[pclayton]

Playing in an informal TG this afternoon 2 interesting play problems crop up. Here's the 1st:

Scoring: IMP

---

RHO opens 1♣, you overcall 1♥. LHO tries 3♣ preemptive and pard competes with 3♥. You push on to 4♥.

Opening lead is the ♣7. The 10 wins on your right and he tries to cash the K. You ruff and trumps are 2-2.

How do you continue?

[flytoox]

Play a small diamond toward dummy. LHO should have one of the spade ace or diamond king.

[pclayton]

flytoox, on Nov 26 2006, 08:51 PM, said:

Play a small diamond toward dummy. LHO should have one of the spade ace or diamond king.

How does this gain? What distribution are you playing for (instead of playing ♦'s normally to try to make no losers)?

[Dwingo]

You can play RHO for K8 of ♦.

Try to bring the ♦ suit without any loss, so that you can afford to give 2 ♠ tricks.

Go to dummy with a 3rd tump and play ♦Q. If RHO cover ♦Q with K, win and run ♦9 trying to pin ♦8 on your right. If it loses to the doubleton 10, he has open up ♠'s. If you see ♦8 on you left, go with ♦J ( hoping righty with K10x) and playback a ♦ to endplay RHO to open up ♠'s.

If ♦Q loses to K on your left, if he returns a small ♠, you will be left to guess ♠ honors correctly. If he return a low ♦, you will have to pray for ♠A onside.

[pclayton]

Dwingo, on Nov 26 2006, 11:46 PM, said:

You can play RHO for K8 of ♦.

Try to bring the ♦ suit without any loss, so that you can afford to give 2 ♠ tricks.

Go to dummy with a 3rd tump and play ♦Q. If RHO cover ♦Q with K, win and run ♦9 trying to pin ♦8 on your right. If it loses to the doubleton 10, he has open up ♠'s. If you see ♦8 on you left, go with ♦J ( hoping righty with K10x) and playback a ♦ to endplay RHO to open up ♠'s.

If ♦Q loses to K on your left, if he returns a small ♠, you will be left to guess ♠ honors correctly. If he return a low ♦, you will have to pray for ♠A onside.

There's another play that gets you home with ♦K8 too.

[lowerline]

pclayton, on Nov 26 2006, 05:03 PM, said:

Playing in an informal TG this afternoon 2 interesting play problems crop up. Here's the 1st:

Scoring: IMP

---

RHO opens 1♣, you overcall 1♥. LHO tries 3♣ preemptive and pard competes with 3♥. You push on to 4♥.

Opening lead is the ♣7. The 10 wins on your right and he tries to cash the K. You ruff and trumps are 2-2.

How do you continue?

♥AK. If Q drops, go to dummy in ♥ and finesse ♦Q.
If ♥Q doesn't drop, play a ♠ to the K.

Steven

[cherdano]

Did opps have lead agreements?

I would take the obvious line: cross to dummy in hearts and lead ♦Q, hoping to find any K-3rd (RHO will get endplayed) or KT onside; this will need ♠A onside if the diamond plan fails. The alternative to play for ♦Kx (play ♦A and low diamond) seems to be worse, as I don't really gain much if LHO gets endplayed.

[aida_mk_nl]

Wining with 10 ♣ and than not A♣ but K is interesting maybe even showing the K♦. Would LHO underlead A ♣? Guess not , so AKQJ10 in RHO is fair assumption. LHO to jump to 3!C must have 5 ♣ , 2 ♥ were shown, maybe 4 ♠ Q10xx (usually) in with 2 !D . Not touching the ♠ I would try to finesse K ♦ since opener may have A9x ♠, and Kxx ♦ (hopefuly). After Q♦ if RHO covers play small ♦ to J ♦and if no 10 ♦ falls play ♦ in RHO to win the 10 he have to play ♠to your K or cl so you have a S discard or S winner. just assumption

greetz

Aida

[Echognome]

cherdano, on Nov 27 2006, 09:31 AM, said:

Did opps have lead agreements?

I would take the obvious line: cross to dummy in hearts and lead ♦Q, hoping to find any K-3rd (RHO will get endplayed) or KT onside; this will need ♠A onside if the diamond plan fails. The alternative to play for ♦Kx (play ♦A and low diamond) seems to be worse, as I don't really gain much if LHO gets endplayed.

But you gain if RHO gets endplayed. I think RHO probably has the ♦K and if he doesn't there's not much hope as then he surely has all the spade honours.

I think most of us would try the diamond hook, but A one diamond is an interesting alternative. The question now comes down to shape. Is RHO 4=2=2=5 or is he 4=2=3=4? Or even 3=2=3=5 or 3=2=4=4. Now it comes down to LHO's bid. If RHO has 4 clubs, then LHO has 6, which seems to be more consistent with the jump to 3♣. Also, RHO thought he could cash his club, so that is more likely to be from a four card suit. Thus I will play RHO for 3 diamonds and hope to drop Tx offside.

[pclayton]

If you play for RHO to have 3 diamonds, you'll make it. I thought clubs were 5-5 myself. RHO did indeed have a royal flush. LHO's lead was from an indiscernible 97xxx.

(Matt, i don't think RHO's attempt to cash a club reveals whether or not clubs are 4-6 or 5-5. I think RHO will try clubs for lack of anything better, since a pointed suit is wrong and a heart is pointless).

However, LHO had the 4th spade and made a preemptive jump raise on: Qxxx, xx, xx, 97xxx. I played for RHO to hold the 4=2=2=5 (since LHO did not make a negative double), and played A♦, ♦. RHO actually held the rock o' Gilbraltar with: Axxx, Qx, KTx, AKQJT. The other table opened this hand 2N, so we lost 5 for being -100 at both tables.

You really can't 'endplay' LHO: if LHO held the ♦Kx (or ♦Txx), a small spade into dummy puts you on an insolvable guess. There's two ways to endplay RHO however.

Give yourself full credit if you tried to figure out a way to make the hand, instead of playing the ♦ suit in isolation.