[inquiry]

Quote

Bd: 21. IMPS
Dlr: North
Vul: NS

North
S  void          
H AT974        
D QJ543        
C QJT           

South
S AKQJ542      
H Q863         
D A            
C A            


West         North        East           South
             PASS        PASS           1S    
2NT*         DBL          3C            4C
PASS         4H           PASS          6S
PASS        PASS        DBL**         All Pass 

* = unusual for minors
** = DBL is "lightner" asking for unusual lead. Despite this West leads the club 4 (3rd/5th best)

Trick one: Club Q to 7 and ACE.
Trick 2&3: top spades, both follow
Trick 4: Top spade, West discards middle club (standard signals).

Suggest your line of play.

[Free]

Seems to be dependend of the H suit. Take the rest of their spades, play small to the HA, and small (T, 9 or 7) back to finesse the J without overtaking, so you can handle 4-0 distribution (probably, since East wont have D's)...

[Trpltrbl]

inquiry, on Jan 15 2004, 11:15 AM, said:

Quote

Bd: 21. IMPS
Dlr: North
Vul: NS

North
S  void          
H AT974        
D QJ543        
C QJT           

South
S AKQJ542      
H Q863         
D A            
C A            


West         North        East           South
             PASS        PASS           1S    
2NT*         DBL          3C            4C
PASS         4H           PASS          6S
PASS        PASS        DBL**         All Pass 

* = unusual for minors
** = DBL is "lightner" asking for unusual lead. Despite this West leads the club 4 (3rd/5th best)

Trick one: Club Q to 7 and ACE.
Trick 2&3: top spades, both follow
Trick 4: Top spade, West discards middle club (standard signals).

Suggest your line of play.

To get 4 tricks you have 82.78 % chance by playing the A first.
To get 5 tricks you have 6.22 % chance by playing the Q first.
And since you don't have the tansportation to get to dummy often to find out distribution of hand, I will play some trumps and see what is being thrown away, but the 2NT bid helped out since you know that hand has 2 spades and at most 2, so playing the Ace seems to be winning play.

Mike

[mikestar]

Assuming no mistakes on the part of your opponents, you are down one.

If West read the Lightner double correctly and didn't lead hearts, he is void and East has KJxx. Leading to the Ace and finessing doesn't work, East goes up with the King and you can't repeat the finesse.

Your only hope is that East ducks twice insted of grabbing his king

There are other possibilites. West might have failed to lead a heart from J, Jx, xx, or x. The the Ace and finesse line covers all of them.

[inquiry]

Spoiler.... don't read if you want to work on the problem.. This hand is from BBO

North
S void
H AT974
D QJ543
C QJT

South
S AKQJ542
H Q863
D A
C A

Freee narrowed down the problem when he stated "Seems to be depended on the H suit." Since you have no losers in the other suits, this even seems clear to me. :-)

Trpltrbl followed this up with a statistical analysis that you have 82.78 % chance of winning 4 heart tricks by playing the HA first (of course 3H is enough as long as you lose only 1), and a 6.22% chance for 5 tricks by playing the HQ first (or course to win five hearts, you have to throw your away your ACE of diamonds on the fifth one, or else you will be ruffing it). Let's deal with this analysis first. After West showed long minors and showed up with two spades, do we really believe there is a 6.22% that EAST will have a singleton heart Jack giving WEST five cards in the majors on this auction (2S and KJx of hearts)? Obviously that isn't likely, I would say “impossible” as long as WEST didn’t psych.

The second issue, can we take advantage of the 82.78% by cashing the heart ACE first? The truth is, we are certain that hearts are probably 3-1 or 4-0 with EAST having the heart king, so if we had suitable entries, we would be 100% chance of losing only one heart. But entries to dummy, that is THE PROBLEM. Free suggest leading the heart ten from dummy and let it ride after winning the heart ACE. Well, if WEST showed out on the first round of hearts, that is a marked hook, and if West followed on the first round of hearts, this can't happen. Either hearts are 2-2 in which EAST will play an honor, or hearts are 3-1 in which case EAST will play an honor. Since WEST really will not hold 3 hearts, what is the danger here? If hearts are 2-2 or 1-3 (with 3 with EAST), you can surely make by playing low to the HEART ACE and then low back to the heart queen.

