Speedball fun

[kenberg]

Matchpoints, 3 board rounds, 15 min per round, third hand, four minutes to go. I made it, but we are all rushing. Suppose that there is time to think. How to play it?

 

[hv=pc=n&s=sak5hak53d97ck642&n=s6432h742dak86cqt&d=w&v=e&b=16&a=ppp1np2cp2hp2np3nppp]266|200[/hv]

 

About the bidding: I think we were playing four suit transfers and that the 2NT denied a four card major so I (South) would not have bid spades over 2NT even if I had them. Perhaps he thought four to the 6 is not really four cards. Anyway, here I am in 3NT.

 

Club lead 7-T-A(thank you bridge gods)-2.

Club back, 5-4-3-Q.

 

Ok, there are 8 top tricks. We can all agree that a 3-3 fit in a major, if I choose that major to explore, gives me a 9th trick.

 

Anything else? At trick 3 I should do what? GIB doesn't like the choice I made at T3.

 

If you look at their cc (which there is never time to do in a speedball) you find they are playing 4th best leads against NT.

 

This is one of those hands where making or not making shifts back and forth with choices. We are told we should have a plan, but that might be tough here. Anyway, I invite your thoughts.

[steve2005]

Gib may not like the choice you made, but Gib has the advantage of seeing all 4 hands!

I would duck a ♠, next best would try ducking a ♥

[robert2734]

If the lead is fourth best it is from a five card suit ♣ J9875. There could be a squeeze. It's hard to say who is guarding what. Cash ♠ AK and continue a third spade. If they split 3-3 you're home. If west has 4 spades to go with 5 clubs, you'll squeeze east in the red suits. If east has four spades, he can't lead a club so you have time to duck a heart. Either the hearts will split 3-3 or maybe the guy with four hearts has to guard clubs or diamonds. Or you could have a double squeeze where nobody can hold three rounds of diamonds.

[kenberg]

If the lead is fourth best it is from a five card suit ♣ J9875. There could be a squeeze. It's hard to say who is guarding what. Cash ♠ AK and continue a third spade. If they split 3-3 you're home. If west has 4 spades to go with 5 clubs, you'll squeeze east in the red suits. If east has four spades, he can't lead a club so you have time to duck a heart. Either the hearts will split 3-3 or maybe the guy with four hearts has to guard clubs or diamonds. Or you could have a double squeeze where nobody can hold three rounds of diamonds.

 

There seem to be various squeeze possibilities and in fact an imperfect one developed. If I play AK and another spade E is in, has another spade, and presumably cashes it. I will have to find a discard. If I want to duck a heart hoping for 3-3, I can't throw a heart. If I pitch a club I give up any hope of a double squeeze since that club was my threat. And if I pitch a diamond then a diamond play after the spade cash uses my last diamond entry so I have to cash diamonds now. Of course W has to be pitching on these two spades as well.

 

I think it is tricky. I ducked a spade, a club came back, E throwing a diamond. I cashed the spade AK, E started with four. I led a club, W took both his clubs. I think I am down if he doesn't. e was 4-4 in the majors and their clubs plus my high diamonds squeezed him, the 4th spade still on the board and the third heart still in my hand.

 

I was thinking it might have been better to play a spade to my hand and then lead the club K. I don't really mind if they later take the other two clubs, and E has to find a discard.

 

Steve is right that Gib gets to see all of the hands, and gets to run computer simulations as well. It seems that I am likely to be able to make this against most distributions, but what works against one distribution might not against other distributions.

 

 

i am uncertain about the percentage line. I think it helped that we were playing speedball.

[quiddity]

I'd probably play a top card from both major suits and hope to get honest count signals. Failing that I flip a coin.

[kenberg]

I'd probably play a top card from both major suits and hope to get honest count signals. Failing that I flip a coin.

Should they give honest count? From the play to the first two tricks I think defenders and declarer have a pretty good fix on where all of the clubs are. E tarted with A5, W started with five clubs headed by (at most) the J. The hearts are settled by the Stayman bid. Surely declarer has four or five, and since he has four clubs I would rule out five hearts. Most would not open 1NT on that. So they can see declarer is 3=4=2=4 or 2-4-3-4. If he advances the spade king that would be fairly weird holding only AK tight, actually any spade from a 2 card holding is unlikely, so the play of a spade, including the duck I made, should make declarer's 3=4=2=4 shape a virtual certainty. No need for signals, they could and probably should play spots in random order.

 

Which is not to say that they won't give hones count. They might, but I would not bet heavily on it. Defenders can see just as clearly as declared can that he would like to set up a long card in one of the majors, and they might decline to help him choose which one. Maybe go with the coin flip. Or lead a top spade and trust them to lie. This is an interesting game we play.

[kuhchung]

I give honest count more often than I should. It's become sort of automatic.

[kenberg]

I give honest count more often than I should. It's become sort of automatic.

 

This would be an interesting topic for a collection of hands. on a hand such as this, it seems the distribution is a matter of logic. But of course opponents do not always bid as expected, so maybe count is needed.

[nullve]

A good practical line (because I trust opps not to continue diamonds when they get in) might be to play a small diamond from dummy at trick 3. This will e.g. give RHO a genuine problem if he has Qxxx, and partly rectify the count for a (real or imagined) suicide squeeze against RHO if LHO is kind enough to cooperate.