Commonwealth Challenge

[PhantomSac]

I don't see any way that you can get the diamond count right. The opponents are not on your side. West led a top diamond, and even if his partner gave true count, he could have played the same card with a singleton. East will always bare the king of spades and keep his second diamond. This is the Commonwealth Championship, not the National Newcomers' Pairs.

 

lol

[PhantomSac]

I know I should know better than to feed the trolls at this point but I will attempt to make a constructive post since it is an interesting hand.

 

Lamford: For starters, you won't just need RHO to keep his diamond, you will need LHO to come down to a stiff diamond whenever he holds 6 diamonds. When your endgame is:

 

AQ

x

xx

--

 

x

AK9

T

 

If there are THREE diamonds outstanding you will pretty much know that LHO has 2 and RHO has 1. Ah yes, it's the COMMONWEALTH GAMES so I'm sure LHO might come down to 3 diamonds and pitch hearts/spades early just to mess with us. Or not. If there are 2 diamonds outstanding, I would bet they are not 1-1. Yes, it's the highly prestigious COMMONWEALTH GAMES so I'm sure all players will easily unguard diamonds looking at 2 little in dummy, without even knowing if we are the one with the third diamond yet or not (no doubt their partner pitched count in every suit so the diamond count will be known to LHO, because in the COMMONWEALTH GAMES everyone pitches honest count despite being completely double dummy, so that LHO can just boldly unguard dummy's suit, the only suit he has guarded).

 

In real life if you think LHO might be down to 1 diamond or 3 diamonds in this position 100 % of the time because it is the COMMONWEALTH GAMES, well that's absolutely retarded, I'll say 99 % + they won't.

 

On top of that, RHO might erroneously pitch a diamond on the run of 7 clubs some percentage of the time. Yes, that would be a poor play, but sometimes when getting squeezed in the majors you pitch your small diamond early on before knowing exactly what is happening.

 

Maybe you should try thinking about what others post rather than dogmatically assuming that in the COMMONWEALTH GAMES everyone plays 100 % percent perfectly. Of course RHO if it comes down to it will stiff their spade but that does not matter unless their partner has also stiffed their diamond while looking at 2 diamonds in dummy, and that is an incredibly deep and hard play. To think you can never read the end position here shows more about your bridge ability and less about the strength of the COMMONWEALTH GAMES. I bet it would make you a better bridge player, but obviously your goal of your troll posts is to simply prove your superiority rather than to learn anything about bridge.

 

I was going to write a much longer post about some of the other absurd things you have said but it doesn't really matter. If you think that LHO (not RHO) is so good that you cannot ever read the diamond count then gl to you.

[nige1]

Phantomsac "Sour grapes" because America is no longer a British colony :)

[lamford]

I was going to write a much longer post about some of the other absurd things you have said but it doesn't really matter.

I didn't notice any attack on you in any of my posts, and I will not rise to the bait, nor will I include the name of the event in capital letters on six different occasions in a puerile manner. This is the expert forum, not the novice and beginner forum, and therefore we should assume perfect defence in any discussion of the merits of any line. I did go to the trouble of dealing 24 boards and looking at the various lines with perfect defence, and thought that drawing trumps and finessing the spade was correct; yes I did consider what everyone else said, and I rejected the "psycho" line of ducking the first diamond, and rejected the line of playing the "squeeze/endplay" and even adjusted those lines for perfect defence of baring the king of spades. I was already confident that those two lines were quite a bit inferior based on a painstaking analysis of a mere 24 boards. I did go to the trouble of estimating the chance of success of several lines, and revised my original estimate of mikeh's line upwards. The problem with all fancy lines is that they need you to guess the ending, and I disagree with PhilKing that continuing diamonds, if declarer ducks, is not blindingly obvious. I still maintain that the correct line is to draw trumps and finesse the spade. Your line would also have succeeded on the actual layout. The hand is an open book after the diamond has been won, as declarer clearly has one spade, seven clubs, two hearts and one diamond, and is looking for a twelfth trick. Your suggestion that they might not keep the right number of diamonds to give you a guess is rejected, at least in the expert forum. You would, no doubt, be correct in the other forums, and I might well play differently in the real world. That is not the discussion in this thread.

