Uninteresting hand

[nige1]

[hv=pc=n&s=sk54h9854dq5ck872&n=s2haqdk864caqj943&d=w&v=N&b=8&a=p1c1sd(NEG)p3c3S3nppp]266|200| Harry Smith's Lockdown Teams. A board of little interest but partner says I misplayed it, so I'm posting it here for comment. Against 3N, West led ♠9 to East's ♠T and South's ♠K. South cashed 6 ♣s. West followed twice, then discarded ♠76 ♦7 and ♥3. East followed once, then chucked ♦239 ♥2 and ♠3. Opponents play reverse-attitude but no count or McKenny. Do you approve of the play so far? What would you do now?

 

I've belatedly added a poll

[/hv]

Edited November 9, 2020 by nige1

[smerriman]

Nice defense by East to bare the king of hearts, but I'll drop it anyway.

[Cyberyeti]

How good is E, and how aggressive is W. Something doesn't add up here. Either W has 4 spades and hasn't raised or E blanked the ♥K early or E doesn't have ♥K and W has failed to raise with xxx, Kxxxx, J10x, xx or similar. E appears to be 6241 much of the time unless W has failed to raise with a 4432.

[nige1]

How good is E, and how aggressive is W. Something doesn't add up here. Either W has 4 spades and hasn't raised or E blanked the ♥K early or E doesn't have ♥K and W has failed to raise with xxx, Kxxxx, J10x, xx or similar. E appears to be 6241 much of the time unless W has failed to raise with a 4432.

This was our 12th board against these opponents, who both self-rate as Private.. I had not formed an opinion about their style or aggressiveness. Competitors in this event are of variable standard (up to Scottish International) but most are reasonable players.

 

I've added a poll to the topic.

[mikeh]

I don’t understand Cyber’s argument. West clearly had precisely 3 spades, since no competent east would bid 3S on a five card suit.

 

We can infer that east started with 6=2=4=1 shape. Had he 5 diamonds headed by at least the Ace, he’d likely have bid differently.

 

That he has the Ace is obvious from west’s pitches: west would have kept a spade if he had the diamond Ace (plus maybe raised to 2S earlier)

 

Having committed to running the clubs, we cannot now exit a diamond, since east has kept sufficient winners to beat us. Stiffing the heart King is an easy play for a good defender, and stiffing it a trick earlier than he ‘had to’ is also easy....he knew we were cashing that last club winner.

 

So at this stage we have to play east to have stiffed the heart king...we literally have no other hope for the contract.

 

I would assume that we decided on this line at trick 2, since the only other alternative would have been to hook the heart early, before we locked ourselves on the board.

 

As it happens, I like this line. At trick 2, we have to consider east might have 7 spades. With 7 spades, he might have preempted over 1C, and the main reason for not doing so would be holding a good hand, with both important missing red honours.

 

Of course, the hand plays the same way if he had only 6 spades.

 

So I do as the OP implies he did, and then I cash the heart A.

 

This is, of course, a far more long-winded version of smerriman’s succint reply, but I hope that describing the reasoning process may help some readers.

[Cyberyeti]

Mike is of course right, I completely missed the 3♠ bid. The spades are known to be 6-3 (7-2 was possible before the discards) but that W might have raised if he had 9xx, Kxxxx, J10x, xx still applies. Also by the time you find this out you are indeed locked in dummy and have no choice but to try to drop the ♥K.

[nige1]

[hv=pc=n&e=SAQJT3HKT2DA932C6&s=sk54h9854dq5ck872&n=s2haqdk864caqj943&d=w&v=N&b=8&a=p1c1sd(NEG)p3c3S3nppp]300|300| Harry Smith's Lockdown Teams. A board of little interest but partner says I misplayed it, so I'm posting it here for comment. Against 3N, West led ♠9 to East's ♠T and South's ♠K. South cashed 6 ♣s. West followed twice, then discarded ♠76 ♦7 and ♥3. East followed once, then chucked ♦239 ♥2 and ♠3. Opponents play reverse-attitude but no count or McKenny

 

I did warn that the hand isn't interesting. East overcalled 1♠ and rebid 3♠ with a 5-card suit. I would double 3♣ with East's hand. I won the ♠ lead, cashed 6 ♣s. Then continued with ♥A, to go down one, which incurred partner's criticism. I assured him that all BBOers would play as I did. So thanks everybody [/hv]