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Beautiful double dummy problem


cherdano

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[hv=pc=n&s=sqt32h43dak76ck84&w=sa84hqjt92d83ca72&n=sj9hak7dqjt42cqt5&e=sk765h865d95cj963]399|300[/hv]

 

3NT by North. Play or defend?

 

 

P.S.: This hand came up in the BBF vs JEC match today. Not sure I have ever encountered such a beautiful double dummy problem outside a bridge book.

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Arend and I were at the table when this hand came up. It was so interesting, that I saved the hand to analyze it a teaching table later. Quite a few variations are truly double-dummy. If declarer doesn't follow the exact sequence of plays, defense can prevail, but single-dummy, defense finds it hard to exploit it. But there're some useful single-dummy angles too. For EW this feels like a chess problem "mate in 13 moves" :)

 

Declarer starts off by ducking the first . Takes the second one, one high from hand and another to end in dummy. Now play the remaining high from dummy. discard by West is fatal double-dummy as we can see, but even single-dummy, West has to hope that partner has one useful card, the K, as a card doesn't help directly. So let's say he pitches a , East can spare a black card easily. On the next , West can't still afford a , but if he blanks his A, it's over for the defense. Declarer plays a to the Q, cashes one more . West still can't afford a discard, so a now. Declarer cashes high and tucks West in with a for a end-play.

 

So West's second pitch is a . Defense hasn't given up on the hand yet, they can still get 2, 2 and a . Now declarer plays a to Q, cashes the last . West can not blank either of his black Aces, so has to pitch a . After 5, two and a , remaining cards are: West Ax Q - Ax. East in the meanwhile is down to Kxx - - J9 and dummy is QTx - - Kx. Now declarer cashes high , East is forced to pitch a , as does dummy. Declarer exits a and whoever wins the last is end-played to give declarer the game-going trick in .

 

Single-dummy, should declarer give up on the finesse for J ? Not clear. If he did, he could go down in the five card ending above when it was makeable.

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[hv=pc=n&s=sqt32h43dak76ck84&w=sa84hqjt92d83ca72&n=sj9hak7dqjt42cqt5&e=sk765h865d95cJ963&d=n&a=3nppp]360|270|

3NT by North. Play or defend?

P.S.: This hand came up in the BBF vs JEC match today. Not sure I have ever encountered such a beautiful double dummy problem outside a bridge book.

[/hv]

Great problem, Cherdano. Deep finesse says you can succeed by winning a lead with K and cashing JQKA.

  • If LHO discards a black card, then you lead a . But
  • if LHO throws 2 s, then you play on the majors.

This avoids you end-playing yourself as in Fluffy's putative ending.

[hv=pc=n&s=sqJ94hQ4d8763ck43&w=sa87hJT876dKJca65&n=s32hA32dAQ542cqt2&e=skT65hKt5dT9cJ987&d=s&a=3nppp]360|270|

Simplified version with West on lead. At trick 1, East wins K and leads a second , forcing declarer to play for cherdano's pretty over taking squeeze.[/hv]

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I looks like there is a squeeze but I don't see it. Say we duck the lead and play diamonds, discarding for example a spade. In the six card ending, if W keeps A QJ A72 and East keeps K5 5 J96, how can declarer make?

Of course, cash the K before exiting with a spade. West can take his hearts but East's spade trick is gone and the club suit is frozen.

 

But W doesn't neet to keep three clubs afaics. So I would think declarer has to start, before playing out all the diamonds, by playing a low club to the queen. Now West can't afford to bare A.

 

Without seeing the EW hands, the squeeze must have better chances of making DD than the finesse when one takes into consideration that the bidding suggests that W has come points. Even if East has A so your Q loses, you can still squeeze W if he has J and at least one club honour. A hero E may duck the first club trick, maybe.

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..... when one takes into consideration that the bidding suggests that W has come points. Even if East has A so your Q loses, you can still squeeze W if he has J and at least one club honour. .....

 

 

Did I miss something, why do we assume West has some points. The only bidding given was 3NT (I don't believe for a second the opening bid was 3NT),,,, what was the bidding?

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Did I miss something, why do we assume West has some points. The only bidding given was 3NT (I don't believe for a second the opening bid was 3NT),,,, what was the bidding?

At our table et went (south opened)

1*-1-1**-2

pass-pass-3NT

 

1=polish

1=transfer to nt (2 would have been nfb)

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Suppose declarer ducks the lead, wins trick two, plays a low club to the Q and plays the diamonds. In the five card ending:

- W bares A: cash K and throw W in with a spade.

- W bares A: exit a club, Q will be the 9nth trick (they can refuse to give us K but in that case dummy gets a spade trick)

- W keeps only one heart: Play K and dummy keeps black suit parity with East. Now exit spade, opps will have to bring us a club trick.

 

But what if W keeps three spades?[hv=pc=n&s=sqt3hdck8&w=sa84hdca7&n=sj9hkdct5&e=sk7h8dcj9]399|300[/hv]

If we play K, dummy has to discard before West.

If we exit with a spade, East will take, return a heart, again squeezing the dummy.

 

So it seems to me that we must not duck the opening lead. Then we keep the small heart as a menace, forcing at least one opp to keep a heart parity.

 

Is that right?

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It is right that if declarer ducks the opening lead, and leads a club to the queen early, then West can beat him. But he can still make after ducking the opening lead...

cash heart a come tohand via diamond lead club to q then cash four diamonds ending in six cards.west has to preserve two each in black suits.now exit with a spade.

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So it seems to me that we must not duck the opening lead. Then we keep the small heart as a menace, forcing at least one opp to keep a heart parity.

 

Is that right?

I don't think so. There are various lines of play depending on what West does. That's why you need to run AKQJ first: you'll see what LHO discards after which you can anticipate. Ducking or not doesn't make much difference, because you can duck a later.

 

After ducking the 1st trick there is 1 constant: you have to play a to the Q at some point. But you can't do it too quickly, because you need the Q as an entry for the 5th !

1. If he discards at least 1 , you can play a to the Q and score 2 tricks.

2. If he keeps his s and discards s instead, you can play to the Q, K and endplay W

3. If he keeps his s and discards s only, you can play to the Q and develop a trick in s (s are blocked and reds are eliminated)

4. If he keeps his s and discards 1 and 1 , you play to the Q and your last giving West a dilemma: discard means you can develop a (like in 2), discard means he'll get endplayed (like in 3)

 

The point of this hand is that neither West nor East can discard s as long as we have a top .

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After ducking the 1st trick there is 1 constant: you have to play a to the Q at some point. But you can't do it too quickly, because you need the Q as an entry for the 5th !

That's not true. If you always plan to play a club to the Q, then West can beat you by pitching hearts only, for the reasons explained by Fluffy. In any case, I think the solution is explained fairly comprehensively in the post on bridgewinners (linked above).

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No that doesn't work because if we play a club early west can keep spades instead of hearts and dummy will be squeezed. So we need to know west's plan before we decide whether to play a club from dummy or not. Yes I know this has been explained many times but maybe it hasn't been mentioned that one of the keys is that dummy can't afford to discard a club if a club has already been played while dummy can afford to get down to two clubs even if everyone else keeps three.

 

So win the opening lead and play four diamonds ending. in dummy. If West has dicarded a black card we play a club to the Queen. Otherwise we leave the clubs alone so that dummy doesn't get squeezed. Go to the hand with a heart and play diamond and exit for example heart. In the five card ending dummy keeps three spades and two clubs and defenders have only black cards also.

 

Shall we call it a three suited menace guard squeeze? West must dicard either a heart winner or a clyb guard or a spade which he needs as a menace against dummy.

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