But, what if EAST has all four hearts? Is that possible? Free thought leading low to the ACE and finessing the heart TEN will deal with all 4-0 split. But if WEST is 2-0-6-5, when you play low to the HEART ACE, and lead a heart, EAST will jump up with the heart King and exit safely with a minor and sit back and wait for his heart jack to win a second trick. This is what mikestar realized when he said “assuming no mistakes on the part of your opponents, you are down one”

So is all lost if hearts are so unfriendly as to be split 4-0? No, you might still get lucky if you can read the position. If EAST has four hearts, all he need do is keep his four hearts and a club. When you lead a heart from dummy he wins the heart KING and exits the club. But, you can overcome exactly one 4-0 heart split. If EAST has the diamond Kx and the four hearts, he can be squeezed out of his exit card in clubs.

Run all but one trump and throw away some hearts from dummy, keeping QJ of diamonds and AT9x of hearts. You will end up with four hearts, diamond ace and a spade in your hand. Now, you have to decide. Did EAST start with 3 hearts, in which case a heart to the ACE and a heart back, or did EAST begin with 4 hearts. Fortunately, you get some clues in here. East has to find two discards on the two long trumps. If he throws a heart, you play heart to the ACE and a heart. If he throws a diamond, you try diamond ACE and if the king hasn’t been played, you play heart to the ace and a heart. But if he throws two clubs, now you have an interesting option. At this point, if you decide that EAST was 4-4-2-3 with the diamond king (else why not a DIAMOND discard). The position will be:

Quote

S  void          
H AT97        
D QJ        
C void        
                S void
                H KJ52
                D Kx
                C void
South
S 2      
H Q863         
D A            
C void

Here you cash the last trump, discarding anything but the heart ACE (I would discard heart ten, but it makes no difference). If East throws a heart, just play on hearts with low to the ace and heart. If he throws a diamond, cash the diamond ACE, then lead a heart and hook heart on way back. Note, setting up the diamond is not even necessary. It is ok to throw the diamond off the dummy under the last trump, in which case, and play D only if EAST discards one.

In view of the double, and two club discards on trumps, and the lack of a heart opening lead, I would play EAST for all four hearts. If east keeps all four hearts, after the last trump, you have to cash the diamond ACE, then play on hearts.

Note: If WEST has diamond king, and EAST has four hearts, you can not make, as EAST can keep a club exit card.

[inquiry]

I had an opportunity to pull of this same kind of play recently. The hand was

Quote

Matchpoints
None Vul

          S: QJ93
          H: A842
          D: T93
          C: 42

S: --                  S: KT42
H: QJT3              H: 5
D: J842              D: KQ65
C: J9875            C: AQT3

            S: A8765
            H: K976
            D: A7
            C: K6

West  North  East  South
Pass  Pass  1D    1S
DBL    2S      3C    Pass
Pass  3S      DBL  All PAss

First, 3C is a make, and 3S wins 8 tricks, and 3Sx is the par contract. The defense to beat 3S is not hard to find, even late in the hand, but when such vulnerable stopper squeezes without the count show up, the defense can go wrong. Here is the play....

T1. D2 D9 DQ DA
T2. S6 C5 CJ SK
T3. D5 D7 DJ D3
T4. C7 C2 CA C6
T5. H5 H9 HQ HA

This heart lead gave me my chance. The cards have to be played in the right order here. East has 4S-and what looks like 4D, and 4C. So he seems to be 4-1-4-4. I played for this.

T6. S9 S2 S5 C8
T7. S3 S4 S8 D4
T8. S7 D8 SQ ST
T9/ DT DK SA ?

Quote

                S:-
                H: 842
                D: -
                C: 4
S: -
H: JT3
D: -
C: J9
                S: -
                H: K75
                D: -
                C: K

(South has ruffed a diamond, WEST is still to play).

