[Fluffy]

Scoring: MP

E - N - W - S
1♥-2♥-ps-4♠
5♥-5♠-ps-ps
ps

---

Lead is ♣K


This one shouldn't be too hard, but somehow almost everyone I checked with missed it.

[Gerardo]

Take ♣A, 2 rounds of trumps (keep an honor in hand), 2 rounds of ♦, ruff a ♦.

[Gpm_bg]

play for the dummy and risk on M% to make at least 6 level completed.
A♣won and A♦ followed by ♦ again, ruff high if needed and 3card longer lenght in diamonds will hide the ♥ losers, but the most important question for me is not how will be maded 5♠, but why after 4♠ jump simply coverred with 5♠ the 5♥opp's bid. what cards should to have partner with no aces that he will close 4♠, becouse 1♥2♥ can hold less then 1♠2♠, so while he promise 4♠ with 5-5 and 2-1 he can't guranteed only with trumps and singletons.
i would bid 5nt after 5♥, and will wait to see if partner have minor additions (we approved spade fit at all ).

[flytoox]

This is probably not that easy. You should consider the field strength. Will other pairs holding same hand bid to slam? If yes, no matter how many overtricks you take you will get a bottom. So you should probably play fro 4-1 trump break and 4-1 diamond break.

[Gpm_bg]

maybe seem easy, maybe we have few options for declarer's plan, but at all why they stop on 5th level.
i think that is good to catch ugly game and to stop lower and safety, but at all bridge should to bring and enjoy
you could make without ♥ lead and 7♠, but do you will be happy after that ?
i won't

[ArcLight]

West is going to the 5 level without any sign of life from pard with a max of 14 HCP. There must be some wicked distribution.
I wont be surprised if spades are 0-5 and hearts are 8-1. (9-0? possibly 7-2)

The only hard cases are Spades 0-5 and the Dime split

With Spade 0-5 split, assume East has 2,3,4,5 dimes (with 0-1, West has 8/9 hearts, 0 spades 4/5 Dimes, 1 club, Who leads a stiff K? Must be at least 2 clubs)

1 Win ace of clubs
2 cash Spade K = we now know the trump split. If 4-1 we can afford to ruff a dime if they are not 3-2, so assume worst case
3 Dime to Dummy
4 dime to Ace = we now know the Dime split
If 3-2, pull trumps ending in Dummy, run good dimes
If 1-4 or worse (and 0-5 trump split)

5 ruff club (x)
6 cash Dime Q
7 ruff Dime (x)
8 ruff club (10)
9 ruff Dime (J)
Spade A and Q remain


What if West ruffs our Dime K on trick 3? Then she has shortened her trumps to 4.
She returns:
Heart - now we can afford to ruff the 2nd round high.
Lead a Dime and ruff in hand. Play J spade, ruff to dummy, pull spades, run Dimes.

Spade - win in dummy, lead a dime, over ruff west, lead a spade back. Pull trumps, run dimes.

Clubs - ruff in dummy, lead a dime, ruff with J, spade to dummy, pull trumps, run dimes



If Spades are 4-1 its easier, we can afford to ruff once in Dummy.

[Fluffy]

Well, well, some lines might still work.

Who played 2 trumps is already down 1 sorry, that was a popular line but doesn't work.

Who started with ♦A.. it is ruffed at you left, and the ♣Q comes back. A good guess might still bring 11 tricks though.

Who started with ♠K+♦K, ♦ are 0-5, ♠ seem 1-4 because neither ♦ is ruffed.

What now?

[FrancesHinden]

Fluffy, on Dec 4 2006, 10:58 AM, said:

Who started with ♠K+♦K, ♦ are 0-5, ♠ seem 1-4 because neither ♦ is ruffed.

What now?

Surely it's easy from here (or at least easy if I played the DA rather than the DK at trick 3)?
Ace of clubs, King of spades, Ace of diamonds, KQ of diamonds, diamond ruffed in hand, draw trumps, concede a diamond, 11 tricks. I don't think I can manage the overtrick.

On the other line if we won the CA and the DA was ruffed at trick 2 we are in much the same position. We can play for LHO to be 1-0 in the pointeds. Continue KQ of diamonds discarding a heart, diamond ruff, club ruff, diamond ruff, club ruff high, master diamond ruffed high and have 11 tricks (as long as LHO wasn't 1705).

I hadn't replied yet because I was trying decide which pointy suit to play to be 5-0. The lack of a double probably indicates spades aren't 5-0, so I'll assume they are at worst 4-1.

The difficulty is if the DA is ruffed from a doubleton trump on our left (2803 or so) and he forces dummy because we run out of trumps. We have the same problem if we start with a low diamond from hand and he ruffs from a doubleton trump and forces dummy. Or if we play one trump followed by DA and he ruffs. If we play one trump followed by a low diamond and he discards we have to guess again.

So maybe we have to decide at trick 2. The 'popular line' of two trumps at once makes with diamonds 5-0 and trumps 2-3: two rounds of trumps, ruff the fourth diamond in hand, ruff a club, draw the last trump concede a diamond. Easy. And makes an overtrick is LHO is 1813.

So it's not obvious to me that playing 2 rounds of trumps at once is obviously wrong. Why should LHO be 1705 or 1804 rather than 2803 or 1813? I'll buy he's likely to have 3 clubs from the lead (rather than the HA).

[Fluffy]

if 1813 ♠K+♦A succeds, so no matter if you cash 1 or 2 ♠s.

if 2803 ♠K+♦A goes down as it leaves you a trick short :/

[FrancesHinden]

Fluffy, on Dec 4 2006, 12:18 PM, said:

if 1813 ♠K+♦A succeds, so no matter if you cash 1 or 2 ♠s.

if 2803 ♠K+♦A goes down as it leaves you a trick short :/

Yes, you've summarised this neatly.

1813 it doesn't matter
2803 you need to start with two rounds of trumps
1804 you need to start with 0 or 1 round of trumps

Well, 2803 is more likely than 1804, even on this auction I would have thought. So I think I'll join the cast of thousands who played two rounds of trumps and went off.

Unless I got a count signal on my right at trick one and I can tell the difference...

[Fluffy]

Mmmm that's right I guess I was blinded by the actual hand :/.

In practice he had 1705, but anyway 2704 looks more probable.

[FrancesHinden]

Fluffy, on Dec 4 2006, 10:58 AM, said:

Who started with ♦A.. it is ruffed at you left, and the ♣Q comes back. A good guess might still bring 11 tricks though.

Now we know that LHO was 1705 how do I make it after the DA was ruffed?

Club return ruffed low in dummy.
KQ of diamonds, diamond ruff.
Now I was going to ruff another club low in dummy and make 11 on a cross-ruff. But that doesn't work, because the second club ruff will be over-ruffed.

So what good guessing do you need?

[Fluffy]

I didn't check carefully, on the table this line happened, East failed to discard his second ♥ on third ♣, wich let declarer make ruffing 1♣ and 1♥ low by guessing the distribution.