[jim420]

Scoring: IMP


West North East South

 -      Pass  3♥    3♠
 4♥     4♠    5♥    Pass
 Pass  5♠    Pass  Pass
 6♥    Pass  Pass  Pass

Opening lead: ♦A

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Your partner bid 6♥. Plan the play from now...

[inquiry]

I plan for them to switch to a club at trick two.

As a rule, you should give the lead to a second trick. Since this is BIL, i will not take a guess now.

[jtfanclub]

Gosh darn it, Inquiry beat me by one stinkin' minute...

This post has been edited by jtfanclub: 2007-March-05, 22:44

[jim420]

oh, sorry...

trick 1: ♦A ♦5 ♦3 ♦4

LHO led ♠5 next

[temp3600]

North probably has at least 4 spades for his 4♠ followed by 5♠, which leaves South with something like KJ98xx in spades and the ♦A, but not much else in terms of honors. Does he need to have the ♣Q for his red vs white 3♠? I think it's hard to tell :
Would someone bid 3♠ here with KJ98xx x Ax Qxxx but not with KJ98xx x Ax xxxx? Maybe. With KJ98xx x AJxx Qx and not with KJ98xx x AJxx xx? It seems unlikely.

Since I don't think there's a strong clue as to who holds the ♣Q, I'll just try to get a good count of the hand and finesse against the defender who's longer in clubs.
So I'd cross to dummy in trumps twice to ruff the small spades, then pull trumps, play the top diamonds and ruff the fourth round. I know how the hearts and diamonds were distributed, and I'm betting on spades being 6-4.

This line seems to give up on a diamond/club squeeze, but that's not the case : in order to be squeezed, the defender with 4+ diamonds needs to hold at least 3 clubs to the queen well, and if he has 3+ clubs, a correct count of the hand leads to a successful club finesse.

[ArcLight]

Why didn't south lead spades?

I think South has an unsupported ace, something like AQxxx(x)

Not counting the Club Q, that 11 HCP ♦A, ♠AQJ = 11
which is not enough to bid at the 3 level, unless void stiff in hearts and 6+ ♠

I think the Club finesse is on.

But there is no rush to take it.
Run trumps.
Enter Dummy in dimes, and ruff the 4th round getting a full count on Dimes and hearts. We can't get a full count on Spades, even with entering in trumps and ruffing.
♠ are either 7-3 or 6-4, or 5-5. lets assume 6-4, though North did go to the 5 level. Maybe north has a heart void and 5 spades?

Probably south has the ♣Q (lack of further bidding may also be a clue).
The count of the hand may yield an unexpected distribution that renders this moot.

[goobers]

I dunno, is there anything to do but draw trump (overtake the HQ with your K), cross in diamonds, cash em, ruff a diamond, and then just trying to guess the club suit? Hopefully something revealing will have happened when you drew trump and played 4 rounds of diamonds. You also have a hint as to how the spade suit is, but you can't really know for sure.

[jtfanclub]

goobers, on Mar 6 2007, 01:13 PM, said:

I dunno, is there anything to do but draw trump (overtake the HQ with your K), cross in diamonds, cash em, ruff a diamond, and then just trying to guess the club suit? Hopefully something revealing will have happened when you drew trump and played 4 rounds of diamonds. You also have a hint as to how the spade suit is, but you can't really know for sure.

Spoiler

Ruff the spade, heart to ace, ruff a spade, Heart King (burying the queen) and jack, sluffing a club. Assuming Hearts were not 4-0, now play two rounds of diamonds. Now ruff the last spade, and play your last trump, discarding a club*.

You have 3 cards left: the K87 of clubs.
Dummy has 3 cards left: The AJ of clubs and the 7 of diamonds.
North has 3 cards left: either 2 clubs and a diamond or 3 clubs.
South has 3 cards left: at least one spade, and at most two clubs.

If North kept a a high diamond, you can just play a club to the A, back to the K, and cash the 3rd club. If North kept 3 clubs, then the diamond is good- club to the A, cash the diamond, and back with the club to the king.

This works when North had 4 diamonds and 3 clubs, even if one of the clubs is not the queen.

*If somebody shows out early on diamonds, then you can switch tactics here. For example, if North turns out to have had 6 diamonds (the lead of the A was a singleton), 2 hearts, and 4 spades, you can take the noted club finesse. On the other hand, if for some reason North had only two diamonds, you can sluff a diamond if South sluffs a club on the last trump, and vice versa, and make the last few tricks automatically.

[jim420]

jtfanclub, on Mar 7 2007, 03:00 AM, said:

goobers, on Mar 6 2007, 01:13 PM, said:

I dunno, is there anything to do but draw trump (overtake the HQ with your K), cross in diamonds, cash em, ruff a diamond, and then just trying to guess the club suit?  Hopefully something revealing will have happened when you drew trump and played 4 rounds of diamonds.  You also have a hint as to how the spade suit is, but you can't really know for sure.

