[pclayton]

Here is a hand that a lot of us kibbed in one of those Leviathan matches between Cayne and Garozzo. You play 4♥:

Scoring: IMP

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The opening lead is the ♦2 (3/5 I believe), 6, J, 5.

They continue the ♦7, you ruff, 3, 8.

You choose to continue with the A♥, 4, 3, 10 and a low heart, the K winning on your left and RHO showing out, pitching the ♠6.

LHO punches you a 3rd time with the K♦, which you ruff. The position is now:

Scoring: IMP

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LHO has the ♥96 left. You can afford to lose one more trump trick, but not two.

Explain EXACTLY how you are going to continue from here.

[Foxx]

LHO is as likely to have 2-4-5-2 distribution as anything. Otherwise, maybe RHO will throw me a (count signal) bone so I'll know how many clubs to cash.

Anyway, I start with the ♣A and ♣Q. Assuming these survive, I turn to the spades, winning ♠QJ and playing a third spade. If LHO ruffs and plays a diamond, I throw dummy's last club and ruff in hand. Now I shove the ♣K through West. One of our black kings will score the 10th trick.

So LHO will return a heart which I win in dummy, cash dummy's last spade, then the ♣K. Of course, I had to ruff the third round of diamonds with the ♥Q so that I could win this trump trick in dummy.

[Free]

Lets see: LHO probably has 5♦ and 4♥. This means 4 cards in the black suits. Whenever he ruffs prematurely I can draw his trumps so suppose he defends well and doesn't ruff any of the first 4 black cards.

I think the only way now is to endplay LHO by letting him ruff a black suit, make him return a ♦ and then have to overruff "en passant". The only suit you can do this with is ♣, so I think I have to start with 3 rounds of ♠. As I said before, if LHO ruffs I can easily go back to my hand using ♣ to draw trumps, so suppose he doesn't ruff and discards ♣ (♦ discards are useless, they're not losers). Now we leave ♠A in dummy and draw ♣A and small ♣ to the Queen.

LHO is screwed: if he ruffs he can only return ♦ or trumps. Trumps is obviously losing so suppose he returns ♦: you can discard ♣Q in dummy, ruff in the hand and play ♣A.

This is the end position when you're in the hand to play ♣A:
♠A
♥J
-
-

-
-
-
♣A8

[Halo]

If we play three rounds of spades, West may ruff the Ace of clubs if he is 4450.

It looks better to cash Ace of clubs first. If West discards a spade we take three rounds of spades (QKJ) and then play a club to the Queen when we are back on track.

If West is 0454, after Queen of spades we can play a club to the queen, spade to the jack and spade towards the AK and I think we are on track again.

Edit: if West discards a diamond on queen of spades, we play jack of spades etc.

[Fluffy]

Can't find anything better than Foxx's line.

[Halo]

I think Foxx played too many clubs (two instead of one) as I indicated. Is there a problem with my line above?

[temp3600]

Halo, on Nov 25 2006, 04:30 PM, said:

I think Foxx played too many clubs (two instead of one) as I indicated.  Is there a problem with my line above?

Note that Foxx assumes the second diamond ruff was made with the HQ, so West cannot endplay the South hand with a trump exit and lock it with a possible club loser.
Both his line and your approach work.

[PrinceNep]

When LHO is 4540 cashing three spades first goes down. He will ruff club return and play another diamond leaving you no entry to the other hand to pull the final trump. So LHO will win both of his trump.

When LHO is 4540 and you cash the ♣A then ♣Q (pitching two spades) then continue with spades, LHO will ruff third round of spades and force you in with ♥Q and have a club loser to RHO ♣J10.

Think Halo has this one right. Cash the ♣A first. If LHO follows with a club, you are cold. Its only when LHO shows out of clubs that you need to play three spades ending in the south hand. Now you play a small club toward the Queen. If LHO ruffs in and plays a diamond you pitch the ♣Q and force an 'en passant' end play.