Can you make it?

[bid_em_up]

While kibbing some friends the other nite and after some unmemorable auction (or was it unmentionable?), they arrived in 7C on the following collection:

 

[hv=n=sk53haq73d1052ck43&s=saq2h2dak93caqj72]133|200|7C by South

 

Imp Scoring[/hv]

 

Opening Lead is the 9♥, can you make it?

 

(They didnt at the table, although to their credit, they immediately spotted that it "might" could be made on alternate line of play).

 

What line do you think was taken, and what, if any, is the winning line?

 

Is either line actually better?

[whereagles]

The red suit single squeeze got its timing broken by the heart lead, so one might as well play for ♦QJ onside. Even then some timing is needed, so that one can win with QJxx onside.

 

Take heart ace, finesse diamonds, back to dummy on club king and ruff another heart. Then pull trumps and cash spades. If RHO has the heart king together with QJx now, he'll get squeezed.

 

The alternative is to finesse ♥K for 13th trick, but diams 33 or 42 with ♥K on the right is better.

[inquiry]

5C, 2D, 3S, 1H = 11 tricks. Yuck. Squeeze needing two tricks with two losers require two threat suits. No good.. so straight forward cashing not likely to win.

 

Option 2, dummy reversal, ruff 3H, gives 3C, 1H, 3H ruff, 3S, 2D, 12 tricks. Alas, you are down to one suit, so squeezes are out again.

 

Take heart hook would get you 12 tricks, but for any subsequent squeeze to work, you need to hand with five plus hearts to hold QJ(x) of diamonds, clearly long odds, so you would have to resort to win heart hook trick one, and then win double diamond hook through EAST. Yuck again.

 

Since you are going to have to rely on double diamond hook anyway, the best line appears to be win the heart ace immediately and take the diamond hook. This allows you to make when EAST has DQJ doubleton, QJX tripleton or any number of diamonds to the QJ and the heart king... Have to play diamond to the nine once and run all your clubs before playing spades, win last spade in dummy.

[HeartA]

As squeeze doesn't help (HQ can only provide one pitch on H) unless RHO has both DQJ, I would have to play him to have them. If D were 3-3, we don't need a squeeze. Three rounds of clubs end in dummy and play DT. If RHO doesn't cover, let it go (and repeat the finesse, and we don't need a squeeze); Assume he covers I win in hand, draw remaining trumps (pitch H7, H3 on dummy). Then 3 rounds of spades end on dummy again:

 

Dummy: ♥Q, ♦52,

Declarer: ♦K93

 

If HQ is not a winner, I take the Heart finesse and my D3 would be the 13th trick.

 

After seeing Ben's post, to play Dx (5 or 2) at trick 2 is better which takes care of DQJ doubleton in RHO (If you don't touch D immediately at trick 2, you would have to play DT after you get to dummy with CK, otherwise D would be blocked). Assuming East plays an honor, you covers. Draw 3 rounds of trump, ending in dummy, and play Dx again. If another D honor appears, you can draw trump, unblock D and come to hand to cash D9. If not, win with D9 and draw trumps, 3 rounds of S ending in dummy:

 

Dummy: ♥Q, ♦10,

Declarer: ♦K3

 

East would have to let your either HQ or K3 become a winner.

Edited October 25, 2006 by HeartA

[Finch]

I don't get why the squeeze doesn't work.

 

Queen of hearts at trick 1.

3 rounds of trumps ending in dummy.

Heart ruff.

Last trump (if necessary) discarding a diamond.

 

 

3 rounds of spades ending in dummy.

Ace of hearts. We are down to

 

-

Ax

xx

-

 

in dummy and

 

-

-

AK9x

-

 

in hand

 

If anyone has 5 hearts and 4 diamonds they are squeezed, no matter if the Q/J of diamonds are together or not. There is also a squeeze if the same hand has 5 hearts and the QJ of diamonds.

 

This line needs

 

HK onside, plus hearts 5-3 with the long hearts having 4+ or the DQJ

 

The alternative line of playing for the DQJ onside needs that, plus either diamonds 3-3 or QJ doubleton onside, or a red suit squeeze.

 

Which is better may depend on where I think the HK is, and the auction/speed of lead etc might help there.

[Halo]

The red suit squeeze still works if East has Kx of hearts and any doubleton diamond. Also works if West has King to five hearts and 4 diamonds.

 

I imagine that declarer went off on (what I think) is the better chance of QJ diamonds onside.

[inquiry]

I don't get why the squeeze doesn't work.

As I said, the squeeze will work if the after the heart hook the hand with five hearts also has the QJ of diamonds to any legnth. But, the problem is that you have to have FIVE hearts versus 3, and hand with the five hearts also has to hold both the Q and the J of diamonds.

 

The odds the hand with FIVE hearts has both the Q and J of diamonds is only 18%, the chance the hand with THREE hearts has both the Q and J is 29%. And since five can be on either side, half the time RHO will have the QJ and long hearts in which case the double finess is better anyway. If fact, ignoring hearts, the double finessee is already better odds than the squeeze (being 24%... , I know, it looks like it should be 25%, but it is not).

 

If one adds into the fact that WEST is less likelly to have the heart king (ok, ok, a good player will underlead the king to force you to guess in hearts before you test other lines more often than an average player), makes me think the win the ace and play for both diamonds on side is a better line. Clearly this is not a good grand slam. :-(

[Finch]

I don't get why the squeeze doesn't work.

As I said, the squeeze will work if the after the heart hook the hand with five hearts also has the QJ of diamonds to any legnth. But, the problem is that you have to have FIVE hearts versus 3, and hand with the five hearts also has to hold both the Q and the J of diamonds.

No it doesn't.

The hand with five hearts has to hold 4+ diamonds, OR the Q and J.

 

Ignoring the inference about the lead - which I said above is important - and excluding ruffs on the opening lead

 

a) The chance that hearts are 5-3/6-2/7-1 with the K onside is 34%

The chance that the hand with long hearts also has 4+ diamonds is 20%

The chance that the hand with long hearts also has QJ or QJx diamonds is a bit over 9%

 

So the chance of this line working is roughly 29% * 34% or about 10%

 

B) The chance of the QJ of diamonds onside and the suit 3-3 or QJ doubleton onside is 8.7%

On top of that the chance of the QJ onside to 4 or more is another 14.5%, so you get about 1/5th of that for having long hearts as well, getting you up to nearly 11%

 

I agree that playing for the QJ onside + a 13th trick is better. But I don't think there's a huge amount in it - and the opening lead may tell you something about the heart position.

[bid_em_up]

Well, as I said, the hand can be made, but whether or not it is the correct/best line of play, I'll leave that to the readers.

 

[hv=n=sk53haq73d1052ck43&w=s8xhk9xxxdqjxxcxx&e=sj10xxxhj10xdxxcxxx&s=saq2h2dak93caqj72]399|300|[/hv]

 

If South takes the heart hook, he can play the A of hearts (pitching a diamond), ruff a heart, cash 4 rounds of clubs, and the AQ♠. On the lead of the third spade, West must either give up the diamond guard or establish dummies last heart.

 

Declarer went down by winning the heart A and immediately taking the double hook in diamonds (probably the best chance given the lead, your LHO led the heart 9 quickly, but is also good enough to do so even from this holding).

 

I just thought the hand was interesting.....and yes, its a terrible grand slam, but they were just messing around.

[whereagles]

ah, it's true. there's indeed a squeeze. i hadn't noticed a diamond disc in the last trump was all it took to keep the squeeze open.