 

PhilKing had the view that the defence will switch to a spade automatically if you duck the diamond. I disagree; I think they will continue diamonds. One aspect of my posts which was indeed a jest was that West would find the (only) defence of an initial low heart lead from Jxx Jxx KQJxxx x and that was a completely unjustified dig at PhilKing (to whom I apologise) who carelessly wrote some rubbish on BBO about a declarer "fluffing his lines". I don't genuinely think anyone would ever find this defence, which fatally attacks declarer's communications for the compound squeeze. And, for the avoidance of doubt, I have no desire to start a flame war with you, as I generally find your posts interesting, and certainly not retarded.

 

And, yet again, the point of no return has been reached on a thread, where I am not prepared to post any more for reasons of time. If that is a lame reply, so be it, but I will not post on this thread again. And looking at the 24 hands again, the correct strategy for East is to keep a second diamond whenever he has two diamonds and the king of spades. He then gets his full equity, as phantomsac will try to endplay him and fail. His partner will have no problem in coming down to one diamond as well, as other lines will give in.

[PhilKing]

So it would appear that, if one assumes that lefty started with ♦KQJxxx, the contract is a spread by winning the first trick, since one can still exit a diamond in a perfectly defended end-game.

 

The only danger is that righty started with ♦Jx. I spoke to East (the author of a book on preemepts), and he stated that the chances of him not bidding 4♦ at the vulnerabilty with seven was somewhat unlikely.

[rhm]

I spoke to East (the author of a book on preemepts), and he stated that the chances of him not bidding 4♦ at the vulnerabilty with seven was somewhat unlikely.

I am not sure, but maybe because I will never write a book about this subject. :P

Obviously the colors are optimal for maximum aggression.

Against that opponents are already forced to game and each has named presumably their longest suit already.

At this point a high-level preempt has much less to gain and risks much more.

Opponents are likely to get the decision right far more often when to defend and how and when not.

A high preempt may even help them to value their hands better.

I get more conservative under those conditions.

It is not like a preempt in first seat or directly over a strong artificial opening and higher is not always better.

 

Rainer Herrmann

[lamford]

As a final footnote, I have established, but not beyond reasonable doubt which PhilKing can perhaps do, that declarer exited with a heart in this ending:

[hv=pc=n&s=s5h9dtc&w=sk9hdqc&n=saqhd6c&e=sjhqtdc]300|300[/hv]

Given that West had shown out of hearts, doubtless rhm would have commented, "An embarrassing play at this level. After that declarer was indeed dead." I am even more convinced that a declarer who cannot reliably add up to thirteen should have just taken the spade finesse.

 

"To think you can never read the end position here shows more about your bridge ability and less about the strength of the COMMONWEALTH GAMES."- Phantomsac

[PhantomSac]

As a final footnote, I have established, but not beyond reasonable doubt which PhilKing can perhaps do, that declarer exited with a heart in this ending:

[hv=pc=n&s=s5h9dtc&w=sk9hdqc&n=saqhd6c&e=sjhqtdc]300|300[/hv]

Given that West had shown out of hearts, doubtless rhm would have commented, "An embarrassing play at this level. After that declarer was indeed dead." I am even more convinced that a declarer who cannot reliably add up to thirteen should have just taken the spade finesse.

 

"To think you can never read the end position here shows more about your bridge ability and less about the strength of the COMMONWEALTH GAMES."- Phantomsac

 

Are you ***** dense? This end position is never possible unless declarer pitched a diamond too early, DO YOU SEE WHY?

