A hand from Puget Sound Regional 2005

[iggygork]

[hv=n=sakjxhaqxxxdxcaxx&s=sxhkjxxxdkxckxxxx]133|200|Scoring: IMP

Somehow or other you get to 6♥ from the South side.[/hv]

 

You are in a slam in a 24 board KO match (3rd bracket out of 4 brackets). You make the slam, you win the match; you don't, you don't. Club is led by LHO.

 

What is the best line? Does your opinion change if you find out that hearts are 2-2 and lefty led his singleton club?

 

See the hidden text below for what we thought was the best theoretical line. I am interested in your opinions as to if knowing the partial distribution changes your preferred line of play.

 

 

Win club, draw trumps, lead low spade to A, ruff S. Now, go back to dummy, take SK. If SQ shows up on this trick (of beforehand) pitch both diamonds. If SQ doesn't show up, then lead low diamond to the King.)

 

 

Gorkem

[mike777]

[hv=n=sakjxhaqxxxdxcaxx&s=sxhkjxxxdkxckxxxx]133|200|Scoring: IMP

Somehow or other you get to 6♥ from the South side.[/hv]

 

You are in a slam in a 24 board KO match (3rd bracket out of 4 brackets). You make the slam, you win the match; you don't, you don't. Club is led by LHO.

 

What is the best line? Does your opinion change if you find out that hearts are 2-2 and lefty led his singleton club?

 

See the hidden text below for what we thought was the best theoretical line. I am interested in your opinions as to if knowing the partial distribution changes your preferred line of play.

 

  Win club, draw trumps, lead low spade to A, ruff S. Now, go back to dummy, take SK. If SQ shows up on this trick (of beforehand) pitch both diamonds. If SQ doesn't show up, then lead low diamond to the King.)

 

Gorkem

Excellent hand with a very common theme.

1) play for drop in long suit and finesse in short suit. Bit of a twist here, but still same theme, thanks for hand.

[Walddk]

Does your opinion change if you find out that hearts are 2-2 and lefty led his singleton club?

It does indeed, especially if I find that 3 outstanding hearts break 2-2 :)

 

Roland

[iggygork]

Whoops, my bad (as usual). I meant 2-1 with LHO holding 2 hearts. (Smacks head)

 

Gorkem

[han]

Mike's line seems best to me too: win club ace, spade ace, spade ruff, pull trump ending in dummy, cash spade king. If no queen: lead a diamond towards the king.

 

The distributional info makes this line slightly worse (diamond ace likely with west, but spades more likely to split 5-3, so that's good) and improves the odds for taking the early spade hook. I think that Mike's line is still the winner though.

[Guest Jlall]

Very interesting hand. If you can guess the ace of diamonds, you are cold.

 

If LHO has it you need to strip the spades (pitching a diamond on the spade), cash a club, and get out a diamond. This line requires lho to have short clubs which seems likely given the lead, as well as the DA. If it was only about distribution, this line is the best.

 

If RHO has the DA, you just need to lead a diamond up after checking for Qx(x) of spades.

 

So who has the DA? Well, LHO led a singleton. Would anyone do that holding an ace against a slam? It is bracket 3, so maybe it's possible, but on this lead I'm going to have to play RHO for the DA.

 

Good problem.

[kfgauss]

So who has the DA? Well, LHO led a singleton. Would anyone do that holding an ace against a slam? It is bracket 3, so maybe it's possible, but on this lead I'm going to have to play RHO for the DA.

This sort of reasoning always strikes me as sort of funny. Perhaps it is in fact true that good players don't lead singletons against slams when they have a side ace, but shouldn't they, assuming they have no lead that is actually "good"? This would confuse the issue of who has the Ace when a short suit is led (or if the rest of your peers are not leading stiffs when they have Aces, it'll lead the opps to guess wrong when you do).

 

Maybe the point is that the difference between leading the singleton and leading something else when you don't expect to get a ruff is larger than the confusion you could cause. Is this true (let's assume you have no other lead that "suggests itself" particularly)? Because you're finessing partner probably and/or giving away distrib info (regarding your stiff)?

[Guest Jlall]

I agree with you if it's the most passive lead it can be right, but it rarely is and here we know it's not as they had xx in trumps.

 

It can often give away a trick by, as you said, finessing partner. I don't think the potential gain of getting declarer to not play you for a side ace is great enough to compensate for that. Even if it is, I don't know anyone who plays that deeply. If they are I will congratulate them on their courage and deceptiveness, but in the long run I think I will win by ignoring the possibilty. In a low bracket KO, however, it can't be ignored that they may just routinely lead stiffs because thats what theyre taught to do.

[mikeh]

The idea behind checking for the Qx(x) of ♠ seems good: if it drops, one concedes a ♣, having pitched the ♦'s away.

 

So we start with winning the ♣ lead in hand, cash a top trump, the ♠A and ruff a ♠ high.

 

If the Q drops in the 1st two rounds, we draw trump, ending in dummy, and take our ♦ pitches.

 

But if it does not, we cross to dummy, drawing the last trump, and cash the ♠K.

 

If east drops the Q, we pitch ♦.

 

If east follows small, what do we do?

 

If we pitch a ♦, and the ♠ does not drop, we can no longer play for the ♦A onside.

 

So we can check for some of the ♠drop possibilities, but not all of them. Fortunately, we can now change horses in mid-stream, and decide that if East follows small to the 3rd round of ♠, we will pitch a ♣, and lead a ♦ towards the K.

 

This is a nice hand, because it is not as simple as trying to drop the ♠Q or leading to the ♦K: you have a choice to make, and you may go wrong if west holds Qxx♠: and the ♦A.

[Fluffy]

drop ♠Q third or endplay someone with ♦A if ♥ are divided.

[Fluffy]

Mmm, now I think of... did south show a 2 suiter in the bidding? then it is not possible that West has ♦A and ♣ shortness, since the lead would be completelly nuts then. I would ruff a ♠, and when cashing ♠K discard a ♣ if ♠Q isn't third with East, and try my chances in ♦.

[mike777]

[hv=d=e&v=n&n=sq53hq87dktcajt87&s=sak74haj95dajc932]133|200|Scoring: IMP

OPENING LEAD=4d[/hv]

 

 

From Frank Stewart's column

3NT BY SOUTH.

[Fluffy]

I don't see that one mike, looks like a % play rather than an endplay, probably ♥A+♥ to the Q is the bestplay, but I'm not sure.

[mike777]

Well Stewart did not use this phrase, but it seems like the same theme, with a twist, but same theme. Play for drop in long suit and finesse in short suit. :blink: