[inquiry]

I am trying a different kind of intermediate problem. Here NS bid to 7NT, and as we can see, they have plenty of tricks, more than 13 yet the declarer went down one. The trick here is to "guess the mistake" (GTM) declarer made during the play.

NOTE this is a beginner/intermediate post...so more advanced players, please hide your responses.

Scoring: IMP

West North East South

 Pass  1♥    Pass  4NT
 Pass  5♦    Pass  5NT
 Pass  6♥    Pass  7NT
 Pass  Pass  Pass  


Trick one.. D6 D8 D9 DK

---

[Trumpace]

Declarer played East's hearts to be QT on seeing the T drop on the A?

[inquiry]

Trumpace, on Jan 4 2007, 12:59 PM, said:

Declarer played East's hearts to be QT on seeing the T drop on the A?

A reasonable assumption, but no... declarer did not play Ace-King of hearts...

[pclayton]

Spoiler

I think declarer tried the spades 1st, and pitched a heart on the 4th spade. 4 heart tricks went bye-bye.

[keylime]

Spoiler

In any slam, it pays off to NOT play quickly to the first step (for that matter any hand!). Let's count our tricks first.

3 spades, 2 hearts, 3 diamonds, and 2 clubs. Hmmm, 10 tricks. I need 13. I see my heart suit can provide me some tricks, and so can those nice spades over there. I need to decide what to do first - hearts or spades?

I win the diamond Q in the dummy, because I am going to play out spades to see how the spades lie. This is an elimination of sorts, because I am trying to visualize what is lurking. Remember we don't know they led a stiff!

So, DQ, KS, QS, and the J appears. Nice. The TS is going to score, so we're up to 11 tricks now. I cash out the spades because RHO is going to start discarding. Remember, do NOT pitch a heart AT all, you can tho pitch an idle diamond and/or club.

We play a diamond back to the K and LHO SHOWS out. STOP. Do not play another card until you can answer this question: How many diamonds did RHO start with? (Answer: six). You also know they followed to 2 spades as well. So we know EIGHT cards of RHO's hand. Nice. Very nice. So we know that RHO doesn't have a lot of room left for hearts and clubs either. LHO has much more room for these 2 suits.

Cash the diamond ace. If you've kept track of LHO's discards, they have probably pitched clubs straight because they are pitching losers. What can LHO have left? Let's see. They started with 4 spades, 1 diamond, and are pitching clubs like mad. What must they be guarding? Hearts, of course.

So remember to cash your clubs FIRST to keep the pressure up. Now LHO is down to straight hearts. Drop the Ace, and claim.

[inquiry]

pclayton, on Jan 4 2007, 01:27 PM, said:

Spoiler

I think declarer tried the spades 1st, and pitched a heart on the 4th spade. 4 heart tricks went bye-bye.

You are very clever... but

Spoiler

Declarer did case spades early, but DID NOT pitch a heart on the fourth round of spades... pitched a minor card instead...

[FrancesHinden]

Spoiler

Declarer cashed the spades first, discarding a club from hand. Then cashed the AK of clubs. Then the DQ. Then played Ace of hearts, the A of diamonds, heart to the jack... and couldn't get back to hand for another heart finesse.

[inquiry]

We have a winner... I will hide the discussion, but later make it completely visible...

Spoiler

Frances is correct. The declarer managed to play the hand sucessfully dropping the spade jack, and sucessfully finessing the heart queen after the ten fell, but made a mistake.. he had removed all his entries to his hand so that there was no re-entry to his hand to take the marked second finessee in hearts.

So this hand is one dealing with communications. You have to keep communication lines open to take the second heart finesse should EAST have singleton ten of hearts.

I think keylime fell into the same "trap" in his line, as he said "So remember to cash your clubs FIRST to keep the pressure up. Now LHO is down to straight hearts. Drop the Ace, and claim." In fact if I am reading his line correctly (reading hidden text is difficult), he would have suffered the same fate... so I suspect I have misread his comments. Either that or working on the screen and not moving cards, he was focused on a counting lesson and overlooked the entry requirement.... as there is no doubt he would get this correct at the table.

But this type of play, breaking the communication between the two hands, is a common error for beginners and intermediates. Remember, the power to go from one hand to the other hand can be worth TRICKS, as in this case, where simply keeping a diamond, club or spade entry to south would make the slam "easy". If hearts are 3-2 with queen on side, you need one finesse, if hearts are 4-1 with singleton ten (or if you can deteremine any singleton heart on the right), you need to hook twice in hearts.

[jocdelevat]

most of the times b/i players do not count so here maybe play ace then finesse one time and then play the king.
happend to me a lot of times.

[sceptic]

to make 13 trx you need good things to happen in spades and diamonds and you need to play hearts correctly

I assume as beg int we are not looking for squeezes or fancy discovery plays?

they have 7 hcp where are they

so I think you need to win QD and then play to AK D

we now know D split 1 / 6 and 1 hcp is with east (6 to go)

now we can test Spades

KQS shows W/E have 2/2 so we dont know about 5 of easts card s in the dist

also we need to count the west discard if it was a spade we have 4 spade trx we do not have 4 Diamond tricks


play K the AC east has a D control we cant do anything about yet and we know he is 2C6D2S unknown H and not sure how many C he has


then play from hand to AS and that should give you the picture you need to finsese the hearts the right way

at least I hope that is how to do it

I think they started to play the spade suit badly to start with

[keylime]

Ben,

Spoiler

I was thinking that declarer played the suits in the wrong order and thusly shorted themselves when they discarded wrong; hence the count angle to force you to think of the "why".

[Winstonm]

The big mistake, as usually is the case, came at trick 1. The hand can be made even assuming some of the "mistakes" noted.

The key play is to win the Q of diamonds, unblocking the suit. Now, even if you do try the spades and pitch a heart, you can cash the rest of the diamonds and play Ace of hearts and heart to the J and then heart king.

The diamonds squeeze west in clubs/hearts, so he has to toss two clubs.
The hearts squeeze east in diamonds/clubs.

As long as South doesn't pitch an "idle club", he can still make on a double squeeze after having cashed the spades and pitched a heart.