[FrancesHinden]

Scoring: Total Points

1♥ x 3♣ 4♠
all pass

---

Pretend you are playing expert opponents (in fact you will be 5000 points up after 20 boards so it's all pretty irrelevant, but then it wouldn't be an interesting problem).

3C is weak, 6+ clubs, no heart fit.
LHO leads the ace of hearts, RHO plays the 7 which is count and could be from 7, 7x or exactly J87.

LHO switches to the 9 of clubs at trick 2.

Plan the play.

[ArtK78]

Without going into too much detail, my plan is to win the club in hand and play a club towards the K in dummy. If LHO ruffs, the ♣K will be available for a diamond pitch. If not, it scores a trick. I intend to cross ruff the hand.

[Trumpace]

ArtK78, on Nov 21 2007, 01:53 PM, said:

Without going into too much detail, my plan is to win the club in hand and play a club towards the K in dummy. If LHO ruffs, the ♣K will be available for a diamond pitch. If not, it scores a trick. I intend to cross ruff the hand.

What would you do if LHO ruffs your low club towards K and shifts to a diamond and also has the A8x of trumps (which does not seem so unlikely)

[FrancesHinden]

ArtK78, on Nov 21 2007, 07:53 PM, said:

Without going into too much detail, my plan is to win the club in hand and play a club towards the K in dummy. If LHO ruffs, the ♣K will be available for a diamond pitch. If not, it scores a trick. I intend to cross ruff the hand.

I don't think 'cross ruff the hand' is good enough, you will need the 8 of spades on your right. Club to the king (diamond discard on your left). You can't play diamond to hand, heart ruff, club ruff high, heart ruff, club ruff high, heart ruff, trump because you go off unless the 8 of spades is singleton; better to take a club ruff low and hope.

Alternatively, if the club is ruffed and a diamond comes back you are off if LHO has 3 spades.


[By the way, don't be upset I'm picking too many holes in your line, I can pick holes in every suggested line, that's why I've posted it as a problem - it's a question of which line has the fewest holes]

[ArtK78]

If LHO does not ruff and the ♣K scores, I am just going to play RHO for the ♠8. That doesn't seem too unlikely.

[luke warm]

FrancesHinden, on Nov 21 2007, 11:30 AM, said:

Scoring: Total Points

1♥ x 3♣ 4♠
all pass

---

i guess i'd play for ♠ to be 2/2 with LHO having the ace.. low ♣ toward board... if LHO ducks, play the K, ♦ to the ace and exit a ♦ (hoping for K,Q on the left)... then ruff a ♥ high

if LHO ruffs the ♣ she'd exit (i guess) a ♦ honor (still assuming K,Q).. i'd win the ace, ruff a ♥ high, toss the ♦J on the ♣K... i'm hoping LHO started with ♠A,x ♥A,K,J,x,x,x ♦K,Q,x,x ♣9

[whereagles]

Was thinking of playing the ♠10 before trying the club... but then I got no entry. Perhaps a heart first, but then opps can play a diamond... oh well.

[mikeh]

Okay, I will give it a try.

The line I intend to adopt has many forks, depending on what the opps do at various stages.

It begins counter-intuitively: I rise with the club K and lead a diamond to the J.

LHO, now on lead, is at a fork.

If LHO plays a diamond, I win, and lead the ♥Q. Assuming LHO covers, I ruff low and note RHO's card. If it is the 8, I play him to have begun with J87, which I doubt. More likely, it was an x.

I play a high spade from dummy, and again LHO is at a fork.

If he wins, then he can try another heart, but I ruff it high, cross in diamonds, ruff high, ruff a diamond and pull trump.

If he ducks the 1st spade, I have a fork.

BTW, (and this is an edit): I just want to say how much I enjoy Frances' play problems, in particular. Whether I get them right or wrong, I find them of uniformly high calibre..

I have to decide if trump are 2-2 or 3-1. I think ducking from Axx is clear while ducking from Ax is more difficult to find on defence, so if he ducks, I'm playing him for the (more probable, anyway) holding of Axx. In any event, if I play rho for a stiff trump (as I will), I cross in diamonds and either run the heart 10 or ruff it to drop rho's original J87.. .his second heart will tell me which.

Assuming LHO covers when he holds the J, iI ruff, establishing my 9, and if he doesn't cover, I pitch a club and then ruff my last heart and then play another trump from dummy, making no matter what LHO plays.

If LHO wins the 1st spade and leads another, I play high in dummy and see if RHO follows.

If rho follows, then trump were 2-2 and they are all gone and I can't go down so long as RHO was honest in the heart suit.

If rho shows out, then LHO has one trump left, and I am in dummy. I play a diamond to my hand, ruff (hook) another heart, ruff a diamond to hand and pull trump and claim.

There are other permutations, but the biggest threat seems to be misreading the spade suit. If LHO ducks from Ax (not an easy play), I may fail when trump were 2-2, because it would be an error to play a second round when trump are 3-1, since RHO will win and play a third round, killing my ability to establish a heart trick while only losing 1 trick in the suit.

[dburn]

Without going too deeply into this, it seems to me that if West is 3=6=3=1 with the eight of spades, he needs the king-queen of diamonds for me to succeed. Then, I had better win the club with the ace and play a heart, intending to run it if not covered. If it is covered, I will ruff and play a diamond to the jack.

