sathyab

Arend and I were at the table when this hand came up. It was so interesting, that I saved the hand to analyze it a teaching table later. Quite a few variations are truly double-dummy. If declarer doesn't follow the exact sequence of plays, defense can prevail, but single-dummy, defense finds it hard to exploit it. But there're some useful single-dummy angles too. For EW this feels like a chess problem "mate in 13 moves" :) Declarer starts off by ducking the first ♥. Takes the second one, one high ♦ from hand and another to end in dummy. Now play the remaining high ♦ from dummy. ♣ discard by West is fatal double-dummy as we can see, but even single-dummy, West has to hope that partner has one useful card, the ♠K, as a ♣ card doesn't help directly. So let's say he pitches a ♠, East can spare a black card easily. On the next ♦, West can't still afford a ♣, but if he blanks his ♠A, it's over for the defense. Declarer plays a ♣ to the Q, cashes one more ♦. West still can't afford a ♣ discard, so a ♥ now. Declarer cashes high ♥ and tucks West in with a ♠ for a ♣ end-play. So West's second pitch is a ♥. Defense hasn't given up on the hand yet, they can still get 2♥, 2♠ and a ♣. Now declarer plays a ♣ to Q, cashes the last ♦. West can not blank either of his black Aces, so has to pitch a ♥. After 5♦, two ♥ and a ♣, remaining cards are: West Ax Q - Ax. East in the meanwhile is down to Kxx - - J9 and dummy is QTx - - Kx. Now declarer cashes high ♥, East is forced to pitch a ♠, as does dummy. Declarer exits a ♠ and whoever wins the last ♠ is end-played to give declarer the game-going trick in ♣. Single-dummy, should declarer give up on the finesse for ♣J ? Not clear. If he did, he could go down in the five card ending above when it was makeable.

Couldn't 7♠ be in the picture if you had 4-4-3-2. Is there any way you can still get to a ♠ contract after a 2♦ start ?

Why would North bid 4♠ ? His hand is totally balanced. His partner could easily have only 3♠ and some extras and might even be waiting to double 4♥. And when it got around to South, there was nothing do except pass.

I agree, most people would be hesitant to lead away from KTx. It can work badly on so many lay-outs of the suit, which is why they got a near top. Don't you wish the recaps could include the lead so you don't have to keep wondering at post-mortem how could have played the hand differently/better ? Nice job getting to the finals.

Bidding and play are two different things. E-W bidding will probably not be written up in BW, well not as an example of how to bid for sure. But bad/gamble or however else you want to characterize the double by West, it definitely clued East to play him for quick tricks in his hand. If West passed it's not unreasonable for North to raise to 4♠. If West simply led a ♥ now, is the defense any easier ?

Realize that Bridge is not Chess. If they were the same, bad Bidding, inferior lines of play or defense would never (or seldom) work.

Nice hands. I didn't get the second one on my first attempt, but still felt good to make 12 tricks. Being able to play a hand again so easily is a great tool for practice. Great Job !

This was the entire hand. [hv=pc=n&s=sqj2haj73dj84c943&w=skh965dakq953ckq7&n=sa8654hk4d6ca8652&e=st973hqt82dt72cjt&d=e&v=b&b=10&a=pp1d1sp2s3d3sppdppp]399|300[/hv] If North had ♠AJ I don't think he could go wrong. But as South has two ♠honors, it requires careful play. The bidding was identical at the OT except for the double and declarer made 9 tricks. Not sure if it was because of the double, declarer who's known to be a very fine player went down 2.

I didn't bid 3♦, but my guess is it was probably because of the disparity in length and strength of red suits. If you catch partner with 4-4-2-3 distribution, you'll probably get to 3♥ which may not play well with your weak trumps.

[hv=pc=n&w=skh965dakq953ckq7&d=e&v=b&b=10&a=pp1d1sp2s3d3spp]133|200[/hv] 3S was self-alerted as being competitive.

Oops ! For some reason I kept thinking the problem was to avoid a ♣ ruff, but the problem is more fundamental, as we can not afford a ♣ loser at all.

If RHO can win the first trick in a suit that we attack, he can always play back a ♣ and get a ruff, assuming there's a ruff available and that he can over-ruff dummy. So we have to play a ♦ and hope LHO wins it as RHO is likely to have length and strength in trumps. Playing a ♣ toward dummy is of course dangerous as LHO will win it and return the suit right away.

When partner opens 2nt, I am not familiar with any methods specifically geared toward figuring out if AK of a suit is missing. Most people would simply check for Aces and bid 6nt if two are not missing. Given that, it's interesting that responder bid a direct 6nt. Was he afraid that say 4♣ could be doubled ? Or may be he had exactly 13 and could therefore eliminate the possibility of two missing Aces, assuming partner rarely upgrades a 19 count to a 2nt.

I was interested in 0-5 ♦ break as well. For someone who started out with the idea of either a double squeeze or black suit squeeze against RHO it was not quite clear how to cope with a ♠ return after a ♣ duck to RHO. That the loss of a black suit squeeze is compensated by a ♥ finesse in a simple 1-1-0-1 ending made it easier for me to comprehend.

Curious to know what the 100% line is.