[winkle]

Scoring: IMP

Pass-Pass-1♦-Pass
1♥-Pass-2♣-2♦
3♣-Pass-Pass-Pass

1♦ was precision.

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A deal from last night.

Lefty leads the spade six to righty's jack and righty switches to the club four. You win the ace as lefty drops the jack. You lead a heart. Lefty flies the ace and continues the ST. Righty overtakes with the king and continues the trump seven, lefty pitching a diamond.

Plan your play.

[HeartA]

Win C in hand, heart to King and diamond back. If East has DA, whether or not he plays it, I am home: if he wins with DA, I need only one D ruff; if instead he plays small and my DQ/K wins, I can ruff 2 Ds in dummy. I loss 2S+1H+1D only. If West has DA and wins, I can still ruff 2 Ds since he doesn't have D left.

[pclayton]

Unless my opponents are playing a really deep game, RHO holds the ♠AKJ and passed in 2nd chair. LHO holds the A♦, which is not surprising from the overcall. LHO also probably holds 6 or 7 diamonds along with the A♥. Possible hands are: ♠Tx6, ♥Axx, ♦A(J?)xxxxx,♣J. Say I play the K♦. LHO wins and gets out a heart, I win the K, ♥ruff, ♦ruff low, ♥ruff, ♦ruff with the 10. But now I am trump tight with RHO and I can't ruff the spade back to my hand without promoting a trump trick for the enemy.

But as I look at the hand a strange thing happens to East on the 3rd ♦ruff in dummy. Here's the position:

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I think this is the position if I'm following the hand right. RHO is squoze out of a major suit winner at this point!.

[joshs]

Nothing is quite as pretty as the backwash.

I had 2 straight days with "almost interesting hands". Sunday was almost a winkle (would have been a winkle if the A and K were switched) and last night there was this hand, except the C8 and T were switched.

Here was the hand from sunday:

I opened a weak 2S in 3'rd seat on:
JT87xx Ax AT J75

It went all pass. I got a spade lead and we had:
Q Qxx KJ9xx T9xx

JT87xx Ax AT J75

At trick 1 the SQ held. Not having anything good to do I lead a club to my 7, fetching the Q. The HJ came back, Q, K, A. I played a top spade pitching a heart,RHO winning the K and LHO playing the 9. They tapped me in hearts. I cleared spades (breaking 3-3) and again they tapped me in hearts (hearts breaking 4-4). At this point I felt the DQ was off, and since I really like winkles I played for the winkle:


I played off all my trumps coming down to:

D: KJ9 C: T
D:AT CJx

If RHO had the Diamond Q and the CA he was sunk. If he bared the CA, I would cash the DA and lead a club. If he unblocked the CA I would lead a club without cashing the DA. And of course if he pitched a diamond I would have to read the position and played for the DQ to come down.

Alas, LHO had the CA, and RHO had the CK and they defended correctly with RHO baring the K, and LHO squashing the K with his ace after I cashed the DA and led a club to break up the endplay. Oh well. I really like winkles. Yes I know that if LHO had the KQ he probably would have led it at some point, but you never know.

[winkle]

Phil basically got it right, except one of the heart ruffs should be a spade ruff (typo). Opponents had T8x AQT AJxxxx J opposite AKJ6 J9xx xx 87x.

There was another interesting end position on a different line of play. As before lefty leads a spade to righty, and righty returns a trump. Say you win and play the DK. Lefty wins the ace and leads a spade over to righty for another club. You win, ruff a diamond, ruff a spade, ruff a diamond, and ruff a spade:

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On the CA lefty is caught in a funny squeeze. If he gives up a diamond, you can safely cash your diamond then lead a heart. If he gives up a heart, you can lead a heart and he'll be forced to give you the diamond you stranded.

[pclayton]

winkle, on Jun 20 2006, 09:16 AM, said:

Phil basically got it right, except one of the heart ruffs should be a spade ruff (typo). Opponents had T8x AQT AJxxxx J opposite AKJ6 J9xx xx 87x.

There was another interesting end position on a different line of play. As before lefty leads a spade to righty, and righty returns a trump. Say you win and play the DK. Lefty wins the ace and leads a spade over to righty for another club. You win, ruff a diamond, ruff a spade, ruff a diamond, and ruff a spade:

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On the CA lefty is caught in a funny squeeze. If he gives up a diamond, you can safely cash your diamond then lead a heart. If he gives up a heart, you can lead a heart and he'll be forced to give you the diamond you stranded.

Its really a great hand.

As I was looking at it, I wondered if you can combine the chances of LHO holding 3=3=6=1 along with 3=4=5=1. Granted, 3=4=1=5 isn't real likely, but I think you tap yourself out if you play RHO for both major suit guards, instead of just mundanely cashing the diamond earlier, and crossruffing.