The reason I need West to have both diamond honours on this line is that if East began with four to an honour, he can in theory defeat me by playing that honour on the first round. Since he is not very likely to do this, and since the line works against West distributions such as 2=6=4=1, I will start this way and see what turns up.

[pclayton]

The problem with the club back at T3 is that LHO can ruff and shift to diamonds and I'm toast. I can't take the pitch efficiently if LHO is something like 3=5=4=1.

Agree with Mike's general principle of taking a ruffing finesse in hearts, playing diamonds into West and partially drawing trump.

[FrancesHinden]

dburn, on Nov 22 2007, 02:22 AM, said:

Without going too deeply into this, it seems to me that if West is 3=6=3=1 with the eight of spades, he needs the king-queen of diamonds for me to succeed. Then, I had better win the club with the ace and play a heart, intending to run it if not covered. If it is covered, I will ruff and play a diamond to the jack.

The reason I need West to have both diamond honours on this line is that if East began with four to an honour, he can in theory defeat me by playing that honour on the first round. Since he is not very likely to do this, and since the line works against West distributions such as 2=6=4=1, I will start this way and see what turns up.

Win the club in hand
Heart queen-king-ruff (RHO turns up with a doubleton heart)
Diamond to the jack and honour on our left
Diamond return

But you still aren't home. You have two possible lines from here:

i) cross-ruff the hand
win diamond in hand
heart ruff
diamond ruff
heart ruff
king of spades from dummy

West ducks this and you've lost control if trumps are 3-1

ii) set up the heart
win diamond return in hand and play a trump
whether west wins and plays a heart, or ducks, you still have to decide how many trumps he started with I think

I can't see how you can avoid having to decide fairly early on if trumps are 3-1 or 2-2. Mikeh's line has the same problem.

[foo]

Frances, are EW playing 5cM or 4cM?

(If EW are playing 5cM, E seems unlikely to hold ♥J87 given the bidding and caliber of the opponents.)

[FrancesHinden]

4 card majors, 14-16 1NT opening

[mikeh]

It seems to me that any reasonable line requires the guess as to west's spade length. Thus a line that maximizes his problems seems best: a line in which west will have to think about whether to win or duck the first trump, while delaying our decision until after that point seems to me to have a slight edge against real-life opps, even real-life experts. After all, as several top players have noted, everyone plays the game badly: experts just play less badly.

I may well have tunnel vision, having come up with a line, but I do think that the line I suggested may well have this slight edge: in my line, I don't need to commit to the trump suit until I have had west make a couple of decisions: what to do when in on trick 3 (the earlier we throw him in, the less information he has) and whether to win the 1st spade, played quite early in the hand... again, the earlier he has to make a decision, the more likely he is to either get it wrong or break tempo in a manner that informs us of the probable situation.

Having said all that, maybe Frances will soon post a solution that will cause me to realize I had (not for the first nor last time) a blind spot

[foo]

FrancesHinden, on Nov 22 2007, 11:08 AM, said:

4 card majors, 14-16 1NT opening

OK, in that case, and given the 1st two rounds of the defense, I am not playing for ♥'s to be 7:1. (Also, the bidding makes it unlikely that E is =1156, pruning one of the shapes where ♥'s could be 7:1).
So I'm playing ♥'s to be AKxxx:J87 or AKJxxx:7x

IMO the C9 is a stiff, so ♣'s are 9:QTxxxx.

This makes W most likely to be something like
=3541, =2551, =2641, =3631
And E
=1336, =2326, =2236, =1246
Respectively.

I'm also playing W to be far stronger than E and for the ♦ honors to be very likely split.

So, win the CA and then ruff a ♥ =small=.
If I'm wrong, I rate to be -2
(E overruffs and gives W a ♣ ruff; and I still have my original 3 losers.)
If I'm wrong, I get picked on by teammates and around here as well *shrug*.

If ruffing a ♥ small survives, I'll post more of what I'm planning.
No point posting further on this if not.

[FrancesHinden]

mikeh, on Nov 22 2007, 05:31 PM, said:

Having said all that, maybe Frances will soon post a solution that will cause me to realize I had (not for the first nor last time) a blind spot

Nope.

I like your line. I think David's line is second best.
I didn't have a definitive answer when I posted the hand.

LHO's hand is
A2
AKJxxx
K10xx
x

So most sensible lines work (and in particular I think it's much easier for RHO to insert the King than the Queen when we play a diamond off dummy).

At the table I played a second club from hand at trick 2, but I'm pretty confident now that was the wrong line (although it succeeds on the layout).

If I tell you that at the other table my team-mates made 2H the other way, you'll see why we were so much up.

[luke warm]

FrancesHinden, on Nov 22 2007, 12:06 PM, said:

LHO's hand is
A2
AKJxxx
K10xx
x

At the table I played a second club from hand at trick 2, but I'm pretty confident now that was the wrong line (although it succeeds on the layout).

then the actual hand differs from my guess by not having ♦K,Q,x,x ... still, i think leading the club at trick 2 was a good move if for no other reason than it puts west to the test immediately... what did west do?

i honestly don't see any way to make it unless west has ♠A,x and ♦K,Q,x,x because east can (i think) always set you by playing a ♦ honor if one is led from the board