Par Play Problem 3

[Echognome]

[hv=d=s&v=e&n=s74haj853dat85caq&s=sj8632hq976d73c62]133|200|Scoring: IMP

P - (1♠) - 2♥ - (X)

P - (3♣) - P - (P)

3♥ - All Pass[/hv]

 

The bidding is given as above. West leads two top spades and East throws a small club. West then switches to the ♥K. How do you plan to make 9 tricks?

[mikeh]

I was unable to come up with a line that catered to East holding the ♣K: in all my lines, I was unable to shut out his 10xx of trump. West's K must surely be stiff, else he'd wait to overuff a ♦ (see below for an exception).

 

BTW, how does S get to declare on the auction shown?

 

Ignoring that issue: assuming that N overcalled in ♥, East doubled, West bid 3♣, south balanced and W led out of turn:

 

Win the trump Ace, low trump, finessing East, ruff a ♠, draw trump ending in hand, ruff a ♠ and eventually fall back on the ♣ hook.

 

 

BTW, if you win the trump A and tackle ♦, west can almost certainly win if he does not hold the ♣K, and then he leads a ♣. If you finesse and East wins, he returns a ♣ and now you cannot ruff 2♦ and return to dummy to pull trump without promoting East's trump 10.

 

If you refuse the ♣ finesse, and play ♦ A ruff a ♦, you cannot get back to dummy to ruff the last ♦ without either immediately or slowly promoting that pesky trump 10.

 

If West holds AKQ109 K10 xx Kxxx, I will pay off to a great switch

[Echognome]

BTW, how does S get to declare on the auction shown?

Sorry about that. Actually I DID make south declarer, just because it was more convenient. These were the actual north south hands, so north would have been declarer. But since I didn't want south hopping seats, i just made south declarer.

[arrows]

Suppose south, (the weaker hand) is declarer.

 

I guess it's reasonable to play west having no more than 1 diamond honor.

 

Win Ace, trump to QUEEN, in case west played King from KT doublton, it's over.

 

If west discard as expected, then East most likely has a 1-3-4-5 shape.

Now lead a diamond to table, win Ace if west plays a

honor, and exit with diamond 10. East gets in, but he could do no more than

returning his last trump, then I ruff a diamond, ruff a spade to table, lead last diamond and pitch a club, east gets thrown in. I have 5 trumps, 1 diamond ruff,

2 aces and the club queen, adding up to 9 tricks.

[civill]

IMO,the best is criss-cross ruffing between ♠ & ♦

[pclayton]

I rather like Arrows' line. I played around with a few variations but couldn't come up with an improvement.

 

BTW, if the cards lie the way I think they are (West - AKQxx, K, Hxx, Jxxx; East - x, Txx, HHxx, Kxxx), they've already botched the defense good.

[mikeh]

 

BTW, if the cards lie the way I think they are (West - AKQxx, K, Hxx, Jxxx; East - x, Txx, HHxx, Kxxx), they've already botched the defense good.

 

This is a par contest hand, so you should assume best defence. If your chosen line requires misdefence, that is a strong clue that you have the wrong line :(

 

The endplay is elegant but what if LHO has HHx in ♦ or 5=1=2=5 shape? And, as you already gathered, how does this line survive a ♣ switch at trick 3?

[Echognome]

Perhaps that is true of a "real" par contest. I took these hands from various books and gave the play problems as the authors gave them. On a couple of the hands, best defense would have set you. (See the 6♠ hand from before.) So you have to assume you can make it from the point you are at and not necessarily that you have gotten best defense up to now.

[Guest Jlall]

BTW, if you win the trump A and tackle ♦, west can almost certainly win if he does not hold the ♣K, and then he leads a ♣.

Agreed, but it costs nothing to win the ace and lead a diamond off the table. If they have KQ are they really ducking? KJ? Perhaps they should but it can't hurt to give them the chance to err.