Guest Jlall Posted January 13, 2007 Report Share Posted January 13, 2007 [hv=n=sq87xxxxhxdaq9xcx&w=stxhj9xxdjxxxckxx&e=sakhqxxdktxxcjxxx&s=sj9haktxxdxcaqtxx]399|300|[/hv] 4S by north. Play or defend? This comes from a BBO hand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Winstonm Posted January 13, 2007 Report Share Posted January 13, 2007 I think I'm defending. Low spade out to the A and K and a low heart return. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricK Posted January 14, 2007 Report Share Posted January 14, 2007 Well, the defense has to start with two rounds of trumps to prevent the ♦ ruff. And then a switch to a ♥ is the only continuation which doesn't immediately give the tenth trick. That much is obvious. But since one of the best players here considers this an interesting hand I suspect that declarer can actually make after this. It must involve running all your trumps and then throwing someone in as I don't see an obvious squeeze - so probably you need to ruff a small ♥ to get back to hand to keep the ♥ tenace in dummy. Now for his last 5 cards, West needs to keep two ♣ and two ♥ so must come down to singleton ♦, and East must keep ♥Q and two ♦. If he keeps fewer than 2 ♣ he can be thrown in in ♦ so he must come down to 2♣ as well. Dummy comes down to ♥AT and ♣AQT (he discards the small ♦ last of all else the throw in in ♦ can't materialise). Then ♦A discarding the ♥T followed by a ♣ finesse forces West to give the last tricks to dummy. Suffice it to say that at the table I would probably have taken a different line. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Winstonm Posted January 14, 2007 Report Share Posted January 14, 2007 Complex. Two rounds of spades and then a heart. Declarer wins and ruffs a small heart then finishes the trumps. That comes down to a 5-card ending and West has to keep Jx of hearts and Kx of clubs so must bare the diamond J. Meanwhile, East must hold onto K10x of diamonds at least, and can come down to 1 heart and 1 club or 0 hearts and 2 clubs. If he comes down to 131 in the ending, declarer can cross in clubs and cash the high heart pitching a diamond, then finesse the diamond, endplaying east. If east comes down to 032, declarer can cash the ace of diamonds, then play club and a club to endplay west. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jlall Posted January 14, 2007 Report Share Posted January 14, 2007 Well, the defense has to start with two rounds of trumps to prevent the ♦ ruff. And then a switch to a ♥ is the only continuation which doesn't immediately give the tenth trick. That much is obvious. But since one of the best players here considers this an interesting hand I suspect that declarer can actually make after this. It must involve running all your trumps and then throwing someone in as I don't see an obvious squeeze - so probably you need to ruff a small ♥ to get back to hand to keep the ♥ tenace in dummy. Now for his last 5 cards, West needs to keep two ♣ and two ♥ so must come down to singleton ♦, and East must keep ♥Q and two ♦. If he keeps fewer than 2 ♣ he can be thrown in in ♦ so he must come down to 2♣ as well. Dummy comes down to ♥AT and ♣AQT (he discards the small ♦ last of all else the throw in in ♦ can't materialise). Then ♦A discarding the ♥T followed by a ♣ finesse forces West to give the last tricks to dummy. Suffice it to say that at the table I would probably have taken a different line. Yeah you're the man. This is exactly right. The key was to play a small heart rather than AK and a heart so that you could come down to the HA and AQT of clubs on the most challenging defense. I would like to point out the kind of opportunities GIB opens up, I was kibbing and wasnt sure if this could make after spade spade heart so I used GIB and it said it could. After that I tried to figure out how on every variation and came up with the same as you. Without gib telling me it could have made in the first place I probably would have brushed it aside (since the defense in real life didn't start spade spade heart) and would have never seen this really neat hand. I'm not sure what kind of squeeze this is but I don't remember a hand like it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jlall Posted January 14, 2007 Report Share Posted January 14, 2007 Complex. Two rounds of spades and then a heart. Declarer wins and ruffs a small heart then finishes the trumps. That comes down to a 5-card ending and West has to keep Jx of hearts and Kx of clubs so must bare the diamond J. Meanwhile, East must hold onto K10x of diamonds at least, and can come down to 1 heart and 1 club or 0 hearts and 2 clubs. If he comes down to 131 in the ending, declarer can cross in clubs and cash the high heart pitching a diamond, then finesse the diamond, endplaying east. If east comes down to 032, declarer can cash the ace of diamonds, then play club and a club to endplay west. Well, east can come down to just KT of diamonds to avoid this (as long as the last diamond is thrown on the last trump so that declarer can't just play ace and a diamond), but eric's counter of pitching a diamond then DA pitching a heart works perfectly anyways. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricK Posted January 14, 2007 Report Share Posted January 14, 2007 What is the best way to play this hand single dummy? I think I would have played King and another Heart and run a few trumps to see if I could guess who was guarding what. Obviously after that nothing works on this hand, but I don't know whether in principle it is better to go for the ♣ finesse the ♦ finesse or some sort of squeeze. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Winstonm Posted January 14, 2007 Report Share Posted January 14, 2007 An interesting end position, as what south discards is dependent upon what east elects to hold. If east on the last spade discards to 023, then south must cash the diamond ace and discard a club, then play a club to the ace and a club, endplaying west. If east comes down to 122, then the play as described would work. It's like some kind of extended threat guard strip double squeeze. Still, as the original question asked play or defend, I still chose to defend with two spades and a heart switch. The percentage line then would be to take both the diamond and club finesses, a 75% line; too bad this is a 25% hand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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