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Defend or declare?


twcho

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[hv=d=e&v=b&n=sakjt5hdq742ckq75&w=s76hk987dak863cj9&e=s943haqj42dt95ca6&s=sq82ht653djct8432]399|300|Scoring: IMP[/hv]

This is board 10 of the 1st segment of quarterfinal of Rosenblum.

 

Contract is 4 by north. Which side will you bet?

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declarer seems destined to succeed - he should be able to forsee the force and plan accordingly, i.e. repeatedly ruff high so he can eventually be forced into reversing the dummy and hooking against the 9 of trumps

Too lazy to figure out the minute details but I feel like repeated trump leads cause both communication issues and leave him/her a trick short. Either he doesn't have enough entries to dummy to ruff 3 hearts in hand, or he doesn't have enough time to ruff 2 diamonds in dummy, and never comes to more than 4 clubs and 5 spades.

 

There's probably some dumb squeeze ending that I can't see though.

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Excellent problem and I bet on the defence.

 

Declarer has to lose the lead twice before drawing trumps, once in clubs and once in diamonds. So the defence will be on play three times. The first two times they should force declarer in hearts. If declarer doesn't retain the 5 then a third heart force will leave him unable to reach dummy to draw trumps.

 

If declarer does ruff high twice he will be left with AK5 opposite Q82 in trumps. A trump return now will be fatal because declarer cannot win, ruff something, and still draw trumps. Also the defence must hold up once in clubs, otherwise there will be a high club entry to North.

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