[kfay]

Opps had to make a fairly blind lead to your slam, now you have to make it.

Scoring: IMP

2♥-2NT
3♦-6♥

2♦=Good Suit/Bad Hand

---

Oops...

W leads the ♦5 (3rd/low), RHO wins the KING.
T2 RHO shifts to the ♠K.

[quiddity]

blind or invisible?

[kfay]

quiddity, on Sep 16 2009, 02:04 PM, said:

blind or invisible?

[Jlall]

kfay, on Sep 16 2009, 02:06 PM, said:

quiddity, on Sep 16 2009, 02:04 PM, said:

blind or invisible?

Now there are 2 4 of diamonds in the deck...

[kfay]

I'll get it right one of these days...

[Simplicity]

How about:

Win the ♠A, pull trumps, finesse the diamond and cash the ace discarding a spade. If diamonds were 33 or 42 with the queen onside i'm already home as i can enjoy a long diamond. If diamonds were 5-1 then i can try for a trump squeeze so long as trumps were 3-2.

Given that LHO will have shown up with 7/8 red cards to 3/4 with RHO, I'll try for the ♣Q with RHO so i ruff a diamond back to hand to leave:

---

Assuming RHO holds both black queens he'll be squeezed

[Jlall]

double post

[Jlall]

That's nice but they led the D5 playing third and fifth so diamonds are not 5-1 unless they falsecarded the lead.

Anyways say you win and pull trumps and lead a diamond. It's all a mind game. What do you do if LHO:

1) plays the 7 or 8
2) plays the 3

If he plays the 7 or 8 and you take it at face value then diamonds are 3-3 so you can just ruff them out. However if he has falsecarded with Q853 or Q753 then oops!

If he will always falsecard then when he plays the 3 he has 53 doubleton or 8753 and you can take a ruffing finesse.

If he is defending optimally he will use a mixed strategy and sometimes falsecard and sometimes not falsecard in which case you will always play for Qxxx and cannot exploit him. He will also play randomly with 8753.

Qxxx is far more likely than xxxx, xxx or xx because you have restricted choice on RHO's play at trick 1, and restricted choice on LHOs second play, and it is very very very standard to lead from an honor on this auction, and even if he chose not to lead from an honor you have restricted choice on his lead (he had no spade honor either, so why a diamond?).

In practice if they played the 7 or the 8 on the 2nd round and they were a random I would play for 3-3.

If there was any inclination that they were remotely competent I would hook. This is not a falsecard that most people make that often though (and they will often think hey if I play the 3 he won't know if I have xx or not! even if they are thinking about stuff like this).

edit: forgot to mention Qxx on left but in that case you will never go wrong since a higher spot will show up and you will either hook or ruff them out, so it's irrelevant if that's the holding.