[cnszsun]

Scoring: XIMP

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Bidding (I'm sitting South, play 2/1 and East's 2D is weak):
W N E S
- 1C 2D 2H
3D 3S P 3NT
P 4D P 4H
P 6H =
Opening lead is ♦3.

I want to take this hand as an example to ask expert's thinking process from first trick. Knowing how to think is more important than only knowing how to play a hand.
I was always lost my head if i got a hand like this. Normally i can handle a hand relative to a single playing skill, like avoding a dangerous opponent, endplay, squeeze, safe play and etc, but i can't handle a hand like this, it's about combining of different chances, reading form bidding and play, handling possible bad distribution. I know i have to consider all these if i want to play well, but when i really try to do it, i was defeated more than i succeeded.
So, can you give me your thinking process on this hand and do you have any advice on me?

[Cave_Draco]

A tough hand, at IMPs 4♥ looks better!

If you are in 6♥, 1 down is BAD... so assume 6♥ is makeable...

Count winners & losers... you have enough winners, if you can avoid the losers! You have too many losers.

What is necessary for 6♥ to make?

Does dropping a singleton K help?

In ♣? NO!... Is there any way to pick up the ♣ suit for no losers? If there is, I don't see it...
So, you must pick up the ♥ suit for zero losers!

Best chance of that is ♥ 2-2 with the K onside, that is what I would play for!

[inquiry]

Until an expert replies (no offense meant my dragon friend), I will give you my thoughts.

The first one, is what is up with West bidding only 3♦s? He rates to have a five card fit for the suit his partner preempted in, and he didn't try to cause more mischief. Wish I knew who WEST was, a good guess is he has a fair defensive hand. In addition, West begins the ♦3, so probably has a ♦ honor, making his lack of more aggressive raise all the more curious.

Next thought is EAST is not void in clubs (no lightner double). In fact, I doubt either opponent has a void given their tame bidding, stopping in 3♦ with a known 11 card fit. So ♥ also rate to be 3-1 or 2-2, and clubs no worse than 4-1.

Third thought, is what does EAST have for a vulnerable preempt at imps. I guess East has good diamonds (well duh). The initial thought is something like KQ9xxxx, but west might start the jack then, so KJ9xxxx. He may have a seventh diamond to explain WEST timid 3♦ only bid.

Next sure tricks. 2♠, 1♦, 2♣, 1♦ruff, and with 3-1 trump split, 5♥. You will need one of the missing key kings onside. One thought is to try ♥ first, then clubs.. with the idea of trying to enjoy the long ♣ for a 12th trick. For this line, you need to save your entries to dummy, so you would ruff ♦ at trick one and lead the ♥Q (unblocking). The correct play in ♥ is not typically the Queen from this holding, but I will need a trump entry to my hand.

If the trump hook loses, the only defense to cause problems is a ♠ back (assuming ♣ hook will win). No need to play a low spade, if WEST has the spade queen he is a dead man. Win ♠ACE, pull trumps (thanks to the unblock), and lead a club to the jack. If it wins, you are home if clubs are 3-2 or if WEST has four clubs and the SPADE QUEEN (which is why you didn’t need to play low spade on the shift.. if he has it he can be squeezed out of it). Cash club ACE and if both follow, claim (after a club ruff). If East had a singleton club, now you have to hope for a positional simple squeeze on west. Ruff a [cl[ and play all your ♥. On the 11th trick, West will need to keep the club TEN, so can only keep one spade. You throw dummys last club and play spade to ace and a spade.

That line is not bad, but there is another one. Instead of trying the ♥ hook first, you can try the ♣ hook first. If that wins, you can forgo the ♥ hook and play ♥Ace and a low ♥ to the queen, now with plenty of entries to set up your long clubs, even if the suit spits four one. This preserves all the entries you need to dummy to set the long clubs up, especially if you drop a singleton heart Ten or King, or if ♥ split 2-2. If the club hook loses, you have to revert to getting lucky in ♥’s. If East has ♥KTx, he will win second ♥ and force you to ruff a ♦ in dummy, so you are back to the entry problem mentioned above.

Without a calculator, it is hard to figure out which line is better, but the transportation problem (see ending above), would encourage me to try the first line of ruffing in dummy and leading the ♥Queen.

Ben

[nikos59]

Dunno about experts, here is what I think.

My first thought was to ruff immediately the diamond and run
the queen of trumps. But I was a bit nervous about this,
because I am missing K and 10 of trumps.

