5D! - All pass. West leads the club 9 and you see: [hv=d=s&v=n&n=sxhkjxdkjxxxcktxx&s=sqjxxhqxdaqxxcaxx]133|200|Scoring: Rubber Lead ♣9.[/hv] What is your plan for this 5D contract?

Seems like we need to play spades for one loser... Run the Q. If it loses to the K, run the 8. I guess this would be around 87.5% (75% for split honours, 12.5% for honours with one guy.. I hope the calculation is correct.) There don't seem to be any squeeze possibilites which would improve the chances of some other line of play... You said you wanted to analyze this double dummy: where are the other two hands? Or did you mean single dummy?

It actually does matter. You have exactly 3 entries to dummy (2 club ruffs and ♦K). You need those entries to ruff with _small_ trumps in hand. On the table the play went: ♦A, ♣A, club ruff, spade ruff, club ruff, spade ruff. ♥A. (LHO dropped the Q). ♦ to King. Now I was at the crossroads, ruff a diamond or ruff a spade... I thought what you say, that diamond would be safer than a third spade (as there were 4 diamonds outstanding compared to 2 spades) and tried to ruff a diamond, but RHO jumped in with the King of trumps! The contract was down one now. I had clues from the bidding (which I happily ignored!): LHO bid 2D, RHO didn't raise diamonds but bid 2NT... It was likely diamonds were 6-2. If that was the case, the third ruff has to be a spade. Incidentally RHO played high-low on diamonds, which I ignored too! RHO held a 3-5-2-3 hand and was doubling with 5 trumps to KJT. As Sherlock Holmes would put it, "I took a mouse and rode it like an elephant". Just because there are 2 spades and 4 diamonds outstanding, does not make the diamond ruff safer! We should learn to look at as many clues possible. When LHO dropped the Q on the ♥A, it was likely that the he had 6 diamonds (bidding inference), 3 clubs (fact), 1 heart (bidding+play inference) and 3 spades! This means we must ruff the third spade and not a diamond. In the words of Terence Reese, "Each hand is a jigsaw puzzle and each piece must fit".

Eh? That's confusing. You say a diamond and 2 spades, but your next sentence ruffs 3 spades... What did you actually mean?

What 3 cards would you ruff in hand?

You decide to play bridge just before going to work in the morning. You join a table as East with the hand: _, A9875, A2, AK7653 You look at the bidding box which reads (North was dealer) P- 1H - P - 1S - P - 2C - 2D - P - 2NT - 3C - P - 3H - X - P - P - P. South has lead the ♦Q. Apparently, the previous east left after seeing the dummy. This is what you see: [hv=w=sqj98653h43dk85c9&e=sha9875da2cak7653]266|100|Lead: ♦Q.[/hv] Plan the play.

A question to the spade leaders. Why do you think a spade shift is better than a heart shift? After all, partner has shown some hearts...

Pesky opponent. 3S. 3NT might be right too, but club suit looks dangerous. For instance, give partner Kxx, AKQxxx, x, xxx

Looks like Club 2 might be an important card to hold on to. On second thoughts, if declarer has 4-3-3-3 distribution with the ♥Q, partner can hold a singleton club atmost and declarer can throw you in the end, not matter what you hold. (If he has the ♥Q and 4 hearts or 4 diamonds, he as 12 top tricks). So hope partner has ♥Q, and as others have said, we duck the first trick to avoid partner getting squeezed in the majors.

Excellent Ben! A diamond continuation (and spade discard by partner) beats the contract!

non-vul vs vul you are East and hold: 98432, 986, AKJ32, _ RHO opens bidding with 1C, you double, LHO bids 2C, Partner bids 2H, RHO bids 3c and all pass. You lead the ♦K and this is what you see: [hv=e=s98432h986dakj32c&s=sj5hj2d8754ca9542]266|200|[/hv] Partner plays the ♦Q on your King. You continue with diamond Ace and partner plays the 10 (presumably a doubleton, a pickup partner). What do you do next? Is there a clear line or just a shot in the dark?

