[mikeh]

Scoring: IMP

S opens 1N, and N raises to 4N, which S in turn raises to 6N. N is a Mexican who is known as hyper-aggressive and her partner, in life and often in bridge seems to have caught the bug, for his raise to slam. Fortunately (they were my teammates on this hand, hence the use of 'fortunately'), he is a true expert. LHO tanks and leads the ♦ 9. Plan the play.

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Hint is hidden

Spoiler

you need to pick up the clubs... can you think of any approach that will help you decide how to play the suit?

[han]

Interesting hand, I can think of several possible lines that are quite different and I find it confusing that this hand is posted here. Are the opponents any good?

[mikeh]

han, on Sep 22 2008, 09:44 PM, said:

Interesting hand, I can think of several possible lines that are quite different and I find it confusing that this hand is posted here. Are the opponents any good?

Maybe I should have altered the hand, to make the hearts Ax in dummy: now we have 12 tricks on top if we get the clubs right..... which is the point of the hand

[han]

Aha, I was thinking about a heart to the king at trick 2, not a play I would expect in the B/I forum. Also not sure if it is right here.

[vuroth]

2 problems:

1. I need 3 tricks from the majors
2. I need 5 tricks from clubs

One question immediately springs to mind. Since N/S didn't use Stayman, I would think that a major suit lead would be indicated (someone please correct me if I'm wrong!) Even with equal suits, I think if I had 4 hearts and 4 diamonds, I would try to lead the major if I could.

Two possibilities come to mind - maybe LHO didn't want to lead from Axxx or AQxx in hearts, or maybe LHO doesn't have a long major. LHO's tank is probably meaningful.

This really seems like a counting problem - I need to know opponents distributions, in order to make the best possible guess in clubs.

For problem 1, I'll either lead low spade to the jack straight away, or low heart to the king. If I try spades, I won't cash the ace of spades first, as if I go A♠, low ♠ and lose, a heart return is obvious (well or a club, which would be nice). Assuming I win my finesse, I'll cash my diamond and spade winners, and try to get count. Nobody will be throwing clubs (if they do I'll play for the drop, leaving open the finesse of the non-discarding hand), so chances are I'll at least get a hint.

As for the majors, without the tank I think I'd try low to the jack. I can't think, though, of what the tank would be if not equal length hearts and diamonds with the ace of hearts, so I'll try the heart.

V

[pclayton]

han, on Sep 22 2008, 08:18 PM, said:

Aha, I was thinking about a heart to the king at trick 2, not a play I would expect in the B/I forum. Also not sure if it is right here.

Agree with a heart to the King.

Maybe this is the theme that you want the BI's to get:

Spoiler

If LHO has the ♥A, there's a good chance that he doesn't have Qxx / Qxxx of clubs. Why? With a likely club trick in the bag, LHO would tend to lead the ♥A on the go.

[cherdano]

pclayton, on Sep 23 2008, 08:51 AM, said:

han, on Sep 22 2008, 08:18 PM, said:

Aha, I was thinking about a heart to the king at trick 2, not a play I would expect in the B/I forum. Also not sure if it is right here.

Agree with a heart to the King.

Maybe this is the theme that you want the BI's to get:

Spoiler

If LHO has the ♥A, there's a good chance that he doesn't have Qxx / Qxxx of clubs. Why? With a likely club trick in the bag, LHO would tend to lead the ♥A on the go.

Why is ♣Q a likely trick on the auction 1N-4N-6N? I would never lead an ace against this auction.

[FrancesHinden]

vuroth, on Sep 23 2008, 02:56 PM, said:

...

1. I need 3 tricks from the majors

For problem 1, I'll either lead low spade to the jack straight away, or low heart to the king. If I try spades, I won't cash the ace of spades first, as if I go A♠, low ♠ and lose, a heart return is obvious (well or a club, which would be nice).

This wasn't the problem mikeh was trying to address, but it's a good one.
If you play a spade to the jack and it loses, you are really devoid of any chance of a twelfth trick (barring a very unlikely squeeze).

If you play a heart to the king and the ace is offside, then
i) RHO might duck
ii) If RHO doesn't wins but does not immediately play a heart back, you can still take the spade finesse later having picked the clubs up.

So, if you are aiming for your major suit trick before worrying about how to play clubs, play a heart not a spade.