The line I finally chose is to start with the queen of clubs at Trick2.
If this loses, I need to find the hearts. If this wins, I bang
down the ace of hearts as a safety play, clear trumps and later
make good the clubs for a discard of spade loser.

Why start from clubs? First of all, ruffing the diamond, although
in abstract is a good move (elimination), weakens prematurely
dummy's trump holding. And then, even if the queen of trumps
is covered, you still do not know what to do on the next round
of trumps. On the other hand, after the club finesse everything
is more limpid.

Anyway, that's what I would play.

[Free]

First I count our HCP: 26. I watch the Vulnerability and partner's hand, analyse the bidding, and then I decide how to play.

We miss 6 HCP in ♦ and they have 11 ♦s combined. RHO bid 2♦, I suspect he has a 7 card (because of LHO's bidding) but quite weak. LHO has 4-5 ♦'s and only bids 3♦. Why? I don't think he has a short suit at all, perhaps a 3-3-4-3?
Because my partner has a void, it's quite obvious at least one other player will have a singleton or void. I noticed on a lot of hands that this rule aplies most of the time. Trumps will be 3-1 or 4-0, and probably the 3-card will be behind me. Another thing I see quite quickly is the fact that I have awfull communication to my hand! So we'll need to use every opportunity to finesse in ♣ as fast as possible (if we want that finesse ofcourse).
As Ben noted, RHO should have at least 1 ♣.

Now we start our plan. We want to combine as much chances as possible, and don't want to do crazy finesses which won't work. Squeeze isn't necessary imo, since we can discard our losers on ♣s. It's all a matter about the ♣s! I'll take ♦A and finesse right away in ♣. If it works, we can draw trumps (Ace first, to have a look - catching the stiff King perhaps), and we have enough communication to the North hand. If it doesn't work, you'll need something else cause chances are extremely small imo: a new decision, in ♥. If the ♣ finesse didn't work, we get a new problem, since they'll probably return ♦ and you'll have to ruff in North. Small to the Ace and catch RHO's stiff K is only way then I think...

[inquiry]

nikos59, on Jul 8 2004, 05:19 AM, said:

The line I finally chose is to start with the queen of clubs at Trick2.
If this loses, I need to find the hearts. If this wins, I bang
down the ace of hearts as a safety play, clear trumps and later
make good the clubs for a discard of spade loser.

Be aware that this safety play is not so safe. Assume ♣ hook wins, and you bang ♥Ace and ♥. If someone has three ♥ to king, they win second ♥ and force you to ruff second ♦ in dummy. Out of trumps and locked in dummy, now even 3-2 clubs might not help, as they might get trump promotion if you try to ruff a club to your hand.

Better if you want to play this line is club hook (wins), ♥ACE, RUFF your last diamond and then lead the ♥Queen. You still suffer a little from the blocked situation, but here they have to return a ♠ (a diammond and you are now home), and you get to try to figure out best way to play the spade suit (play leader of ♠ for queen?

This hand is all about transportation, or lack of it, to south's hand to pull that last trump when trumps 3-1... At least by ruffing the ♦ then leading the ♥Q, you force them to open up ♠. If east held the ♥K after all, you get a free try of the ♠Jack...

Ben

[nikos59]

Ben: Your modified line of play is still worse re blockage in the
case of trumps 3-1, because now they will *know* to play a spade.
In my line, they don't know I have a diamond left, since I didn't hasten to ruff it,
so they may be afraid of the ruff-sluff. Anyway, for my part I
refuse to ruff that diamond in dummy as long as enemy trumps
are out Queens and nines are precious.

n

[inquiry]

Nikos, both lines suffer from the blockage..as I mentioned in my intial post. This transportation problem is why I discarded the club hook first line in general. Now, either line could work, and the club hook has the advantage of allowing you to bang on ♥ from the top when it works (works wonders if singleton ♥ king offside, now you make 13 tricks). But, fails to solve the problem if RHO has three ♥ to the king and a singleton club. The stickler is if WEST has three hearts to KTx and two clubs to the king. Now, you can't get off dummy even when clubs are behaving.

