nige1 Posted July 8, 2008 Report Share Posted July 8, 2008 This time, as a special treat, you get to play it on VugraphA5J8642AQ71072 Q64AKK964AQ53 1D - 1H2NT - 3D*3H - 3NT dummy showed a raise to 3NT with 5 hearts and not four spades. 3H was forced by 3D. Declarer has shown nothing except 4+ diamonds, 18-19 balanced and no desire to play a 5-3 heart fit. 2 of spades lead to the King (4th highest)3 of spades return to the ace Plan the play (there will be a part two to this in due course, but we'll see what the popular vote is to start with) IMO, without contraindications from the play, ♠A, ♥AK.♥ are 4-2 or 3-3, so ♦Q, ♥8 discarding ♣.♥J isn't good, so ♠Q, ♦KA.♦9 isn't good, so finesse ♣Q.[*]♥ are 6-0 or 5-1, soLead to ♣TLoses to ♣J, so win ♠Q, ♦QKA♦9 isn't good, so finesse ♣Q. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeh Posted July 9, 2008 Report Share Posted July 9, 2008 7 posters have replied, with 6 different lines. I feel less bad about going off - I played one of the lines proposed here. Must be a good problem! Various things happen on early rounds of various suits, but let's wait and see if anyone else has any good ideas...so? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Finch Posted July 9, 2008 Author Report Share Posted July 9, 2008 Let's see: Virtually everyone has made or gone off by now, because they've started life by playing on clubs. If you follow the line of winning the spade and cashing the AK of hearts, LHO will discard a club on the second heart. This is what I did, although the analysis here has (I think) proved me wrong. Anyway, you aren't off yet. Now what? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeh Posted July 9, 2008 Report Share Posted July 9, 2008 This has become tricky. We have established the heart Q for the defence, who may have been able to retain communication in spades, which makes conceding 2 club tricks dangerous.. they get 2 spades, 2 clubs and the heart Q. It is this aspect that made me shy away from the early heart play, altho I concede that we might well have triumphed by losing only 2 hearts and 2 spades.... and, now I think about it a bit more, I like the line.. it gets complicated because on some layouts, rho can usefully switch to clubs if he started with 2 heart stoppers. Back to where I am. Assuming diamonds don't behave, the most likely shapes for lho appear to be 4=1=4=4 or 4=1=5=3, and I have a slight preference for the former. So I play a diamond to the Q and a club to the Q. If it loses to the K and a spade comes back, I win, cash the diamond K and A, just in case the suit breaks, and then lead a low club to the Ace. This makes when LHO began with KJx or Kxxx or any holding in clubs missing the K. It also has the advantage of looking sexy (always the deciding factor, if the bridge odds are equal, on vugraph) when lho had 4=1=5=3 with KJx in clubs and had to decide, early, whether we had 5 diamonds.. if we had Qxx AK Kxxxx AQ9, this defence is necessary. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Finch Posted July 9, 2008 Author Report Share Posted July 9, 2008 Back to where I am. Assuming diamonds don't behave, the most likely shapes for lho appear to be 4=1=4=4 or 4=1=5=3, and I have a slight preference for the former. So I play a diamond to the Q and a club to the Q. If it loses to the K and a spade comes back, I win, cash the diamond K and A, just in case the suit breaks, and then lead a low club to the Ace. This makes when LHO began with KJx or Kxxx or any holding in clubs missing the K. It also has the advantage of looking sexy (always the deciding factor, if the bridge odds are equal, on vugraph) when lho had 4=1=5=3 with KJx in clubs and had to decide, early, whether we had 5 diamonds.. if we had Qxx AK Kxxxx AQ9, this defence is necessary. Oh well, that's more or less what I did (I cashed the CA first). This goes off, because LHO started with10xxxxJ10xxxKxx and they managed to unblock spades such that RHO could win the fourth round to cash his HQ. The vugraph commentators thought I should have played a club towards the 10 after two top hearts, to try and persuade LHO to play the King from his now Kx, but I'm not convinced that would have worked. Still I think I've been persuaded here that playing on clubs that is the right line, although I prefer a club to the 10 than the duck completely option. At the other table they had a Precision club auction, diamonds were never bid naturally, and LHO led a low diamond which presented the 9th trick. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeh Posted July 9, 2008 Report Share Posted July 9, 2008 The vugraph commentators thought I should have played a club towards the 10 after two top hearts, to try and persuade LHO to play the King from his now Kx, but I'm not convinced that would have worked. FWIW, I think the commentators fell into the trap of analyzing the hand seeing the cards all held. Any opp good enough to discard the club (not that that was tough)and not block the spade and be on vugraph is odds-on good enough not to rise with the club K, nor to give it away... especially since I suspect that he had lots of time in which to plan his defence after he showed out on the heart... I doubt you played to the next trick immediately B) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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