[pclayton]

Here's an interesting play problem Steve Weinstein had last night:

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You play in 6♠ with the Q♥ lead. You win and decide to play a spade to hand and a club up. LHO (Dano) plays the Q and you win. K♠, spade to hand (they split; RHO has 3) and another club and Dano plays low. You try the 10 and it holds.

The position is now:

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The lead is in dummy. How do you continue?

Also - is there anything you'd have done different in the 1st few tricks?

[joshs]

What did LHO throw on the 3'rd heart?

[joshs]

joshs, on Feb 21 2006, 02:50 PM, said:

What did LHO throw on the 3'rd heart?

I mean the 3'rd trump.

[pclayton]

A heart; looks like Dano is 2=5=2=4.

Proceed.

[Free]

♣ ruff, ♥A, ♥ ruff, ♦ to the King and see what happens.

[FrancesHinden]

pclayton, on Feb 22 2006, 03:12 AM, said:

A heart; looks like Dano is 2=5=2=4.

Proceed.

If I strongly believe the heart length is on my left then I want to go back a trick.

I cash one more trump before playing the second club, planning to discard a heart from dummy unless LHO discards another heart. (If LHO discards a heart I discard a diamond and play a club up, planning to ruff the hearts out if nothing else happens).

If LHO discards a club on the trump I'm going to hope clubs come in (club to dummy, if that holds ace of hearts, club ruff, last trump hoping for clubs or a squeeze to have worked).

If LHO discards a diamond on the trump I play a club next. If that holds I cash the HA and ruff a club to hand (in case of KQx) and then, assuming I'm backing my judgement on the hearts, LHO is down to a singleton diamond so diamond to the king, diamond finesse.

If LHO has inserted the CQ from Qxx and RHO has K98x and ducks the second club I might be going to misread the end position.

[FrancesHinden]

pclayton, on Feb 22 2006, 03:12 AM, said:

A heart; looks like Dano is 2=5=2=4.

Proceed.

My answer is based on this remark, but there's no reason to suspect club length on our left that I can see. We don't know the auction, but LHO should insert the CQ on the first round from Qx or Qxx (and quite possibly shouldn't from KQxx)

[pclayton]

With no shortage of entries to dummy, its hard to see why flying from ♣Qx / Qxx can be right. All you've done is clarified the club position. And if declarer holds a stiff club, rising with the Q is very costly.

I think we've all suspected that our world class opponents are making unbelievable deep plays from certain holdings, but I wouldn't suspect anything other than KQxx.

[FrancesHinden]

I did say it depended on the auction (e.g. if we might have Kxx and need exactly 3 club tricks), but it's not unbelievably deep to insert from Qx at all. I agree Qxx only makes sense if declarer is known to have at least two clubs. It's frequently right to insert on this sort of layout even with plenty of entries to stop declarer losing an early trick. After all, our problem on the given hand is that we'd like to play a double squeeze except that we haven't rectified the count.

As for 'inserting only clarifies the club position', if you think he only inserts from KQ, what has that done other than clarify the club position? In fact, if you believe that playing the Q on the first round is only from singleton Q or KQ, it's probably right to duck the CQ and play for it to be KQ.

Also, he could still have KQx without the fourth one. If he always rises on the second round with that you have no chance of ever going wrong.

[joshs]

If he is 2524 with both club honors and has pitched a heart, then I play
High heart, Heart ruff, A and K of diamonds then a heart pitching a diamond and dummy has to score the CJ at the end.

[joshs]

joshs, on Feb 22 2006, 01:51 PM, said:

If he is 2524 with both club honors and has pitched a heart, then I play
High heart, Heart ruff, A and K of diamonds then a heart pitching a diamond and dummy has to score the CJ at the end.

Never mind that doesn't help, I still have an idle trump in my hand...