[sceptic]

Scoring: IMP

---

West North East South

 -     -     Pass  Pass
 Pass  1♦    Pass  1♥
 2♣    2♥    Pass  4♥
 Pass  Pass  Pass  

how many tricks should you make on A D lead and D return and what is correct line of play after these two leads

[Trinidad]

West has led ♦Ax, a clear doubleton. He is trying for a ruff. He won't do that with ♥Qxx. Therefore, assume west has ♥xxx and play ♥AK with the queen falling from east. Pull the last trump and run the diamonds discarding clubs. You loose a diamond and a spade.

If the queen doesn't fall, continue diamonds and discard spades. Someone can ruff, but you will continue discarding spades on diamonds, losing a diamond, a trump and a club.

Rik

P.S. I think South's bidding was excellent given the form of scoring (assuming NS play support doubles).

[pbleighton]

I think 3H would have been enough, but 4H isn't bad, given the club stiff.

Peter

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

3H is enough.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[kenrexford]

3♥ is for wimps.

[helene_t]

Are we playing support doubles? If so, 4♥ although 3♥ is not unreasonable. Otherwise 3♦ which p may pass if he has only three hearts.

As for the play I would cash ♥AK because I'm down if the finese fails and they get a ♦ ruff.

[neilkaz]

helene_t, on Aug 5 2007, 05:05 PM, said:

Are we playing support doubles? If so, 4♥ although 3♥ is not unreasonable. Otherwise 3♦ which p may pass if he has only three hearts.

As for the play I would cash ♥AK to because I'm down if the finese fails and they get a ♦ ruff.

We agree although I definately am taking the shot to 4♥ here if PD promises 4 card support, based on my ♣ stiff and the fact that we so often have at least a 9 card ♦ fit. We agree on the play also.

[Robert]

Hi Jlall

Change the opening bid to 10xxx KJxx Qxx AK and most of these 4H bidders appear somewhat overboard. Now move that Queen into clubs for
AK10x KJxx xxx Qx and the play of the hand is a little bit more challenging.

Why not jump to game with an 8 eight loser hand 'unless' you are looking at both hands?

Let someone post a non fitting eight loser hand opposite a single raise and see all of the players 'looking' at both hands that pass out 2Hs and comment wtp?

Regards,
Robert

[ArtK78]

I would make a game try with the South hand. I am not going to punish partner for opening a marginal hand in 4th seat and raising on his 4 card support.

I would bid 3D. Pard should like his hand opposite a 3D game try,so we should still get to game.

I could not ask for a friendlier defense than A and another diamond. It is absolutely clear to draw 2 rounds of trump and not to finesse. I thought about playing the hearts K then A, but I don't think there is any situation in which the order of play of the top hearts matters.

[helene_t]

Jlall, on Aug 6 2007, 01:12 AM, said:

wow@everyone, I pretty sure I would pass 2H lol.

maybe this shows the difference between a post-mortem and a pre-mortem discussion

As fot LTC, it was the first card evaluating method I learned, before learning playing tricks or HCP or anything. Then it was three minus the number of guarded honours. Later it became basically three minus Culbertson's honour tricks. This is similar to Anders Wirgren's method or more precisely: working queen points plus 6-4-2 for shortness. Except that Wirgren evaluates "working" in the context of what p seems to have, and also devaluates duplicated shortness.

Some authors add their own minor adjustments, e.g. Danny Kleinman might say that AJT should be one-and-a-quarter LTC rather than one-and-a-half. Also extra trump length should be factored in but that's tricky because one would have to reduce the values of the shortnesses because of the confounding from shortnesses on trump length. Maybe the formular could be improved by valuating shortness by the 5-card trumps less than shortness by the long trumps. Also a singleton plus a doubleton is valuated as the same as a three-card plus a void and that doesn't seem reasonable.

You need 18-LTC to make a contract at the 4-level. I used to think that an opening was 7 LTC but that is only true in a style that opens distributional hands with hard values very light and balanced hands with soft values conservatively, maybe akin to Ben's style. I don't think that LTC is particularely useful opposite a p who opened largely based on HCP.

[jdonn]

I think it's close between passing 2♥ and inviting via 3♦. This is only because of the double fit, if the suits were rearranged in any way I would pass. 4♥ is nutso, I'm all for bidding games but if you invite and partner rejects you really won't miss game, in fact you are probably down in 3 in that case.