Difficult Italian slam

[Walddk]

[hv=d=e&v=b&n=sk54hqdkq10932cak10&s=saj1092ha1053dj4c92]133|200|Scoring: IMP

S: 6S

Lead: H7[/hv]

A hand from the Coppa Italia on vugraph a couple of days ago. You arrived in the inferior slam, 6♠, after East opened a weak 2♥. No more bidding by EW. 6♦ is better but that can't be helped.

 

Lead is ♥7 to East's king and your ace. Don't worry too much if you go down (declarer did too), but I am pretty sure that you won't adopt the same line as he did. Even looking at all four hands the commentators were not in agreement as to which line offers the best chances.

 

Take over please. How do you proceed?

 

Roland

[Raivis]

May plan may be not excellent! Intuitive...

 

SA, look discards, if not see no one key card small diamond to king.

Better defender plan is took first diamond if split 3-2.

Anyway diamond 2.round to jack!

[Halo]

In real life I think I would play West for Qx(x) of spades (running the Jack and then playing to the King). If he has Qxx he can have diamonds xxx,Axx,Axxx. If he has Qx spades, then he can have Ax,Axx,xx,xxx,xxxx of diamonds.

 

Not very exciting I know.

[Walddk]

In real life I think I would play West for Qx(x) of spades (running the Jack and then playing to the King). If he has Qxx he can have diamonds xxx,Axx,Axxx.  If he has Qx spades, then he can have Ax,Axx,xx,xxx,xxxx of diamonds.

 

Not very exciting I know.

Running ♠J at trick two was suggested by Jens Auken among others. The trouble is that we don't know who has ♦A and therefore we can't tell who has ♠Q.

 

Perhaps it's worth leading ♦J to find out. Risky, yes, but not unreasonable since we can't afford to pull all trumps before ♦A has been knocked out. Anyway, I will go along with the line you present and let ♠J ride although I can't see why it's wrong to cash the ace first.

 

The jack holds, both following.

 

Roland

[rbforster]

I was also going to suggest running the J♠ at trick two. I'm looking to play the non-preempter for length and hence the Q. I don't play the A first since then even if I guess the Q correctly I'll lose to Qxx of trump when I play on diamonds and they switch to hearts and force me to ruff with the K on board (nor can I afford to draw the last trump and lose my heart control).

 

If the J holds, I'll run another spade hook and switch to a low diamond. If they take the A♦ on the first round, I'll be able to ruff with the K♠ and return to my hand with the J♦ risking only 1-4 diamonds. If they duck the A♦, I'll play another diamond to my J.

 

I guess my main fear for not testing diamonds before trump is that preempter might have a stiff and get a ruff if his partner grabs the A♦ and continues another.

[Apollo81]

♠J, ♠10, ♦J, ♦x if necessary. I make if LHO has the ♠Q, spades are 3-2, and neither player can get a diamond ruff on the first or second round. If I had cashed the ♠A first, RHO, holding ♦Axx, could holdup the first round of diamonds and then give his partner, with ♠Qxx, an uppercut.

[ArtK78]

I can see a line that works if West is 3-2-4-4 with the ♦A and the ♠Q. Not an unreasonable construction.

 

Win the ♥A at trick one. Run the ♠J. When this wins, ruff a heart. Cash the ♠K. Play a diamond to the J. If West ducks, continue diamonds. When West wins, he will not have any hearts left. Furthermore, East will have no spades left to ruff a diamond. Eventually, you will be able to run the diamonds to pitch two more hearts while West still holds the ♠Q and has to follow suit. Then A, K and another club to ruff in hand and pull the last trump.

 

The only other reasonable possibility that seems to work is to drop the ♠Q doubleton in either hand and knock out the ♦A without pulling the last trump. Normally, I would say that dropping the ♠Q doubleton would be a far better play than playing West for Qxx xx Axxx xxxx. But you did say that neither declarer made 6♠.

 

There is one other chance - play West for QJ of clubs and take a double finesse against it. This will allow you to force the opponent with the ♦A to win the first round of diamonds or lose his diamond trick. The play would go win the ♥A, ♠J winning, club towards the AKT, intending to play the 10. Whether West splits his honors or not, win in dummy and play a diamond to the J. If the opps win the first round of diamonds, you can win any return, pull trump and run the diamonds. If the ♦J holds, run the clubs. pitching your last diamond and cross ruff the red suits, setting up the diamonds eventually to pitch the last heart while West ruffs, losing one spade to West eventually. This line seems inferior to either of the other two.

[jtfanclub]

♠J, ♠10, ♦J, ♦x if necessary. I make if LHO has the ♠Q, spades are 3-2, and neither player can get a diamond ruff on the first or second round.

OK, jack runs, ten runs, diamond jack runs, next diamond is won by the Ace. Next card is the heart jack....

 

Now what? If you ruff with the king, and try to get back to your hand with a diamond, you get overruffed by the queen of spades. If you use the AK and another club, it's successful, and you get the heart ten, but there's nowhere to park the losing heart.

 

Not sure if there's any method that gets past West having 3 spades to the Queen and two diamonds (with or without the ace).

[Walddk]

But you did say that neither declarer made 6♠.

No, I said that declarer did not make his contract. One declarer did not, because at the other table South (Nunes) was in 3NT, making 11 tricks. He did not overcall 2♠ which "our" declarer did.

 

If this is a 2♠ overcall vulnerable, he had better play the cards better than he did. Much better even, because I don't think you can picture how badly he (mis)played it. His line was what we in Danish call a "nul-variant". It translates to something like "zero chance line".

 

Roland

[Apollo81]

OK, jack runs, ten runs, diamond jack runs, next diamond is won by the Ace. Next card is the heart jack....

I guess I also need W to have at least 3 diamonds then

[dburn]

The most likely West spade holding consistent with my making the contract is three to the queen. I also require him to have at least three diamonds.

 

It is obviously foolish to play the ace of spades before running the jack, and to play diamonds before spades (both of these lines will go down when the distribution is as I hope, because I cannot cope with a second round of hearts). Therefore, jack of spades, spade to the king, diamond.

 

Of course, this will fail miserably when East turns up with ♠Q and I could have made the hand trivially by ruffing a heart, drawing trumps via a finesse against East, and knocking out West's ♦A. But Roland did say that this was a difficult slam, so I'm not going simply to draw trumps, take finesses and cash winners.

[Walddk]

[hv=d=e&v=b&n=sk54hqdkq10932cak10&w=sq8h76d65cj876543&e=s763hkj9842da87cq&s=saj1092ha1053dj4c92]399|300|Scoring: IMP

S: 6S

Lead: H7[/hv]

Here is the full hand. The layout was somewhat different from what one would have thought, but many of you made the contract by advancing ♠J at trick 2. Whether you continue with a low or middle spade to the king doesn't matter here as long as you turn your attention to diamonds at trick 4.

 

Unexpectedly, West is the one with a doubleton diamond, but fortunately he has no more than two trumps.

 

The Italian declarer will of course remain anonymous. It wasn't one of the very best, but he did make it to the finals of the Cup, so he can't be all that bad. However, his line on this deal was .... well, alternative.

 

He tanked (there we have that word again) for 3-4 minutes before cashing ♠A, then a low spade to dummy's king. All is well now, is it not? Not quite, because he also drew the last trump!?

 

Down 1 and 13 IMPs to Angelini Parioli Tennis Club on their way to a comprehensive win.

 

Roland