dellache

At the table, partner had a non suitable 7HCP 3325 Hand, bid 1NT and went 3 down after a few misguesses (double dummy was 1 down, good play would have been 2 down imo). LHO had 4351 16HCP (stiff ♣J), and decided to pass this (?!). At the other table, East passed in 3rd, and declarer had to be very clever to manage 9 tricks in Spades (we miraculously stopped in 3♠ with silent oppos, south having 4351 - 16HCP). I guess if you pass they usually reach 4♠ and go 2 down on the board. So it was a practical 12 imps loss. We are not result merchants, but were just wondering afterwards what was the real purpose of opening 1♦ RED in 3rd with those defensive values : do we really want to play 1NT after 1♦ 1♠ 1NT or 1♦ 1NT ? Do we really think that if partner cannot bid 1♠ we will prevent oppos to find Spades and not facilitate their cardplay ? Or do we think that we must enter the bidding and the pros are higher than the cons ? I'm still perplexed about this. NOTE: I would have not resisted the temptation to open 1♦ myself, as a "gut" bid. This hand has opening bid values...

Thank you "Free", it's exactly the sequence I suggested to my teammates. North had Kxx AQxx Kxx Axx, and 3SA was making... from the West hand. 5♦ by East is down 2, down 1 by West. My teammates duly bid 3NT... but wrong-sided. A lot Imps were at stakes, coz' oppos managed to stop in 2♦(!!) at our table. At any rate, I think that one of the most important point is to strive to make WEST declare, on general principles.

[hv=pc=n&e=sqthkt98dat92cqt2&d=w&v=b&b=4&a=pp]133|200[/hv] Would you open 1♦ or Pass ? Why ?

[hv=pc=n&w=sajt8hk852d6ckj82&e=sq43hj6daqjt9543c&d=w&v=b&b=4&a=1c1n]266|200[/hv] IMP. What contract do you reach from EW, and how ? NOTE: if East doubles now, South will XX="Please bid 2♣, I've 5+cards somewhere", North will bid 2♣ if possible, and then NS will pass throughout.

I'd play [3] a ♥ to the King : 1. West won't probably be able to duck that if he has the Ace. Now if he takes it, according to 1st trick, Diamonds are not 2-5, and we can almost conclude that East is 12-14 Balanced. Now we'll make because East is marked with Jx+ Jx+ Axxx AQx+ : Spade finesse leads to 5+1+3 tricks. 2. So East has the Ace and [3] I'll probably score my ♥King. I'll now play [4] the ♥Q. What happens ?

♦8. Neutral. I hate those overrated H9xx leads.

Here both minor leads could help declarer, but Diamonds may also easily be needed to score the 5th trick in defense. So I'll lead my 4th♦. BTW, imo, leading any Major is terrible with Axx.

indeed.

Or maybe instead of playing well, declarer will plays *extremely* well ? We play [2]K♥ ducked *and* unblock ♥Q [3]K♠ and declarer ruffs in dummy. Now declarer may [4]cash ♦Ace, and [5]small ♦ discarding a ♣ (game over with 3-2 diamonds). Now that he knows Diamonds are 4-1, it seems that RHO as a counterplay : finesse our ♥T, ruff a ♦ High, and claim. Still ♥King looks like a nice shot !

Here's my analysis. 1. We suppose that East doesn't have 7+ HCP or 6HCP+spade-fit (pass over DBL). Hence combinations like ♥Qx by West become unlikely. Anyway this has a small impact. 2. The EW combinations that remain where we may succeed seem to consist of : KQxxx(x) KQ x(x+) A(x+) KQxxx(x) KQx x(x+) A(x+) KQxxxx Kx xx Axx KQxxxx KT x Axxx (unlikely). 3. If we start with [1]♠Ace, [2]♣ to King, [3]♠J ruffed, [4]♣ruffed, [5]♥ up, it seems that we preserve our chances in almost all cases (Rainer's cute case where West has KQxxx KQ xxx Axx is one of the exceptions !) 4. At this stage, defense comes into play : if West plays a small ♥, we must play the ♥J. If East takes that, we have to hope West was 6223. If the Jack scores, the rest should be fairly easy. The problem is when West plays an honor (we take the Ace). After this... 5. We have a true problem : we can always proceed with [6] ♣ruff, and we suppose the Ace falls (there are variants if it doesn't fall, and we can still make -- can't we ? Yes). NOW this is decision time : - if West had KQxxxx KQ xx Axx, we just have to play on Diamonds and abandon trumps ; - if West had KQxxx KQx xx Axx, we must play trumps before diamonds (♠9 is a nice card). Now I don't really see how to decide (frequencies favor the latter, play of the ♠J favor the former ?). The same kind of guess may arise in less likely distributions of the minor (variants). Difficult to conclude.

Actually I think there's no need to hope that West has got H10 or KQ(x) in Hearts, in case spades are 6-2. As an example, let's suppose West has : KQxxxx Kx xx Axx to East : Jx QTx xxx KTxxx which looks compatible with the bidding/play. If we play [1]♠Ace, [2]♣ to J/King, [3]Ruff the J♠, [4]Ruff club, [5]♥ to Jack and Queen, what can East do ? Nothing. We just loose 1♣ and 2♥. Still I'm still not sure how to play this throughout. I'll try to finish my own analysis and post something later if I find it interesting.

(Edited) Well we are done if East plays back a Heart after SK. [2]Heart-Ace is surely a mistake. The solution seems to be to play [2]Spade immediately to avoid entry problems (need to unblock Diamonds).

The lead tells us that spades are 3-5/5-3 or 4-4. Then we can just play [2]♥Ace, then [3] Spades discarding Diamonds till they take their King. Then we can just cash the second High trump, finish the diamond discards on Spades and finally ruff our Diamond. That looks too simple. If somebody discards at trick 2, we may need to reconsider.

As long as you avoided the "women and men" title, that's not so bad :P .

I think we may try to show that the "Diamond line" is inferior to the "Heart line" this way : - if you take the Jack of clubs at trick 1 and run the ♦King, you go down if East takes this (he returns a Spade) ; HENCE the Diamond line needs ♦Ace at least in West's Hand (42% using vacant places : West has 5+ Clubs) + nothing nasty in ♠/♥ ; HENCE Diamond line is inferior to 40%. - the Heart line works everytime Hearts and Spades behave (that's also around 42% using basic calculation) and also works with some 4-1 and 5-2 breaks in the Majors. HENCE Heart line is clearly superior to 40% (probably superior to 50%). Those are really vague approximations, but imo it shows that it's certainly better to ruff a Heart at trick 2.