[keylime]

Anyone can comment about the play of this hand but it's geared to this forum.

You have bid to an excellent contract of six diamonds. You receive the A♥ lead after the opps overcalled and raised hearts. Plan the play.

Scoring: MP

---

[pclayton]

I can't see any reason not to ruff and play AK♦. if the Q drops I'm cold. if it doesn't;I'll try AK♣ and ruff a club.

Almost too obvious, I'll be curious to see what you have in mind.

I suppose if diamonds are 4-0, I can change my plan in time.

[keylime]

K. After trumping the heart in dummy, you play the K♠ and see RHO drop the J♠ on it. Then, playing a low trump to your K♦ uncovers the bad news of a 4-0 trump break onside with RHO. Plan the play, again. :-)

[FrancesHinden]

I see no point in cashing the SK in dummy at trick 2. No point whatsoever.

However, having played a diamond to the King at trick 2 and seen LHO show out, this doesn't look like a 'beginner/intermediate' hand at all, as we have two natural trump losers unless RHO has exactly the right shape.

Did you mean RHO has 4 diamonds, or LHO has 4? 'onside' would indicate LHO has Q10xx because at least then we an pick the suit up for one loser!

[keylime]

Onside is RHO holding the trumps.

[jdonn]

keylime, on Jun 19 2006, 01:09 PM, said:

Onside is RHO holding the trumps.

Not according to Bridge World, which defines onside as "favorably located". I would hardly call RHO having all the trumps to fit that definition!

[FrancesHinden]

Well, if RHO has 4 trumps this is a long way from a beginner or intermediate hand, so I'm not going to reply with hidden text.

If we do anything normal RHO has 2 trump tricks. There are two 'standard' ways to prevent two trump losers in this sort of layout: endply RHO to give up a trump trick, and make 12 tricks first.

Can we 'elope' 12 tricks? I can't make it work. Maybe I've lost count, but RHO's trump pips seem just too good: he can afford to ruff in at some point and still have another trump trick.

So what about the endplay? For that to work we can't use up any more of dummy's trumps, because we want to get to this 3-card ending with the lead in dummy:

-
-
J9
x

    -
    -
    Q108
    -

-
x
Ax
-

we lead the club discarding a heart from hand, and he is endplayed. Alternatively we can come down to 3 trumps and no hearts in hand, and under-ruff.

To get to this point we need at least two heart discards on clubs, together with a club ruff in hand. That means RHO has to follow to 4 rounds of clubs. If he is 3244 and LHO has Qx of clubs we can play:

heart lead (ruffed)
diamond to the king and discard
AK10 of clubs discarding two hearts
club ruff in hand
three rounds of spades ending in dummy
club

This is a 4-card ending; dummy has 2 clubs and 2 diamonds, RHO 3 diamonds and a heart, hand a heart and 3 diamonds.

I still can't do it: RHO can ruff in on the next club (even if it's a winner) and has two trump tricks. So I need I think RHO to have 5 clubs. Now after the club ruff in hand I can play two spades ending in dummy, ruff another club in hand, cross back to dummy and play the last club.

OK, I've made it when RHO is 3145 and LHO 4801 with singleton CQ.
I doubt this is the line the original poster was thinking of (not least as RHO wouldn't usually raise hearts on a singleton) so I must be missing something obvious.

[inquiry]

keylime, on Jun 19 2006, 01:09 PM, said:

Onside is RHO holding the trumps.

Here, onside would mean LHO has QTxx.

Back to the problem. You need an endplay at trick 11 on EAST, so you have to come to the ending suggesting by Frances. That is the only chance.

This means, you can not afford to ruff anymore hearts in dummy (you have to have two trumps left and there are only two in dummy. It also means you must cash 10 tricks before leading to trick 11, where you have J9 of diamonds in dummy, at least two trumps in your hand (if you have three, you will under-ruff when EAST ruffs with the D8).

We could speculate on where can your ten tricks come from? One heart ruff (too late now for a second ruff), 3S (if you are exceeding fortunate), the one diamond. You need 4C and a club ruff or 5C. Your club spots are too poor for five club tricks (without EAST ruffing in early). Any ruff by east before trick 11 and he has a safe (non-trump) exit card. Since your clubs are not strong enough to win five tricks on their own, you have to play EAST for five clubs. Five club, four diamonds, and he raised hearts. This is too much, as you can't get your three spades. Could 2S do (2S, 1H ruff, 1D, 4C, 1C ruff)? No that is only 9 tricks.

No matter how you wiggle, here is the problem (as noted earlier by Frances)... there is no line you can choose to extract the second heart from EAST. East can ruff in as soon as possible, and if you over ruff and he has two trump tricks, you don't over ruff and he exits his second heart. And he must have 2H, or WEST has EIGHT HEARTS to AKT9, and bid only once, and EAST raised on "x". That simply is not possible. Thus, as long as EAST has two hearts, he is endplay proof. You can't afford to ruff one in dummy, and if you don't you the endplay is doomed because you can not extract his exit card. QED.