[gwnn]

Scoring: MP

---

1C-1S
1NT-3NT

1C was 2+ but opps didn't ask about that. LHO leads a
middle club. If you play another club everybody follows.

[hrothgar]

Hmmm

I suspect that I would start by banging 5 rounds of clubs, pitching 2 spades and a Heart from dummy. I'd then run Diamonds from the top.

If Diamonds break 3-3 I'm fine. If Diamonds don't break 3-3, I'll exit with a Diamond. With luck, I'll be able to endplay East into leading from a major.

I will be very annoyed if East wins the last Diamond, leads a Spade to parnter's Ace and a heart comes back.

[pooltuna]

gwnn, on Oct 11 2009, 06:07 PM, said:

Scoring: MP

---

1C-1S
1NT-3NT

1C was 2+ but opps didn't ask about that. LHO leads a
middle club. If you play another club everybody follows.

win the first trick with the K or Q and lead a small ♠off of dummy intending to insert the J

[Jlall]

pooltuna, on Oct 11 2009, 09:08 PM, said:

gwnn, on Oct 11 2009, 06:07 PM, said:

Dealer: South Vul: ???? Scoring: MP

♠ Kxxx ♥ Kxx ♦ Qxxx ♣ KQ ♠ Jx ♥ 97x ♦ AKx ♣ AJ7xx

1C-1S
1NT-3NT

1C was 2+ but opps didn't ask about that. LHO leads a
middle club. If you play another club everybody follows.

win the first trick with the K or Q and lead a small ♠off of dummy intending to insert the J

Any reason for this or just lookin to get into the newspapers

[pooltuna]

Jlall, on Oct 11 2009, 09:44 PM, said:

pooltuna, on Oct 11 2009, 09:08 PM, said:

gwnn, on Oct 11 2009, 06:07 PM, said:

<!-- NORTHSOUTH begin --><table border=1> <tr> <td> <table> <tr> <td>Dealer:</td> <td> South </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Vul:</td> <td> ???? </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Scoring:</td> <td> MP </td> </tr> </table> </td> <td> <table border='1'> <tr> <th> <table> <tr> <th class='spades'>♠</th> <td> Kxxx </td> </tr> <tr> <th class='hearts'>♥</th> <td> Kxx </td> </tr> <tr> <th class='diamonds'>♦</th> <td> Qxxx </td> </tr> <tr> <th class='clubs'>♣</th> <td> KQ </td> </tr> </table> </th> </tr> <tr> <th> <table> <tr> <th class='spades'>♠</th> <td> Jx </td> </tr> <tr> <th class='hearts'>♥</th> <td> 97x </td> </tr> <tr> <th class='diamonds'>♦</th> <td> AKx </td> </tr> <tr> <th class='clubs'>♣</th> <td> AJ7xx </td> </tr> </table> </th> </tr> </table> </td> <td>  </td> </tr> </table><!-- NORTHSOUTH end -->

1C-1S
1NT-3NT

1C was 2+ but opps didn't ask about that. LHO leads a
middle club. If you play another club everybody follows.

win the first trick with the K or Q and lead a small ♠off of dummy intending to insert the J

Any reason for this or just lookin to get into the newspapers

you are still concealing all of you high card points and defensive continuations will still be at least a little unclear

[kgr]

pooltuna, on Oct 12 2009, 03:24 PM, said:

......
you are still concealing all of you high card points and defensive continuations will still be at least a little unclear

I play obvious switch with my partner. ♥ is the obvious switch suit here. A low ♣ means that I don't have anything in ♥ (The Ace in this case); a high says I have something in ♥.
You can play ♠ if I played a low ♣

[Jlall]

hrothgar, on Oct 11 2009, 06:23 PM, said:

Hmmm

I suspect that I would start by banging 5 rounds of clubs, pitching 2 spades and a Heart from dummy. I'd then run Diamonds from the top.

If Diamonds break 3-3 I'm fine. If Diamonds don't break 3-3, I'll exit with a Diamond. With luck, I'll be able to endplay East into leading from a major.