If west discards a heart. Simply cash heart ace and give a heart. So West discarded a club. Now club king, removing the exit card, and low heart endplays WEST. Note the precise order of play starting with the heart switch at trick 5 is required to effect this endplay.

Ben

[cherdano]

Yes, nice squeeze without the count.

But is it just me, or is the bidding a little unusual? Unless 1S is unlimited and forcing, South's hand is a clear strong opening IMHO (i.e. 2C in America). It wouldn't occur to me to play West for having bid 2NT with 3 HCPs. (I admit, the intermediates are good, unless East has them.)

Over 4H, I suppose 4NT should be RKCB for hearts, and this looks like the right bid (as 7 is clearly possible, and easy to find out). But here I can understand the jump to 6S if South is worried about a misunderstanding.

[Trpltrbl]

inquiry, on Jan 15 2004, 04:13 PM, said:

Trpltrbl followed this up with a statistical analysis that you have 82.78 % chance of winning 4 heart tricks by playing the HA first (of course 3H is enough as long as you lose only 1), and a 6.22% chance for 5 tricks by playing the HQ first (or course to win five hearts, you have to throw your away your ACE of diamonds on the fifth one, or else you will be ruffing it). Let's deal with this analysis first. After West showed long minors and showed up with two spades, do we really believe there is a 6.22% that EAST will have a singleton heart Jack giving WEST five cards in the majors on this auction (2S and KJx of hearts)? Obviously that isn't likely, I would say “impossible” as long as WEST didn’t psych.

The second issue, can we take advantage of the 82.78% by cashing the heart ACE first? The truth is, we are certain that hearts are probably 3-1 or 4-0 with EAST having the heart king, so if we had suitable entries, we would be 100% chance of losing only one heart. But entries to dummy, that is THE PROBLEM. Free suggest leading the heart ten from dummy and let it ride after winning the heart ACE. Well, if WEST showed out on the first round of hearts, that is a marked hook, and if West followed on the first round of hearts, this can't happen. Either hearts are 2-2 in which EAST will play an honor, or hearts are 3-1 in which case EAST will play an honor. Since WEST really will not hold 3 hearts, what is the danger here? If hearts are 2-2 or 1-3 (with 3 with EAST), you can surely make by playing low to the HEART ACE and then low back to the heart queen.

First of all don't think we don't have a problem if we open 2, if they still interfere with some amount of NT we know is is based on shape. And also not getting the lead is good indication of that. But I also play against people that think they need to bid on anything.
Just for that reason I said in post that I would play some trumps to see what is getting pitched. And I do have enough trumps to play some
I am not going to get suckered into thinking something, because opps bid 2 NT, normally showing 5-5 or better. Let's play some trump and see who is getting uncomfortable

Mike

[inquiry]

cherdano, on Jan 16 2004, 08:53 PM, said:

Yes, nice squeeze without the count.

But is it just me, or is the bidding a little unusual? Unless 1S is unlimited and forcing, South's hand is a clear strong opening IMHO (i.e. 2C in America). It wouldn't occur to me to play West for having bid 2NT with 3 HCPs. (I admit, the intermediates are good, unless East has them.)

Over 4H, I suppose 4NT should be RKCB for hearts, and this looks like the right bid (as 7 is clearly possible, and easy to find out). But here I can understand the jump to 6S if South is worried about a misunderstanding.

I would open 2♣ with south's hand as well. This was from a match I was kibitizing, and I simply took the auction and hand as played at the table. BTW, neat way to get hands from BBO is a little trick. Use BBO software to open the saved log with the hand in question. Then from the vg pape (before looking at any hand) press the print button and print to file. The file saved will be named MATCH.TXT and saved in the Bridgevu directory on your computer.Then you can cut and paste the hand (and the auctions) you want. For more, see teaching an old dog new tricks thread at:

http://bridgebase.lunarpages.com/~bridge2/...?showtopic=1569

Ben