Spoiler

Ruff the spade, heart to ace, ruff a spade, Heart King (burying the queen) and jack, sluffing a club. Assuming Hearts were not 4-0, now play two rounds of diamonds. Now ruff the last spade, and play your last trump, discarding a club*.

You have 3 cards left: the K87 of clubs.
Dummy has 3 cards left: The AJ of clubs and the 7 of diamonds.
North has 3 cards left: either 2 clubs and a diamond or 3 clubs.
South has 3 cards left: at least one spade, and at most two clubs.

If North kept a a high diamond, you can just play a club to the A, back to the K, and cash the 3rd club. If North kept 3 clubs, then the diamond is good- club to the A, cash the diamond, and back with the club to the king.

This works when North had 4 diamonds and 3 clubs, even if one of the clubs is not the queen.

*If somebody shows out early on diamonds, then you can switch tactics here. For example, if North turns out to have had 6 diamonds (the lead of the A was a singleton), 2 hearts, and 4 spades, you can take the noted club finesse. On the other hand, if for some reason North had only two diamonds, you can sluff a diamond if South sluffs a club on the last trump, and vice versa, and make the last few tricks automatically.

wow really brilliant line of play! thx a million!

actually i was the dummy, i.e. the one bidding 6♥. Was that silly?

My reason was from the 5♥ p must have some sort of void or singleton in ♠ with the ♥K. My control of the side suits was good so 6♥ might just go down 1 or 2 but we couldn't let a vul 5♠ make...

The full hand was

Scoring: IMP

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my p, however, ruffed the ♦7 at trick 7 and this was the what's left before trick 9

Scoring: IMP

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he played ♥T next, pitching ♣T
North made the mistake of discarding ♣2 ,thus we made. Otherwise we might
have ended up down 1

turn out that there was no 4♠ for EW, let alone 5♠, so wrong guessing of the ♣Q position results in something like -10 IMP, if u make however, that's +10 IMP to you because only 2 tables bid 6♥, the other reached it in p 4♥ p 6♥ p p p

[pclayton]

temp3600, on Mar 6 2007, 03:03 AM, said:

North probably has at least 4 spades for his 4♠ followed by 5♠, which leaves South with something like KJ98xx in spades and the ♦A, but not much else in terms of honors. Does he need to have the ♣Q for his red vs white 3♠? I think it's hard to tell :
Would someone bid 3♠ here with KJ98xx x Ax Qxxx but not with KJ98xx x Ax xxxx? Maybe. With KJ98xx x AJxx Qx and not with KJ98xx x AJxx xx? It seems unlikely.

Since I don't think there's a strong clue as to who holds the ♣Q, I'll just try to get a good count of the hand and finesse against the defender who's longer in clubs.
So I'd cross to dummy in trumps twice to ruff the small spades, then pull trumps, play the top diamonds and ruff the fourth round. I know how the hearts and diamonds were distributed, and I'm betting on spades being 6-4.

This line seems to give up on a diamond/club squeeze, but that's not the case : in order to be squeezed, the defender with 4+ diamonds needs to hold at least 3 clubs to the queen well, and if he has 3+ clubs, a correct count of the hand leads to a successful club finesse.

More to the point, this isn't a 'free' squeeze. You've gone down in a cold contract if either player has Q9x of clubs without the diamond length.

I think I'd just ruff out the diamonds to get a count, and play spades to be 6-4, assuming the hand with 4 turns out with a stiff somewhere.

[jtfanclub]

pclayton, on Mar 7 2007, 12:00 PM, said:

More to the point, this isn't a 'free' squeeze. You've gone down in a cold contract if either player has Q9x of clubs without the diamond length.

It's not a cold contract...the best you can do without trying for the squeeze is determine who has the 3rd club and finesse against him- a 60% shot.

Playing my plan above, you determine that South has two hearts pretty early. He then follows to 3 rounds of diamonds before you've discarded a second club. Now the squeeze fails if South started with 4 diamonds and 1 club (not the Queen), and works if South had 3 diamonds and two clubs (doesn't matter who has the queen). The finesse fails if South has Qx doubleton in clubs, and works otherwise. Whether you ruff the 4th diamond or not, there's only one way to take the finesse.

I think the odds are higher that South was 3-2 in the minors with Qx in clubs than 4-1 in the minors with a small club, but I don't really know the math. There's other questions involved too- would he have led it if it had been a singleton? Would he have continued diamonds hoping for a ruff if he held 4 (I would).

I think the squeeze is the better play.