 

LOL AT SAYING THIS:

 

"To think you can never read the end position here shows more about your bridge ability and less about the strength of the COMMONWEALTH GAMES."- Phantomsac

 

AS IF IT CONDRADICTS ME WHEN IT IN FACT PROVES MY EXACT QUOTE LOLOLOLOL

[lamford]

Are you ***** dense? This end position is never possible unless declarer pitched a diamond too early, DO YOU SEE WHY?

 

LOL AT SAYING THIS:

 

AS IF IT CONDRADICTS ME WHEN IT IN FACT PROVES MY EXACT QUOTE LOLOLOLOL

I refer the honourable gentleman to the answer I gave some moments before, that I would not continue to analyse this hand, save to say that the end position above was actually reached at the table, and I agree the declarer misplayed it to here, and continued to misplay it after here. It might be better for you to read what I wrote rather than continue to make a fool of yourself. And the word is "contradicts" rather than "condradicts".

 

http://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?bbo=y&linurl=http://www.bridgebase.com/tools/vugraph_linfetch.php?id=35351

 

And that must be my last word. Except to ask the moderators if they know how to get the diagram above larger!

[PhantomSac]

As a final footnote, I have established, but not beyond reasonable doubt which PhilKing can perhaps do, that declarer exited with a heart in this ending:

[hv=pc=n&s=s5h9dtc&w=sk9hdqc&n=saqhd6c&e=sjhqtdc]300|300[/hv]

Given that West had shown out of hearts, doubtless rhm would have commented, "An embarrassing play at this level. After that declarer was indeed dead." I am even more convinced that a declarer who cannot reliably add up to thirteen should have just taken the spade finesse.

 

"To think you can never read the end position here shows more about your bridge ability and less about the strength of the COMMONWEALTH GAMES."- Phantomsac

 

I cannot stop laughing. It would be funny if lamford made up this end position as a trolling attempt, because it is one of the most beautiful posts of all time. It has everything.

 

--Apparently declarer exited a HEART after LHO had shown out of hearts [given that west had shown out of hearts]???? Yes, that is indeed embarassing since the guy is known to have 2 heart cashers?

--Apparently RHO actually did pitch their diamond (based on PhilKings comments here diamonds were 6-2?)

--Apparently declarer pitched their diamond too early, NOT reaching the correct position that I was talking about, even when RHO had pitched a diamond lol?

--Lamford not understanding that this position would be impossible with the line I was discussing? If we go back a trick when LHO pitched on the HK dummy would have AQ of spades and 2 diamonds. LHO would have Kx of spades and 2 diamonds. If LHO pitched a diamond we would pitch a spade and claim of course, so they would have to pitch their spade.

 

Based on this lamford thinks that the opponents will never mispitch or err ever and in the EXPERT FORUM we are supposed to assume completely perfect play at all times.

 

And all of this after the whole "I'm not going to rise to the bait, this is my last post in this thread" followed by his sick burn of quoting my apparently correct quote given that lamford STILL does not understand anything about this hand, despite it being posted multiple times, especially the discarding that LHO would have to do to confuse the issue ever (he is stuck on well OBV RHO will keep his diamond...though he seems not to have, that wasn't even the point lol).

 

But yeah, sick burn that declarer did not keep his diamonds and then misguessed the endposition and apparently attempted to endplay a guy who was known to have 2 winners left. Hahaha, what a timeless post, for one so short especially. Either the greatest troll post or the most clueless post of all time. Beautiful.

[PhantomSac]

I refer the honourable gentleman to the answer I gave some moments before, that I would not continue to analyse this hand, save to say that the end position above was actually reached at the table, and I agree the declarer misplayed it to here, and continued to misplay it after here. It might be better for you to read what I wrote rather than continue to make a fool of yourself. And the word is "contradicts" rather than "condradicts". And that must be my last word.

 

Haha, you are really too amazing to be real.

 

You say this:

 

I refer the honourable gentleman to the answer I gave some moments before, that I would not continue to analyse this hand, save to say that the end position above was actually reached at the table, and I agree the declarer misplayed it to here, and continued to misplay it after here. It might be better for you to read what I wrote rather than continue to make a fool of yourself.

