[pclayton]

You reach a 'slightly' agressive 6♥ after a intercontinental misunderstanding with your pard over what 3♦ meant:

Scoring: IMP

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LHO leads a heart, small, Queen, Ace. After blinking in disbelief for a few minutes, you lead a heart back to dummy's Jack. RHO pitches the ♦5.

You hook the J♠ and the 10 falls on your right.

Can you see yourself clear of this mess? Can you give yourself a tiny extra chance on this hand?

(I played this hand today, but there was a small difference)

[Trpltrbl]

♠10 could be great falsecard from 10xx. If real, West would be 1-3-5-4 more then likely. Since no ♦ preempt, I'll go for that. For now.
I have 19.3789% chance of bringing in the ♠ for no losers.
I have 9.6894% chance to make a nice play in ♣. Kx, KQ, KJ or QJ.
To make sure that East doesn't drop the K under my Ace in later play I will play the ♣Ace now.
And after that I will play a low ♦ from Dummy, and ruff that.
Pull the last trump and play ♣.

GBB

[pclayton]

MY LHO isn't creative enough to f/c with Txx.

I played it as Mike suggested. RHO was sleeping with Kx and didn't unblock.

Playing the Ace early is S.O.P.

The extra chance in this hand is to "run" the club 10 from the 1098x inducing a split from LHO with QJxx or KQxx. If you get LHO to split, then RHO can't afford to unblock since you can make a club trick by force.

I can;t remember if the actual hand had the 8 or not - I thought of the idea later.

[han]

I read this post just before going to sleep, and thought for a long time about a possible strip squeeze (east holding Qxxxx Q Kxxx KHx). It wasn't until I figured out that east could pitch one club honor on the 9th trick and throw the other one under the ace that I could finally fall asleep. For the squeeze to work one opponent would need to have all 4 minor suit honors, quite unlikely.

I don't understand why Mike is ruffing a diamond. Showing that you have a diamond void should make it easier for east to pitch the high club on the third round of trump. Just come to have with a trump.

I'll try to convince west not to play the king from KJxx by playing the 9 first and then the 10, simulating a doubleton.

[Trpltrbl]

Hannie, on Oct 16 2005, 12:20 PM, said:

I don't understand why Mike is ruffing a diamond. Showing that you have a diamond void should make it easier for east to pitch the high club on the third round of trump. Just come to have with a trump.

Because a good player would unblock anyhow, why would someone play the ace that early in the hand ?
He should, can and will see the endplay coming. So, yes against perfect defense you can hardly make the hand, unless West has KQ, KJ or QJ tight.

GBB

[han]

Sure, a good player would never make a mistake so we might as well tell them what our whole hand is?

I still don't understand the reason for ruffing a diamond.

[Trpltrbl]

Hannie, on Oct 16 2005, 04:06 PM, said:

Sure, a good player would never make a mistake so we might as well tell them what our whole hand is?

I still don't understand the reason for ruffing a diamond.

I don't have to ruff it directly, just showing off.

GBB

[FrancesHinden]

Trpltrbl, on Oct 16 2005, 01:46 PM, said:

Because a good player would unblock anyhow, why would someone play the ace that early in the hand ?
He should, can and will see the endplay coming. So, yes against perfect defense you can hardly make the hand, unless West has KQ, KJ or QJ tight.

This is one of those layouts that I have never seen anyone get right. The write-up afterwards always says "he should have seen this coming and unblocked" but

- there was a hand in BW where some bridge god went wrong (Meckwell? Hammon?)
- there was a hand in the trials a few weeks ago where a very, very good English player didn't unblock from Qx
- now there's this hand

[Fluffy]

If LHO is not the kind of guy to falsecard ♠10xx then he is probably the kind of guy who can play the 10 from 108 or 107, so I will try the double finese.