I put this in the wrong forum! Moderator, can we please move this to Beginner/Intermediate Forum? Thanks.

Some suggestions/comments: 1) Remove the internal borders from the tables which hold the hands and bidding. The vertical line separating the cards from the bidding/explanation is fine. 2) The diamond suit cards' font stands out from the rest (and makes it look rather odd). Why don't you make all the suits the same font? 3) Is the image in the middle (the green one with NEWS written on it) really required? It has got an ugly border around it. Without that border it will look fine. 4) The 4 empty cells around the hand (you are using a 3x3 table...) you are not consistent with where you put VUL, DLR, Lead etc. Making that consistent will make it easier to read the 100+ hands...

[hv=n=s9863ha65djck7652&w=skj752h82dk53cj43&e=shkqjt974d762ca98&s=saqt4h3daqt984cqt]399|300|[/hv] West thinks you are a really awful player, and leads the ♦K saying, "We should have doubled partner". Contract is 5D.

Aahh.. you were referring to the case when clubs split _evenly_ i.e, both LHO and RHO can stop the suit... No wonder I was confused. By split i thought you meant the clubs split good for us (the 6-2,7-1 or 8-0) Not quite, chewbacca. :angry: Giving names to stuff simplifies conversations. Getting hung up on names will make people call you names though.. :ph34r:

Isn't the name double squeeze? I thought a compound squeeze is different from a double squeeze. Anyway, back to hand. The cashing of 2 top clubs before the last heart is a good play to avoid a club guess. For instance, say you cashed AKQ spades (discovering RHO had them stopped) and then started cashing the hearts. On the last heart, LHO discards a club (his fourth club discard). What do you discard from dummy? A club discard would be right in case LHO had 7 or more clubs. In case he had exactly 6 clubs, the 3rd club in dummy is good! (though from the bidding I would expect at least 7 clubs with LHO) Cashing the top clubs early avoids this guess. Nice. Anyway, is the 7NT bid really a (very) wild guess? How would the bidding have gone with your partner?

Again, this hand is for intermediates/Adv- only. (Sorry, not for beginners or experts) Friendly game. No one cares about vul. You hold KQ6, AKQJT, K32, A8 You are dealer and open 2C. LHO bids 3C. Partner bids 3S. Rho passes and you bid 4S. LHO passes and partner bids 6S. RHO passes. You chance a 7NT.(comments please...) So the contract is 7NT. LHO leads a heart and you see the following: [hv=n=sa9875h765da4ck93&s=skq6hakqjtdk32ca8]133|200|[/hv] What is your plan?

Matchpoints, none vul. LHO opens 1D. Two passes to you. You hold: AKJ, 2, AKQT2, J983 What do you do? Would your actions differ if the scoring was IMP (same vul)?

People have found the answer to this, so I won't bother hiding the following. We can try to ruff two hearts, but then we don't have enough entries back to hand without relying on a favourable minor suit break. Trying to ruff just one heart and discarding the other on diamonds is better than trying to ruff 2 hearts. Ideally we would like to draw trumps and discard the hearts on diamonds, but we have a trump loser. If we lose the trump loser on the third trump round we will exhaust the dummy of trump and will be vulnerable to heart leads. We would like to lose the trump when we still have a trump in dummy. The best line therefore seems to be to win the ♥A and immediately duck a spade while maintaining a spade in dummy to prevent a heart attack. We can then win the return and just claim when spades are 3-2.

Don't you mean "what if the hand with xx trumps has only 2 diamonds"? It does not help the defense if the hand with Qxx ruffs with a small trump. (you seem to have misread part of the hand, K of trumps is with the declarer) Anyway, i guess scoob wrote up the 3-3 diamond line and did not change it when he/she realised that even 4-2 diamond works...