 

You realize we can all read what you wrote, and we all know that's a lie?

 

You actually said:

 

And, yet again, the point of no return has been reached on a thread, where I am not prepared to post any more for reasons of time. If that is a lame reply, so be it, but I will not post on this thread again.

 

You should not just outright lie when your words are written here lol. You said you weren't going to post in this thread any more, and then you posted again not long after. And then when I reply to your post you say I look foolish? LOL. Apparently in lamfordland, the guy who says he's not going to post anymore in a thread and acts like he's taking the high ground, and then posts again with a dig at someone a few hours later, then gets to say that the person who replies to that is the one who looks foolish. He also gets to lie and say he said he wasn't going to post again except to give the final result of the hand. Sorry but you are the one making a complete fool out of yourself here.

 

And good job correcting my typo. That's a sick burn, you got me. I was laughing too hard at your post I guess, it was really awesome. You are the gift that keeps on giving.

[mikeh]

Wow. I have been avoiding this thread out of embarrassment about my initial 'solution', written (I claim) in a hurry. Clearly preserving diamonds in dummy on the run of the trump was the obvious thing to do, to complicate life for the opps and to (significantly) increase the squeeze odds. I like to think that I would automatically have done so, despite my post suggesting otherwise. Anyway, the upshot was that I missed all the subsequent byplay, which takes me back in time to when this sort of back and forth was almost routine (with me, all too often, being one of the back and forthers :P )

 

On reflection, I don't miss those old days much. However, calling someone out for a typo is a bit much :P

[lamford]

However, calling someone out for a typo is a bit much :P

I agree; I apologise for that. And your original post was certainly not a embarrassing as declarer's play on the hand.

[MrAce]

I agree; I apologise for that. And your original post was certainly not a embarrassing as declarer's play on the hand.

 

Indeed spell checking is a sign of losing the debate. But if you are going to do it anyway, at least you could try to avoid the typo yourself, in your very last of the promised last posts in this topichttp://www.bridgebase.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif

[lamford]

You said you weren't going to post in this thread any more, and then you posted again not long after.

I lied. I do it all the time when I give false count, lead fifth best instead of promised fourth. Normally, anyway, undertaking not to post again and then doing so is regarded as "breach of promise" rather than lying. Politicians do that all the time. Am I bovvered?

[lamford]

Indeed spell checking is a sign of losing the debate. But if you are going to do it anyway, at least you could try to avoid the typo yourself, in your very last of the promised last posts in this topichttp://www.bridgebase.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif

I am sure that I made others, if we are going to find faults. And is it "spell checking" rather than "spell-checking" in Texas? And I wasn't aware that an emoticon could be used instead of a full-stop.

[lamford]

So it would appear that, if one assumes that lefty started with ♦KQJxxx, the contract is a spread by winning the first trick, since one can still exit a diamond in a perfectly defended end-game.

 

The only danger is that righty started with ♦Jx. I spoke to East (the author of a book on preemepts), and he stated that the chances of him not bidding 4♦ at the vulnerabilty with seven was somewhat unlikely.

This is by far the most interesting of the recent posts, rather than the childish squabbles about typos which I foolishly and unjustifiably started, for which I again apologise. I think, however, you are wrong. If West started with something like ♠xxx ♥Jxx ♦KQJxxx ♣x which is probably his most likely hand, you need to duck the opening lead. If you win it and run the clubs coming down to the ending that you probably have in mind, then West keeps two diamonds and three hearts and there is no way home.

[hv=pc=n&s=s5hak9dtc4&w=s9hJ72dqjc&n=saqth8d64c&e=skjhqt5d7c]300|300[/hv]

South leads the last club, and West pitches a spade, and it does not matter what you throw from North. And this does not require any great knowledge of squeezes by EW, or any Phantomsac magic of keeping or pitching a second diamond by East. East can throw his second diamond any time he likes - as his first discard if he likes.

