[Walddk]

Scoring: IMP

W: 6D
Lead: SQ

---

The third quarter of the Vanderbilt final between Katz and Diamond was one of the best sets on vugraph in recent years. This deal was breathtaking beyond compare, when John Diamond defended as if he knew all the cards.

West (Steve Weinstein) opened 1♦, Brian Platnick overcalled 1♠, and after several rounds of bidding Weinstein showed a strong hand with 5-5 in the minors, a spade control, no heart control and three keycards.

Platnick led ♠Q to declarer's king. Weinstein cashed ♣A and K and ruffed a club with dummy's ♦6, North following with the 7, 8 and Queen. Diamond overruffed with the ♦8 and went into the tank. I don't think I exaggerate when I say that he remained there for almost 10 minutes.

Eventually, he came out and .... did what?

While you are thinking about it, I can add that the contract was the same in the other room with Brad Moss as declarer. The play was identical until trick 4 when Tarek Sadek overruffed the ♦6.

Sadek did not think as long as Diamond before he .... did what?

(Those of you who were there could perhaps hold back for a while until other users have had the chance to comment. Thanks.)

Roland

[Gerben42]

I didn't see it but it seems the position must be:

Scoring: IMP

---

A ♠ obviously gives away the contract, a ♥ allows declarer to make the contract with an elopement, so we have to return a ♦ to destroy the tempo. My guess is both returned a small ♦ and declarer had to find playing ♦9 to make it.

[Codo]

I agree that you mus return a diamond.
Maybe the ten is the correct card because when declarer belives that you have JTxx originally, he may still survive after you lead a trump now.

So I lead the ten.


P.S. I had not overruffed the club.

[gnasher]

You have to overruff. If you don't, in Gerben's construction declarer's certain to make it. He can even play a diamond to the ace at this point - when he finds that trumps aren't 3-2, he still has time to take a heart finesse, throw a club on a spade, ruff something in hand, ruff the last club in dummy, and lead something from dummy, underruffing as you ruff with an honour. If you try to prevent this by discarding a spade on the third club, then ruffing ♠A, he just overruffs, ruffs the clubs good, crosses back with a spade ruff, and plays winners.

[hatchett]

A ♥ return does beat it on Gerben's construction. If declarer reads us for JTxx diamonds then he needs four entries to table, one to force us to split our honors, two to shorten his trumps and one to effect the trump coup. A spade return gives him his fourth entry and a diamond return enables him to pick up that suit for no loser.

[y66]

Saw the match. Amazing stuff. Nice to see this one again.

[FrancesHinden]

As Roland knows I was commentating at the time, so I'm not going to withhold comment on the hand for the time being here.

But it gives me the chance for a quick rant....

If you are watching vu-graph, and a complex hand comes up, and there's a lot of discussion about how to play it, and what declarer might play for, then...

When a commentator says that the contract should now go off (or indeed should now make), (s)he might be wrong. But...

- Before sending a PM telling the commentator thay are wrong, see if the GIB analysis agrees with you. Double dummy is not the same as 'at the table' but it may provide a hint.

- Do not send any of the following PMs (or paraphrases of them) to a commentator

"No you are wrong"
"You have missed the obvious line"
"He is a better declarer at the table than all the commentators are double dummy"

Even if true, they are rude and not exactly helpful.
And when they aren't true, they are rude and even more irritating.

OK, rant off.

I don't know what it was about the Vanderbilt - I'm used to people telling me my analysis is wrong (on average they are right probably about 30% of the time, but that varies a lot depending on the person telling me...) - but I surprised at how rude some of the remarks were.

I know the nice BBO forum people wouldn't be rude to a hard-working commentator. And most people who want to chat are perfectly pleasant and sometimes very helpful. I just felt like ranting for once.

[Walddk]

FrancesHinden, on Mar 26 2009, 02:30 PM, said:

- Before sending a PM telling the commentator thay are wrong, see if the GIB analysis agrees with you. Double dummy is not the same as 'at the table' but it may provide a hint.

Good point. As a matter of fact, if the declarers had known the layout, they would have made the contract no matter which lead and which defence they get. One declarer did (with a little help), the other one did not.

Roland

[fred]

It was fun to be the dummy for that one

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[karlson]

I agree with Hatchett. If we play a heart now we can defeat it by force by splitting our diamond honors later. If declarer is 2-1 in the majors instead of 1-2, we never had a chance (but he's supposed to not have a heart control).

However, pretty much anything works if declarer plays us to have started with 3 diamonds. I'm more impressed with the declarer play at the other table if they read the position and played for the trump coup (or stuck in the 9 if we didn't split).

[Trumpace]

I agree with Gerben's construction (declarer having singleton spade, if declarer had 2 spades, he is making) and with the heart return (hatchett).

By a process of elimination:

Spade is fatal. (declarer will get this right for sure).

A low ♦ return helps declarer put in the 9 and ruff a ♣ with the Q. (declarer might not get this right if he plays for 3-2)

A high ♦ allows a trump coup against us (declarer will probably get this right too) as it does some of his work for him (now he needs only 3 entries to bring off the trump coup, declarer might not get this right either if he plays for 3-2, though, which I doubt).

This leaves a heart. If you return a heart, declarer, who needs 2 entries to dummy to ruff in hand, one to play a trump (and force a split) and one for the final coup, will fall short of entries.

It looks like the heart return ensures defeat while the ♦ returns might not. So heart it is.

