An Intermediate/Advanced hand?? (lol)

[1eyedjack]

Here is a hand I kibitzed yesterday. I shall probably be hounded out of the club for posting it here, but it is not interesting enough for an "interesting hand", and I reckon that all experts and most advanceds would get it right, so here goes. I would not expect a beginner to know what to do here. Certainly no shame in slipping up. EDIT - maybe last comment a tad patronising. sorry

[hv=d=e&v=n&w=sk87hqdajcqt98753&e=saj96ha87d9872cak]266|100|Scoring: Total Points

You land in the inferior spot of 4S (by East). You momentarily regret missing 3N, but you now have to make the best your situation. South Leads the ♣6. Plan the play. (Clue: you heave a sigh of relief that you did not receive a Diamond lead)[/hv]

[mtvesuvius]

I don't know if I should hide this... Win in dummy and play the AK♠, assuming ♠ are no worse than 4-2 you will have 2 entries to your hand... If someone ruffs the ♣ then you have the A♦ entry and a trump entry, becuase they cannot draw your last trump while you still have the A♦ entry. If everyone pitches, then you can play the A♥ and ruff a ♥ in your hand, then play the Q♣ and pitch a ♥... But now you don't have 2 entries back... Maybe if nobody ruffs the ♣ then you must play for 3-3 trumps? I see a flaw here, and I'm sure there is a way around it but I don't see it...

[xx1943]

After taking ♣A lead play ♠A and try ♣K.

If nobody ruffs, play a ♠ to your K and play on the ♣. Now you are in your hand without wasting an entry.

You win against every 4-2 spilt in ♠.

[vuroth]

Win in dummy...

Good luck! (West is dummy)

 

So I guess the beginner error is AK♠, then you find that spades are 4/2. You can't draw the last spade without returning to your hand, but then you can't get back to dummy to run the clubs.

 

xx1943's looks right, I guess. Not an easy hand, for sure.

[mtvesuvius]

Yes... Al's line looks SO much better now... I almost want to LOL myself.

[1eyedjack]

Yes, Al is right

[hv=d=e&v=n&n=s53hkt653dk64cj42&w=sk87hqdajcqt98753&e=saj96ha87d9872cak&s=sqt42hj942dqt53c6]399|300|Scoring: Total Points

East is in 4S on lead of ♣6[/hv]

I don't mention the bidding, to spare blushes, suffice it to say that East opened 1♦ playing a weak 1N style, which is fine, and West bid Clubs.

 

A quick comment about the opening lead, first. I don't criticise opening leads unless it is clear-cut, and I don't think there is anything clear-cut about the lead on this hand. However a diamond lead (other than ten) does beat the contract, so perhaps on this occasion a useful rule of thumb does work: Generally speaking (and there will always be exceptions) it is not best practice to try to establish ruffs when you have a strong trump holding of your own with the potential of gaining trump control. Whether that maxim would guide you to leading the suit opened by East is debatable.

 

From East's perspective the lead has some superficial appearances of being a doubleton, with both the 4 and 2 missing, but you probably should read it as a singleton on the grounds that leading Clubs is generally an unattractive proposition after West has bid the suit, so some added incentive to lead it may be required, which might indicate a singleton. In fact whether you read it as singleton or doubleton makes no difference to the play of the hand, but it is good policy to think about these things.

 

I think that declarer's plan is difficult for a beginner. There are no immediate losers, but the potential for several. There is a source of tricks (Clubs) provided that you can get to them, and there are not enough trumps in dummy to cater for East's red suit losers once the Aces have gone, so it does look like the Club tricks are going to be needed. An added complication is declarer's weak trump holding.

 

Which leads to another rule of thumb. I generally dislike operating by rules of thumb, because if you get into the habit of them then you get out of the habit of thinking properly about each hand: all rules of thumb come with exceptions. But if you are a beginner, are completely lost on the hand, running into time pressure etc, then it gives you a crutch on which to fall back, so here goes: If in a trump contract you have a choice between establishing extra tricks by ruffs and extra tricks by establishing a side suit, more often than not it is better to go for the side suit. As rules of thumb go, this one probably has more exceptions than others, but it is worth bearing in mind because in my observation beginners tend to go for the ruffs too often when the alternative is available.

 

And the final rule of thumb applicable to this hand (to which the above caveats apply of course): If you lack control of the trump suit, it is often a good idea to use the run of a side suit to assist in drawing trumps, at least until such time as you have trump control. Remember that if the suits are breaking poorly, the odds are that the defender with the trump length is ruffing your side suit, which is a point in your favour, as that is the opponent threatening to control the trump suit.

 

On this hand you can afford to lose three tricks, one or two of which you can afford to be defenders ruffing Clubs to give you control of the trump suit. So you unblock the club suit, not right bothered if the second round gets ruffed. When you get back in, draw 2 rounds of trumps ending in the hand with the long clubs. It is important to draw 2 rounds at this stage because what you don't want to happen is the opponent with short trumps ruffing the clubs. That would do you no good in gaining back control of the trump suit. It is important to end in West's hand where the clubs are after doing this, hence Ace first then King. So then you revert back to Clubs, discarding red suit losers, and let them ruff when they want. Note that it doesn't matter if the trumps break 3-3. Let them get their two ruffs, you still come to 10 tricks.

 

You have just enough entries to Clubs to do all this: K of Spades, Ace of Diamonds and a heart ruff. It is interesting that they do not rank equally in importance in the timing. Using up the Ace of Diamonds entry prematurely kills the hand for you, and it may be instructive to play around with it in GIB to see why (and also why the diamond ten lead lets the contract through, although that is not B/I stuff I think).