 

And this time we do not have the option of reading the ending. When I went through the 24 hands that I dealt, I assumed that the declarer would guess the ending half the time, where one line worked and one did not. I stand by that approach.

 

If West starts with ♠xxxx ♥Jx ♦KQJxxx ♣x, then you obviously have to win the opening lead, but you now have a simple squeeze without the count on East, regardless of the diamond layout. If East has a second diamond, he is in theory squeezed out of it, but he should bare the king of spades instead. It will be blindingly obvious in the five card ending, which is the first time East comes under pressure, that to come down to ♠KJ ♥QTx is fatal. We then reach this ending:

[hv=pc=n&s=s5h9dtc&w=s9hdqjc&n=saqhd6c&e=skhqd7c]300|300[/hv]

The lead is in South, and we do not know whether East has a second spade, in which case West will have three diamonds. Of course, we will guess this over half the time from the tempo, but I feel sure that East at the table, who won a prize at the Lederer a couple of years ago for playing a hand better than Zia, and goes under the sobriquet of "The Learned Doctor", would have defended well. West has to co-operate by keeping a spade, but this he will do automatically by having to keep two diamonds and only having been dealt two hearts in our putative layout.

[PhantomSac]

Nice to have you back posting in this thread. Earlier you said:

 

I still maintain the correct line is to win the first diamond, draw trumps and take the spade finesse.

 

Do you still maintain this?

[PhantomSac]

I have so far gone through 24 hands consistent with the auction, and, while your line, or other lines, worked more often than the simple spade finesse, they often required one to cheat by looking at the opponents' cards. In the 24 hands I dealt, which is admittedly a small sample, the spade finesse worked on nine of them (which accords with the expected value of 6.5/18), and your line worked on six.

 

This was also an interesting post, can you explain it? My line always has the option of playing for the SK to be on in the endgame. So why did my line work on 3 less hands than taking the spade finesse? Do you realize why what you said makes absolutely no sense and hurts your credibility?

[MrAce]

I am sure that I made others, if we are going to find faults. And is it spell checking rather than spell-checking in Texas? And I wasn't aware that an emoticon could be used instead of a full-stop.

 

It was just to mess around with you, since you enabled yourself wide open to it. LoL, sorry but you did.http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/cool.gif

It ain't just an emoticon, it's a big DOT with eyes and a tongue hanging from the mouth in it.

And your example of "breaching the promise by politicians" is one of the funniest attempts I had seen, in order to justify not doing the things that you said you will do. Besides your attempt to post the end position which was created by an awful declarer play, after giving us a lecture about the strength of THE COMMONWEALTH games and expected defense level. Must be an event of expert defenders vs national newcomers' declarers! http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif

 

You damn well know that I do not care about your faults in spelling or typos. You do that. You did that in the past too. It's your native language and each and every single time you can not shoot back reasonable arguments, you just turn back and try to drag the debate down to language skills, spell checking, grammar checking...I know it's embarrassing when you start a topic in the expert forum and can not even understand what a top expert replied to you, even after repeatedly and very well explained.

 

But seriously, you need to just ST*U already. Chill the ***** down and go get your nuts rubbed!

 

EDITED to fix a typo!

[PhantomSac]

I lied. I do it all the time when I give false count, lead fifth best instead of promised fourth. Normally, anyway, undertaking not to post again and then doing so is regarded as "breach of promise" rather than lying. Politicians do that all the time. Am I bovvered?

 

It is one thing to say you are not posting again in a thread and post. It is another to say that you said you were not posting again "save to say that the end position above was actually reached at the table." Do you see the difference? You did not actually say the 2nd part, so you lied about what you said. Even that's not so bad (though it doesn't make much sense when your words are written for all to see), but you used that to say that I was making a fool of myself for responding to your post.

[PhantomSac]

Besides your attempt to post the end position which was created by an awful declarer play, after giving us a lecture about the strength of THE COMMONWEALTH games and expected defense level. Must be an event of expert defenders vs national newcomers' declarers!

