[Phil]

Haven't seen a lot of interesting hands lately, but I did have this one in a Best Hand tourney a few days ago:

Scoring: Total Points

1C - 1S - dbl - 2S
4H - AP

Opening lead - Spade King.

---

How do you play?

[aguahombre]

king of diamonds, pitching a spade. East played the ace? I Pitch a spade anyway.
should be able to draw trumps shortly after roughing the spade return and pitching my last spade on the diamond queen.

[Phil]

aguahombre, on Jun 16 2009, 12:59 AM, said:

king of diamonds, pitching a spade. East played the ace? I Pitch a spade anyway.
should be able to draw trumps shortly after roughing the spade return and pitching my last spade on the diamond queen.

Actually, playing a diamond early is what you can't do (I know, since I played the hand )

By leading a diamond early, you give the defense the tempo for a club ruff, which is what happened.

I think you can survive by either:

- drawing trump. As simple as this sounds, if the defense forces dummy early, you now have the entries for three spade ruffs. The defense can't force dummy, and draw dummy's trump. Depending on what the defense does, you then play a high diamond for #10.

- ruffing spades (including ruffing a diamond to hand for the last entry). If RHO wins an early heart and plays a diamond, you just pitch.

I may be missing something here, but I thought this was a suprisingly complex hand.

[aguahombre]

It would seem, that on the forcing defense, and the play described, this would be the six-card ending, with the defense having one trick in the bag and dummy on lead:
--
--
kqxx
jT

--
QJ
--
AKXX

The Diamond Ace is still out, because of the defensive spade continuation, and you either lose a diamond, the high trump and a club ruff, or if you come off dummy with a club, they can:

if you lead a trump, east wins this one and leads a low diamond thru you. You cant pitch, so you rough and lose the last three tricks.
if you lead a club, they rough, play a diamond, and get two heart tricks.

[Phil]

 

aguahombre, on Jun 17 2009, 12:49 PM, said:

It would seem, that on the forcing defense, and the play described, this would be the six-card ending, with the defense having one trick in the bag and dummy on lead:
                --
                --
                kqxx
                jT

                --
                QJ
                --
                AKXX

The Diamond Ace is still out, because of the defensive spade continuation, and you either lose a diamond, the high trump and a club ruff, or if you come off dummy with a club, they can:

if you lead a trump, east wins this one and leads a low diamond thru you. You cant pitch, so you rough and lose the last three tricks.
if you lead a club, they rough, play a diamond, and get two heart tricks.

The defense has no tricks at this point.

[Echognome]

What if you lead a trump and it holds? Would be a great play from a defender holding AKxx.

[aguahombre]

Phil, on Jun 17 2009, 01:43 PM, said:

 

aguahombre, on Jun 17 2009, 12:49 PM, said:

It would seem, that on the forcing defense, and the play described, this would be the six-card ending, with the defense having one trick in the bag and dummy on lead:
                 --
                 --
                 kqxx
                 jT

                 --
                 QJ
                 --
                 AKXX

The Diamond Ace is still out, because of the defensive spade continuation, and you either lose a diamond, the high trump and a club ruff, or if you come off dummy with a club, they can:

if you lead a trump, east wins this one and leads a low diamond thru you. You cant pitch, so you rough and lose the last three tricks.
if you lead a club, they rough, play a diamond, and get two heart tricks.

The defense has no tricks at this point.

except the first heart u lead and they won. If rounded are 2-2 in same hand, i dont think they can untangle a club ruff.

[Jlall]

Playing a heart at trick 2 is obvious, then go from there.

[Phil]

Echognome, on Jun 17 2009, 01:46 PM, said:

What if you lead a trump and it holds? Would be a great play from a defender holding AKxx.

I think you're probably toast in that layout.

[gnasher]

Phil, on Jun 17 2009, 05:57 PM, said:

I think you can survive by either:

- drawing trump. As simple as this sounds, if the defense forces dummy early, you now have the entries for three spade ruffs. The defense can't force dummy, and draw dummy's trump. Depending on what the defense does, you then play a high diamond for #10.

If you try to ruff three spades, it gets a bit messy. For example, ♠A, trump, spade ruff, club to hand, spade ruff, club to hand, spade ruff, and now what? You're down to playing a club and hoping that it's ruffed from the three-card trump holding, or with the remaining honour. That might work, but four rounds of spades have been played, so they may well have already discarded the 13th club.

It's better to ruff only two spades: ♠A, trump, spade ruff, club to hand, spade ruff, trump. Now you'll probably lose just two trumps and one spade.

Quote

- ruffing spades (including ruffing a diamond to hand for the last entry). If RHO wins an early heart and plays a diamond, you just pitch.

You mean ♠A, club, spade ruff, club, spade ruff, diamond ruff, spade ruff, trump? I don't think that is likely to work. If spades were 5-3 they can force you off; otherwise they may be able to take ♦A and a club ruff; or they might duck a diamond to dummy, making you force yourself.

Quote

I may be missing something here, but I thought this was a suprisingly complex hand.

Yes, very interesting.

[Phil]

Jlall, on Jun 17 2009, 02:25 PM, said:

Playing a heart at trick 2 is obvious, then go from there.

OK, RHO wins and plays a spade.

[aguahombre]

it all goes back to leading the diamond king and pitching a spade at trick two. You need hearts 3/2 and clubs 3/2 to make, anyway...the plans of roughing three spades in dummy after pulling a trump at trick two don't work....so, u can only make against best defense, if one opponent has both honor-x in hearts and two clubs, so they cannot engineer a club rough.

[gnasher]

aguahombre, on Jun 18 2009, 04:33 AM, said:

the plans of roughing three spades in dummy after pulling a trump at trick two don't work....so, u can only make against best defense, if one opponent has both honor-x in hearts and two clubs, so they cannot engineer a club rough.

If hearts and clubs are both 3-2, leading a trump at trick two is almost 100%.

I've already told you how to make it if they play back a spade - ruff only two spades and then play a second trump.

If they play a club at trick 3, you win and play another trump. If they win that and play a round suit there is time to set up a diamond whilst dummy controls spades; if instead they play spades now, you can revert to ruffing two spades in dummy.

If East wins the first trump and plays a diamond through South, you discard a spade.

[Jlall]

Phil, on Jun 17 2009, 08:43 PM, said:

Jlall, on Jun 17 2009, 02:25 PM, said:

Playing a heart at trick 2 is obvious, then go from there.

OK, RHO wins and plays a spade.

ruff, club to ace, spade ruff, trump.

[benlessard]

Quote

What if you lead a trump and it holds? Would be a great play from a defender holding AKxx.

Ruff a spades, clubs, ruff a spades, back in clubs and if they follow its over because you ruff the 4S and play clubs all the way. If they ruff the 2 nd round of clubs and dont cash the spades youll have to be a lucky.