[pclayton]

Here's a nice hand I watched Tarek Sadek play the other day in a Cayne match. You reach 3N after a Jacoby auction with the following cards:

Scoring: IMP

---

You receive the lead of a low diamond. Plan the play.

[vuroth]

I'm torn between believing that this is about making the percentage play in hearts (whatever it is) and believing that declarer attacked spades immediately, in an effort to put off the defense.

I think I'll win with the Q (trying to cast doubt about the K♦), then play K♥ and low to the 9, covering the ten if necessary.

I'm pretty sure that if that was the play in the CAYNE game, it wouldn't be a post here, though.

V

[pclayton]

vuroth, on Jan 14 2008, 09:07 AM, said:

I'm torn between believing that this is about making the percentage play in hearts (whatever it is) and believing that declarer attacked spades immediately, in an effort to put off the defense.

I think I'll win with the Q (trying to cast doubt about the K♦), then play K♥ and low to the 9, covering the ten if necessary.

I'm pretty sure that if that was the play in the CAYNE game, it wouldn't be a post here, though.

V

If it was that difficult, I wouldn't be tossing it into the B/I bin either.

I, of all people, hate tricky or difficult problems posted here.

[y66]

Spoiler

We have 4 diamonds and 2 clubs off the top. We can eventually take 2 or more hearts but they may take a heart and 4 spades before then. Looks like we'll have to guess spades.

Why did LHO lead a diamond? Can he have anything in spades? We can play RHO for AK of spades or AJ. Let's play him for AK. If LHO had either ace or king he might have led spades.

DK, HK, knock out HA, then play RHO for AK when they start spades. Preserve DA as entry in case we need it to continue hearts.

[whereagles]

Many of the beginner problems posted here actually belong in the adv/expert category.

I'm not sure if this is one of them, but I suspect so because I'm having a hard time doing more than simply cashing the ♥K and guessing hearts later.

[jtfanclub]

Ummm...I take the ace of diamonds, small heart to the king, small heart back to the jack.

I'll play for hearts to be 3-3 or for the heart T to be doubleton. I don't think the odds of the heart ten being onsides is much higher than that, and it keeps my entries clear.

Why play the ace of diamonds? Because surely I must not have the king then, right? I may be able to talk RHO into returning a diamond, giving me another chance.

[pclayton]

jtfanclub, on Jan 14 2008, 10:29 AM, said:

Ummm...I take the ace of diamonds, small heart to the king, small heart back to the jack.

I'll play for hearts to be 3-3 or for the heart T to be doubleton. I don't think the odds of the heart ten being onsides is much higher than that, and it keeps my entries clear.

Why play the ace of diamonds? Because surely I must not have the king then, right? I may be able to talk RHO into returning a diamond, giving me another chance.

Just to avoid the suggestion of ulterior motives for me posting this:

The "trick" to this hand is NOT to win the A♦ at T1. LHO (Dano De Falco) has ♥ATxx and is ready to duck the 1st two hearts. Playing a heart to the King and a heart back to the 9 isn't the % line anyway.

If you win the ♦A, you don't have the entries to enjoy the 4th heart.

The spades are either running for the opponents or they aren't. There's nothing you can do about it. If RHO gets in, you have to guess whats going on in that suit, but that isn't the theme to this hand.

[cherdano]

Very good problem IMO. Very common, not difficult to get right but still something that would often be done wrong at the table.

[han]

So wait, we have to duck the first trick?

[pclayton]

Hannie, on Jan 14 2008, 03:55 PM, said:

So wait, we have to duck the first trick?

Actually I had the diamond spots wrong. The 2 was led, to the 3, 4 and 6.

So you can't duck the diamond, even if you wanted to.