[awm]

This hand illustrates what seems to be a common theme. It may be too easy as a "problem hand" but I suspect that a lot of B/I players (and some advanced players who haven't seen this sort of hand before) would get this wrong at the table; I played this hand recently in a handicapped swiss teams and the declarer at the other table did get it wrong. Anyways:

Scoring: IMP

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The auction is, north dealing:

1♣ - P - 1♠ - 3♦
P - P - 4♠ - All pass

West leads the diamond king (standard leads). How do you play the hand?

[cherdano]

Good hand.

[jtfanclub]

Option 1: Duck a heart on trick 2. They then cash a diamond. If they play a heart, I take it, play the ace of clubs and ruff a club with the ten and ruff a heart with the 9, then draw trump.

If they play the ace and another trump, now I can finish drawing trump, play the ace of clubs, and ruffing finesse the club. Unfortunately, if that loses, I'm done, so still no better than 60% or so.

Option 2: The other choice seems to me to be to go with the ruffing finesse of the club on tricks 2 & 3, discarding a diamond if they don't cover. If they with and go with the ace and another trump, the clubs are hopefully good, so I can sluff the heart on the club. If they switch to a heart, I'll duck the first one, take the second one, and ruff my last heart in my hand, getting back to my hand with a diamond ruff.

Looks like option 2 is the better choice, 85% or so. Fails when clubs are 4-1 with the 4 in front of me and the singleton isn't the king.

[Trumpace]

jtfanclub, on Aug 28 2007, 12:00 PM, said:

Option 2:  The other choice seems to me to be to go with the ruffing finesse of the club on tricks 2 & 3, discarding a diamond if they don't cover.  If they with and go with the ace and another trump, the clubs are hopefully good, so I can sluff the heart on the club.  If they switch to a heart, I'll duck the first one, take the second one, and ruff my last heart in my hand, getting back to my hand with a diamond ruff. 

Looks like option 2 is the better choice, 85% or so.  Fails when clubs are 4-1 with the 4 in front of me and the singleton isn't the king.

Please also mention what you would do if LHO wins the ♣K and returns a trump.

[jtfanclub]

Trumpace, on Aug 28 2007, 01:24 PM, said:

Please also mention what you would do if LHO wins the ♣K and returns a trump.

And they play low? Hmmm.

If I play another trump, and they split 2-2, no problem. If I win it on the board, and play the jack of clubs...still risky. If I play a low heart, they can win, cash the ace of spades, and exit with a heart, and again I need spades 2-2 to make it.

Boy, I'm having a hard time finding a way to make it trumps split 3-1.

[Trumpace]

jtfanclub, on Aug 28 2007, 01:50 PM, said:

Trumpace, on Aug 28 2007, 01:24 PM, said:

Please also mention what you would do if LHO wins the ♣K and returns a trump.

And they play low? Hmmm.

If I play another trump, and they split 2-2, no problem. If I win it on the board, and play the jack of clubs...still risky. If I play a low heart, they can win, cash the ace of spades, and exit with a heart, and again I need spades 2-2 to make it.

Boy, I'm having a hard time finding a way to make it trumps split 3-1.

Yes, low trumps.

I was thinking what if instead of a ruffing finesse of the club on trick 3, we ruff a low club high and then duck a heart...

[Quantumcat]

I won't read the other posts or the problem is no fun anymore. I hope I am not repeating anyone. (Probably not as I'll get it wrong anyway )

There's 9 tricks; 6 spades, 1 heart 1 diamond 1 club. I could take club ace and set up a club trick, they play to my heart ace but too late now, I've set up my tenth trick already. BUT if clubs not 4-2 or nicer my trick is ruffed. I can't ruff a heart now, cause as soon as I let them in with a heart they kill my trumps with A and another!! If I try to set up hearts first, they'll kill my trumps, haven't yet set up clubs so I can't get club trick cause I have no more entries anywhere.

I need to be able to do both ... be able to get a heart ruff or a club trick no matter what opponents do.

I think I have the solution. Play some spades and see what they do. If they kill dummy's trumps, then draw the rest and I can set up a club trick, which is now in no danger of being ruffed. If they knock out the heart entry to my club, then I have to have 1 more spade left. But then when I play another heart setting up the ruff, they play another trump at me. But if I don't win the first one I have the lead when dummy has no more hearts so it all works. Thus duck a heart if they play that, go to my hand and ruff a heart.

I succeed no matter what the club distribution or what defence they adopt! Yay!

Edit: They could do other stuff on winning the trump ace I didn't think of. If they cash a diamond and lead another, dummy can ruff it for extra trick. If they return a club, I win, play a low heart. If they return a heart I get to ruff a heart. If they return a club I set up my club trick, can draw trumps and use heart ace as entry. If they play a trump, win on table then same as above.

[FrancesHinden]

What if they duck the first round of spades?

[Simplicity]

Win the ♦A, club to the ace, then advance the ♣Q, ruffing high if covered else pitching the ♦J from hand. I think i'm pretty much guarenteed to win when spades break 2-2 and on lots of layouts where the ♠A is stiff or the long spades are with the long clubs (neither of which is unlikely given the bidding).