 

But wait, Timo, that's not fair! We also got lectured that RHO would never pitch their diamond, when in fact they did, so it was also national newcomers defenders, not experts!

[MrAce]

But wait, Timo, that's not fair! We also got lectured that RHO would never pitch their diamond, when in fact they did, so it was also national newcomers defenders, not experts!

 

That's true. It is kinda hard to keep up and see all the inconsistencies produced by Lamford. http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/blink.gif I missed that part tbh.

We need to change the name of the topic to "Common B***fest Challenge". http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/cool.gif

[PhantomSac]

This is the expert forum, not the novice and beginner forum, and therefore we should assume perfect defence in any discussion of the merits of any line.

 

That's interesting, so in your opinion experts defend perfectly and that is what we should base our lines on? Or is your opinion simply that we should change the expert forum to the theoretical forum?

 

I did go to the trouble of dealing 24 boards and looking at the various lines with perfect defence, and thought that drawing trumps and finessing the spade was correct; yes I did consider what everyone else said, and I rejected the "psycho" line of ducking the first diamond, and rejected the line of playing the "squeeze/endplay" and even adjusted those lines for perfect defence of baring the king of spades. I was already confident that those two lines were quite a bit inferior based on a painstaking analysis of a mere 24 boards.

 

That's interesting, how can drawing trumps and taking a spade finesse ever be better than running all your clubs and coming down to this ending:

 

AQ

x

xx

--

 

x

AK9

T

 

Even if your plan is always to take the spade finesse, you can still do that. You get a free roll that RHO has pitched a diamond. If they have done so, you are cold unless the SK is off and LHO started with 3+ hearts. You have zero risk also. You cash the AK of hearts. If LHO shows out they have to pitch a spade. Now if RHO is down to 1 heart you can endplay them, if they are down to 2 hearts then spades are 1-1. This does not require anything other than to be able to count to 13. If LHO follows twice to the hearts, we know they are down to 2 diamonds and 1 major suit card. If there are 3 spades and 1 heart remaining, we can play a heart, if RHO has it they are endplayed, if LHO has it we were not going to make it if we pulled trumps and took a spade finesse anyways. So we just gained something over immediately finessing the spade, a line that you are confident is right, and risked nothing. If there are 2 spades and 2 hearts remaining, we can play a spade. If LHO follows then spades are 1-1. Again, this just requires counting to 13, there is no risk.

 

If RHO does not pitch a diamond and you think you have no edge in reading any end position, you can just take your finesse and you have lost nothing. Why not try, would it be insulting to our COMMONWEALTH GAMES opps? You lose absolutely nothing, so it makes me wonder about your intellectual honesty when you say that this line makes 6 times out of 24 when an immediate spade finesse makes 9 times out of 24, or that you "maintain the correct line is to draw trumps and take a spade finesse" when that strategy is clearly dominated by coming down to this ending and seeing what has happened since you don't have to risk anything at all.

 

All of this information has already been laid out to you but you stubbornly "maintain" your position, it's quite fascinating.

 

Since you have already lied (by your own admission and words) and been proven to be wrong about bridge and judgement many times in this very thread, I wonder if you even went over these 24 hands, and if you did why you would not post them here and show your "logic" and assumptions so we can discuss them. It doesn't even matter though as even without the hands posted it is obvious that you have gone very wrong somewhere.

[lamford]

This was also an interesting post, can you explain it? My line always has the option of playing for the SK to be on in the endgame. So why did my line work on 3 less hands than taking the spade finesse? Do you realize why what you said makes absolutely no sense and hurts your credibility?

No, because you can go off on lines with the king of spades right by attempting the endplay on East. I assumed that you guess the play half the time where one layout works and one does not. Your line does have the option of playing for the SK to be on in the endgame. If you are going to do that whenever there is no alternative, then both lines are the same. If you play a second diamond instead when there are two diamonds out, then you can go off when West has the king of spades, whether or not he has bared it.