[mikeh]

Frances is right in both of her points.. the major suit issue was not the one I was aiming at.. and that is why, in my follow up post, I suggested that I should have made dummy's hearts the Ax. However, at the table, I think that there may be some considerable value, against average opps, of running the club suit before committing to a major suit play... the question I was trying to pose was how does one go about playing the club suit? Is it as simple as '8 ever, 9 never'? Or are there some simple steps one can take on a hand like this that will help you work things out rather than fall back on such a mantra?

[han]

If you want to guess clubs first then there are a few possibilities:

1. Take two or three diamond tricks to see how they split. If somebody is short in diamonds, they are more likely to have club length.

2. Win the diamond trick in hand and lead the club jack. LHO might cover or flinch with the queen.

If you guess the clubs right and take your 9 minor suit winners you probably get some idea of who has the heart ace and spade queen.

[mikeh]

han, on Sep 23 2008, 01:49 PM, said:

If you want to guess clubs first then there are a few possibilities:

1. Take two or three diamond tricks to see how they split. If somebody is short in diamonds, they are more likely to have club length.

2. Win the diamond trick in hand and lead the club jack. LHO might cover or flinch with the queen.

If you guess the clubs right and take your 9 minor suit winners you probably get some idea of who has the heart ace and spade queen.

Against me, in 4N after I led a spade away from Q10xx (thus opener had no losing position in the spade suit) he crossed to a diamond and put the club jack on the table. I felt insulted by the notion that I would flinch if I had the Queen I won't yet say what my club holding was.

[vuroth]

FrancesHinden, on Sep 23 2008, 01:00 PM, said:

If you play a heart to the king and the ace is offside, then
i) RHO might duck

I'd be very surprised if a B/I RHO ducked, but nothing's impossible.

That said, you're definitely correct. If you've already lost 1 trick, the Q♠ is a meeelion times easier to finesse than the boss heart, in a small slam.

[mikeh]

Ok, I screwed this one up by giving declarer a problem in the major suits, that could possibly be solved by leading a heart early.. if the Ace is onside, we then try to work on clubs, while if the A is offside, we are okay so long as they don't continue the suit... altho with that dummy, it seems to me that the odds are extremely high that rho would lead the suit back no matter what his holding, and we may be going beat a lot of tricks.

My point was that we need to take 5 club tricks to have any chance. We hold 9 between us and the book play is to cash the AK.

BUT: lho led a high diamond. It costs us nothing to cash diamonds before deciding to do anything else.

When we do that, we discover that LHO began with only 2 diamonds, and pitches a heart.

We can then infer, altho this is NOT a 100% inference (there are sometimes 100% inferences, but most bridge is played with less assurance, especially in the early play), that LHO probably has no 5 card suit... the lead from a 5 card major would usually be more attractive especially on an auction in which LHO did not stayman.

Now, if LHO held AQxxx in hearts, the inference is going to prove to be wrong, but even then, if LHO held xx in both minors, there is an equal chance that he would lead a club, rather than a diamond. So there is an excellent inference that LHO has club length or Qx.

In either case, we cater to clubs by cashing the A and then advancing the J, intending to run it if ducked.

That line would and did work, and my teammate now cashed 9 minor suit winners, which forced a lot of discards... against first rate opps, those discards might be uninformative or even misleading, but against 90% of the opps one meets in regionals or sectionals, even in the A/X flight, you will get some idea of what is going on.

You may well end up in a guess in the end game, which (again) is why I should have edited the hand to make the dummy Ax in hearts... thus simplifying the position.. you'd have the spade hook to fall back on if you only got 4 club tricks.

However, there is another reasonable inference once you discover that the lead was from xx in diamonds, because, on the auction, xxxx or 10xxx in spades is probably a more attractive lead, while Qxxx may not be, regardless of the heart holding (and, indeed, leader held all three missing Queens).

[vuroth]

mikeh, on Sep 23 2008, 06:20 PM, said:

if the Ace is onside, we then try to work on clubs, while if the A is offside, we are okay so long as they don't continue the suit... altho with that dummy, it seems to me that the odds are extremely high that rho would lead the suit back no matter what his holding, and we may be going beat a lot of tricks.

Interesting problem. Thanks for sharing it.

I'll admit, I greatly feared that dummy would prompt the heart continuation. That got me looking for ways to avoid that, rather than looking for the most likely working line.

Also, I find inferences about what opponents would and would not lead to be tough at this level.

V

[brianshark]

Against 3NT people prefer a Major lead over a minor lead. But this is 6NT. The only concern for the defence is finding the lead which doesn't blow a trick. So on this hand, the inference about not leading from length in a Major is not correct.