I will be very annoyed if East wins the last Diamond, leads a Spade to parnter's Ace and a heart comes back.

I just want to add to this that vs most opps they will show you their hands via discarding and tanking and squirming (NOT LITERALLY PEOPLE!) on the run of the clubs so you can figure out the endgame.

With that said, I agree with run clubs, play some diamonds, figure out what to do.

[jdonn]

I feel like I'm missing something but I don't see anything better than Richard's answer. At least since nothing seems clear I can make them discard a few times, they might keep QJx of hearts when they don't have to, or unguard Txxx of diamonds, so it's definitely possible for them to make a mistake. If they don't I need diamonds to break, or one of the combinations where whoever wins the diamond they can't run the majors on me.

[dellache]

I don't think you have a better choice than cashing Clubs, and then diamonds, hoping for "something good to happen". Having said that, I also don't think you can expect bad discards playing like that, unless you play against weak players : once you have cashed ♣KQ, you need to play Diamond to Ace , and the situation will be very clear to East (and probably to West). East may even infer your whole dist if he has only 3 hearts (west would have led heart from 5 cards). If the Clubs are 4-2 to West (likely), the position will be almost double dummy for the defense at the time when they will have to make their first important decisions. Anyway, the chances for this line are quite high : 3-3 diamonds, 2-4 diamonds and major aces in the same hand, and 4-2 diamonds (unlikely : West will prefer a diamond lead if he doesn't know 1C is 2+) and aces in the W hand. There is some negative inference from the lead, but I expect this line to be winning 2/3 of the time.

Playing Spade to the Jack looks attractive because you don't reveal much of your hand at trick 2. Anyway, I think this will lose in the long run. Of course, if east plays the Queen, you will have a strong position, because he will have AQ most of the time.
Otherwise the position is not so good : If West has S-AQ, he will not miss the Heart shift twice, with say H-Jxx or H-Qxx. If the spades honours are split, West having the Queen, the situation is also usually terrible. In the remaining case (West has only the S-A), you may well have succeeded at trick2... unless West has an attractive Heart shift for whatever reason (short honour combination, or oppos plays obvious shift at trick 1). Heuristically, I think this line is inferior, and will succeed only half of the time.

The fact that line two may lead to 10 tricks is imho irrelevant.

Interesting problem, for which computing real chances of gain is impossible.
--
Dellache - Paris - France

[xcurt]

dellache, on Oct 16 2009, 02:23 PM, said:

The fact that line two may lead to 10 tricks is imho irrelevant.

No, at matchpoints it's not irrelevant.

Also, I assume we alerted 1♣ so even if they didn't ask, I'm going to assume they know it's not strong artificial and forcing, so what else is left but some kind of prepared minor opening.

We're ahead of the field right now if a heart lead is at all possible, because we would be screwed on a high honor out, and if LHO led a heart spot we would probably duck. Now if RHO exits passively with a club dummy is going to get squeezed on the last club. This makes the low spade play at T2 or T3 really awful at matchpoints.

I expect that if anyone has 4 diamonds it's going to be LHO (if he has ♦xx, ♣xx(x) he's a favorite to have a natural heart lead on this auction), so I'll play a diamond to the king (not the ace) at T3. Maybe he'll think his partner has the diamond ace instead of whichever major suit ace he really holds and unguard diamonds when I run clubs. Most likely diamonds will also break, but I'd want to know something about the table action and my opponents before deciding what to do at T10. Most likely I'll play LHO to have started with Qxxx, Axx, Jxx, xxx and now they really are squeezed on the last diamond (each opponent needs to keep two spades) so now a heart exit will garner another trick.

[dellache]

xcurt, on Oct 17 2009, 03:23 AM, said:

dellache, on Oct 16 2009, 02:23 PM, said:

The fact that line two may lead to 10 tricks is imho irrelevant.

No, at matchpoints it's not irrelevant.

It's irrelevant because line 2 will fail in 3NT too often.