[luis]

Let's see
East has a weak 2 in diamonds, and west has 4/5 diamonds, probably bid 3d only for the vulnerability, first of all I need to ask about their leads, if 3rd&5th the 3 is probably from a 5 card suit unless Hx32. I wonder why west is not leading an honor, maybe he has only xxxxx in diamonds and east has KQJxxx, missing the Ace and Ten I don't think he can overcall a vulnerable 2d on a suit without the K or the Q of diamonds besides the Ace and Ten that I know he is missing.
So I take the diamond lead in hand watching if east plays the expected dJ and inmediately play the club finesse. If the club finesse loses and I conclide that East started with KQJ of diamonds and the club King I'm going to play trumps starting with the Ace since I think the hK will be offside because with hK, cK and KQJ of diamonds a 1d overcall looks more normal.
If the club finesse wins ruff the diamond ten with dummy's 9 of hearts and run the heart queen preventing a promotion of the heart ten if west has KTx.
So that's my line, use the club finesse as a discovery play to know what to do in trumps.

[inquiry]

luis, on Jul 8 2004, 10:20 AM, said:

If the club finesse wins ruff the diamond ten with dummy's 9 of hearts and run the heart queen preventing a promotion of the heart ten if west has KTx.

You are in dummy after the club finessee wins (either jack wins, or Queen covered by king and ace wins). So it is not convenient to ruff a diamond yet. Can we assume you play ♥ to ace and ruff a diamond?

Ben

[luis]

inquiry, on Jul 8 2004, 02:24 PM, said:

luis, on Jul 8 2004, 10:20 AM, said:

If the club finesse wins ruff the diamond ten with dummy's 9 of hearts and run the heart queen preventing a promotion of the heart ten if west has KTx.

You are in dummy after the club finessee wins (either jack wins, or Queen covered by king and ace wins). So it is not convenient to ruff a diamond yet. Can we assume you play ♥ to ace and ruff a diamond?

Ben

If the cQ is covered and I take the Ace and run the hQ from dummy, East is likely to have the hK for his vulnerable 2d overcall, if he doesn't have the hK then it depends on how trumps are and what west does.
Maybe the plan is too simple to be in this phorum :-) But I find it fun, if the club finesse loses, don't take the heart finesse, if the club finesse succeeds take the heart finesse too :-)

[nikos59]

Luis, if you take the heart finesse (after the club finesse
succeeds, I mean) you really deserve to lose the finesse
and then also suffer a club ruff

Why heart finesse? Is this matchpoints? Even if it is
matchpoints, are you sure all the field will bid slam?

n

[luis]

nikos59, on Jul 8 2004, 02:54 PM, said:

Luis, if you take the heart finesse (after the club finesse
succeeds, I mean) you really deserve to lose the finesse
and then also suffer a club ruff

Why heart finesse? Is this matchpoints? Even if it is
matchpoints, are you sure all the field will bid slam?

n

After hA and a heart West can take the hK and play a diamond, I have to ruff and can't return to my hand to draw the remaining trump (likely the hT) and can risk a promotion of the hT.

[Trpltrbl]

Cave_Draco, on Jul 7 2004, 09:13 PM, said:

In ♣? NO!... Is there any way to pick up the ♣ suit for no losers? If there is, I don't see it...
So, you must pick up the ♥ suit for zero losers!

If the Q get's covered with the King you have no losers in the suit.

Mike

[Trpltrbl]

Ruff, Q ♥ out of dummy. Sometimes % plays chance in order to be able to keep communication intact. In that is biggest problem in this hand.

Mike

[Cave_Draco]

"Until an expert replies (no offense meant my dragon friend)"... Lol, Ben, it was late, 2:13am & I'd had a few, :-".

To do the problem more justice:

The ♥ suit is the first consideration. The possibilities:
4-0 on the right; East holds K T 7 3... unlikely in view of the bidding but still makeable if ♣ behave and dummy can lead ♥ thrice!
3-1 on the riight; again unlikely, but possible. If the K is singleton... Unlucky. Again, makeable if the ♣ behave, dummy only needs to lead ♥ twice..
2-2, K on the right; the "easy" option.
2-2, K on the left; ♣ must behave but no problem ruffing a ♦.
3-1 on the left; if the K is single, no problem. If the K is in the long suit a ♦ lead kills unless the 10 is single, ♣ need to behave.
4-0 on the left; doomed.

Now, consider... Is this a good contract?
Given that 4♥ is simple, only if it makes!
It doesn't matter if I go off one or many, only making counts as a plus.

Admittedly, I am using the term "♣ behave" somewhat ambiguously but "behave" depends upon context, lol.


A postscript....
I once. in a National tournament, played 7 hands on the trot... I found it a killer, no relaxation!
The Law of Conservation of Energy applies to bridge, .
It taught me to be more discriminating about the hands I concentrate on.