I have a question though, why didn't Diamond go into a tank _before_ overruffing the ♦6? Could it not have been right to play low there? Or was there some obvious reason to overruf?

[mikeh]

It seems to me that declarer is dead if partner's stiff trump is the 9, so we have to place declarer with AK9xx in trump.

Our choices must be between a trump and a heart.

A trump is problematic. If we play low, declarer can make by inserting the 9, but why should he?

He can count our partner for 9-10 black cards, but is that enough to warrant the 9? His stiff spade means that there is no black suit squeeze available.

Ok, so the low diamond is unclear... declarer may guess right... can we do better?

A high diamond? he wins in hand, ruffs a club, cashes spade A and leads a spade as we pitch a heart. He ruffs down to A9x, hooks the heart, ruffs a spade, as we pitch our penultimate heart, crosses to the heart A and we are couped in the endgame.

Ok, that leaves a heart... he is in dummy.

He has the option of playing trump to behave, with me holding 3, and down he goes, but let's assume he reads me for 4, which is reasonable on the play and the bidding.

He can lead low towards his hand, intending to insert the 9 unless we split: this transforms into the same layout as our returning a low trump, I think. We could split, forcing him to win in hand. Now he is an entry short for the coup: he ruffs a club with the Q, cashes the Spade A to shed a club, ruffs a spade, crosses in hearts, ruffs a spade and is in his hand with A9 of diamonds and we hold the Jx, and no way back to the board.

So it seems to me that he may well go down no matter which red card we return, other than a high diamond, but that he is helpless at this stage on a heart and can guess correctly on anything else... we also have to be ready to split our diamonds at the appropriate juncture.

After typing this, I read the other answers and see that others were there before me (assuming this analysis is close), but I thought I'd post anyway because I went into a bit more detail than others (who probably saw the issues easier than I did.. I tried to post as I would think at the table)

[Walddk]

I could not have analysed the hand better than Mike Hargreaves, not even with all cards in view. Here is the whole hand:

Scoring: IMP

---

Only a heart into dummy's tenace is killing, because it takes an entry away prematurely. By switching to a heart, John Diamond ensured that he could not be couped.

Declarer's only chance from that point was to find the singleton jack or 10 in diamonds with North. No such luck.

Pretty.

Roland

[mikeh]

Pretty as this defence is, and as impressive as finding it in real life (with fatigue a factor and no red flag going off as is the case when it is presented as a problem).. this is the type of hand on which a little book learning helps. Most players would instinctively shy away from leading into dummy's tenace. But there is a family of hands in which this type of play is mandatory. I am not speaking of the need to wreck timing for a coup: more common, in my experience, and in my reading, is the need to make this kind of switch to kill a squeeze... usually one that operates against partner (or both of us) when declarer has or has to be assumed to have a stiff in the suit. Once one has read this play, one no longer flinches when contemplating plays like the one here... indeed, my first reaction on seeing the hand was to see if I could find a reason to lead a heart

Both the squeeze defence and the coup defence belong to the larger class of attacking communication.. which is often the key to defence. One has to be very talented to work these things out if one has not seen examples in the literature, because they don't arise, or are noticed, at the table very often. It's recognition of this type of play that is one's reward for study, if you are like me and need to have someone show you how to do it before you can do it yourself

[Fluffy]

FrancesHinden, on Mar 26 2009, 12:30 PM, said:

I know the nice BBO forum people wouldn't be rude to a hard-working commentator.

I probably don't belong to the nice people on BBO*, because when I came out of NEC semi final to see the results and what I found was a comentator telling everyone that we didn't deserve to win and all of our success was pure luck I wanted to punch him in the face.

* (Or maybe he didn't belong to the hard-working comentators).

Sorry for the off-topic rant. I know this is not common, just a particular unlucky case.

[matmat]

Fluffy, on Mar 26 2009, 08:17 PM, said:

FrancesHinden, on Mar 26 2009, 12:30 PM, said:

I know the nice BBO forum people wouldn't be rude to a hard-working commentator.

I probably don't belong to the nice people on BBO*, because when I came out of NEC semi final to see the results and what I found was a comentator telling everyone that we didn't deserve to win and all of our success was pure luck I wanted to punch him in the face.

* (Or maybe he didn't belong to the hard-working comentators).

Sorry for the off-topic rant. I know this is not common, just a particular unlucky case.

amazing restraint

[1eyedjack]

I'd be interested to know if the commentators have access to GIB double dummy analyser. Presumably if they are on the Windows client they do, but on the Web client they don't?

I absolutely agree with Frances' comments. But I have also seen quite a few comments by commentators that would not have been made had the commentators reviewed the D/D analysis. And that is after acknowledging that the D/D analysis is not the same as the single dummy analysis.

[MFA]

1eyedjack, on Mar 27 2009, 02:35 AM, said:

I'd be interested to know if the commentators have access to GIB double dummy analyser.  Presumably if they are on the Windows client they do, but on the Web client they don't?

I absolutely agree with Frances' comments.  But I have also seen quite a few comments by commentators that would not have been made had the commentators reviewed the D/D analysis.  And that is after acknowledging that the D/D analysis is not the same as the single dummy analysis.

Sure commentators can use the DD software, if we wish, but some of us just don't.
Imo is good commentary not about making 'predictions' but rather to try to explain about the problems that the players are facing. And of course to entertain.

I have no problem with making an occasional analysis mistake. Actually some specs just seem to love it when it happens. :-)