This time I make a mess on the practice table

[pilowsky]

I'll give you the bidding and lead with North and South.

Result hidden below - I messed up and went off 2, working it out afterwards.

East passed, I rated my hand as 17 using the Pilowsky calculator. Turns out KR gives it 16.8. So I'm optimistic.

I venture into the ring with a delicate 1♣.

West astonishes me with 2NT 'unusual etc'. My partner; the bewildering North robot bids 3♣ - "competitive raise" 4+♣ yeah right.

East supports West - at least one of the robots is facing in the right direction.

I decide to show partner what I'm made of; 3S "5+♣;4+♠; 21-HCP; 19-22 total points" This bid is about 80% true - pretty good.

West puts up the white flag. North goes for broke 4NT. 5♥: 100% true.

6♣ by North. And West BANGS down his A♦: can you make it?

[hv=pc=n&s=sakt6hq2d5ca98732&n=s42ha73d9874ck654&d=e&v=n&b=2&a=p1c2n3c3h3sp4np5hp6cppdpprppp]399|300[/hv]

 

here's the whole hand

[hv=pc=n&s=sakt6hq2d5ca98732&w=s87hkjt98daqjt2cj&n=s42ha73d9874ck654&e=sqj953h654dk63cqt&d=e&v=n&b=2&a=p1c2n3c3h3sp4np5hp6cppdpprppp]399|300[/hv] Just a suggestion - don't play it the way I did the first time.

[johnu]

 

 

West should be 5-5 or better in hearts and diamonds. If you ruff 2 diamonds, you isolate West's long diamond(s). So draw trump, ruff 2 spade losers in dummy, ruff 2 diamonds, and West will be positionally squeezed on the last trump. With 2 cards to go, West has to keep ♥KJ and ♦J, so must either set up dummy's last diamond, or discard down to a singleton ♥K.

 

[pilowsky]

 

 

West should be 5-5 or better in hearts and diamonds. If you ruff 2 diamonds, you isolate West's long diamond(s). So draw trump, ruff 2 spade losers in dummy, ruff 2 diamonds, and West will be positionally squeezed on the last trump. With 2 cards to go, West has to keep ♥KJ and ♦J, so must either set up dummy's last diamond, or discard down to a singleton ♥K.

 

 

Thanks! took me a while - again...

[uhhlv]

You must be careful if west plays another ♦ at the second trick.

After ruffing it and drawing all of the trumps you can only get back into the hand by ruffing 2 more ♦. In this case you don´t have any ♦ left for the squeeze.

So what you have to do is to draw only 1 round of trumps with the king. Then 3 rounds of ♠ and ruffing it on north. Then draw the last trump, ruff a ♠, ruff a diamond, play all of the ♣.

 

You can only win if west has the ♥K and exactly 1 ♣.