Notably LHO won't have a singleton heart with RHO silent through the auction so if the come back a heart i'll need to duck it so as to set up a ruff for my tenth trick

Nice hand

[goobers]

Can we do anything about spades being 3-1? I feel like I'd just lead a 3rd club and hope the hand with 3 spades also has 3 clubs...

Edit: Line included (probably like many others)

DA, CA, CQ, pitching J. If it holds then we're done.

If not, LHO wins CK. If he returns a heart, duck oh crap i have to go catch my bus

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lol I was thinking about this on the bus, I think this line ensures the contract as long as clubs are 3-2.

DA, CA, run the CQ pitching diamond. Assume it loses to LHO. If he leads a heart, you duck. Now the defense is helpless. If they come back with trumps, just play high trumps from your hand, drawing trump. Your HA is the entry back to the good clubs.

If they continue hearts, you win the ace perforce, ruff a club high in your hand, and ruff your 3rd heart in dummy. Losing CK, SA, and a heart.

I haven't thought about what happens when clubs are 4-1 (aside from the fact that you'll be going down if E has 4 clubs to the K.) Edit: I think you're always down if clubs are 4-1.

The key is to duck the first round of hearts when opps lead the suit. (We can permute the line so that they return a spade to the ace, then lead a heart.) They cannot cope with both the threat of a heart ruff and the entry to the good club suit. (I guess the other key point is to advance the CQ, pitching the DJ, which took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out.)

[david_c]

Ergh, is this really a B/I problem? There are two very good lines people have suggested:

(i) Ace of clubs, queen of clubs intending to pitch a diamond.

(ii) Ace of clubs, ruff a club (have to decide whether to ruff high or low), duck a heart.

I think both of these lines can cope with spades 3-1. [I won't say how in case people haven't worked it out.]

But which one is better? I think I'll go with (ii) - ace of clubs, ruff a club low, duck a heart. But not entirely sure about this, are we missing something more obvious?

[Trumpace]

What did you have in mind awm? I feel like there is some elegant solution to this hand...

[Quantumcat]

If they duck the spade, I guess it doesn't work: then they play a heart, and I don't have a spade left to get a ruff with, and I don't have an entry to set up my club. If they do this then just hope the (normal) club finesse works (can't take ruffing finesse, if they cover I can't get back again). I don't understand other people's lines. What is the logic behind them?

[vuroth]

I confess, this hand would confound me.

[awm]

The main theme here is the need to duck a heart, which a number of people spotted. Playing the heart ace (or winning a heart return by opponents with the ace) tends to lose control of the hand. Ducking the heart maintains the threat of ruffing a heart loser away, forcing opponents to pull trump for us while we still have the heart ace entry to the clubs. This is actually a fairly common theme, where you have Ax in one hand in a trump contract and need to duck the first round of the suit.

As to the right line, I think it's actually best to duck a heart at trick two. Assuming opponents cash their diamond and pull trumps (otherwise you're basically cold by taking a heart ruff), you will have to fall back on the club finesse. A priori, this might be worse than the line where you take a ruffing finesse in clubs right away. However, there are a couple points: (1) LHO preempted in diamonds. This means diamonds are quite likely 7-2 between the two hands. This makes it much more likely that clubs are 4-1, or trumps are 3-1, than it would be otherwise. (2) RHO did not bid 1♥ over 1♣, despite being almost sure to hold five or six hearts. If RHO has only 4-5 hearts it becomes even more likely that clubs break badly. If RHO has 5-6 hearts and didn't bid, his hearts probably aren't very good, which places LHO with ♦KQ and at least one high heart honor, meaning LHO probably would overcall 2♦ and not three if holding the ♣K also.

In any case, declarer at the other table played ace and a heart at tricks two and three in an attempt to get his ruff, and his opponents immediately pulled trumps.

[Trumpace]

Quantumcat, on Aug 30 2007, 05:47 AM, said:

If they duck the spade, I guess it doesn't work: then they play a heart, and I don't have a spade left to get a ruff with, and I don't have an entry to set up my club. If they do this then just hope the (normal) club finesse works (can't take ruffing finesse, if they cover I can't get back again). I don't understand other people's lines. What is the logic behind them?

We have two options for our 10th trick: either ruff a heart or, establish a club in dummy. Also, these options are likely exclusive i.e if we try to ruff a heart, we must give up on the extra club winner (as heart A will be only entry to it), if we try and set up club (say after 2 rounds of trump), defenders can knock out the entry and we go down if trumps are 3-1.

The defenders can remove out option of ruffing a heart by playing two rounds of trumps or remove out option of club winner by knocking out HA before trumps are drawn.

The other lines given try to cater to both options.

For instance, consider the ruffing finesse. Say east covers the club K, we ruff and now duck a heart.

Defenders are now stuck. If they try to knock out the entry to dummy (HA), we can now ruff a heart in dummy. If they try to prevent a heart ruff, by playing two rounds of trump, we can draw trumps, get to dummy using HA and cash our club winner in peace (without danger of being ruffed).

Ducking a heart maintains the options for us and does not commit to any one line of play (ruff a heart or establish club). It forces the defenders to commit first.