[shevek]

First cardplay book I read was Kelsey's Bridge Logic. At the time I found it challenging and educational. Found my old copy last week and looked at the first hand in CH 2:

Scoring: IMP

1♣ - (3♥) - 3N

---

Paraphrasing Kelsey "West leads ♥8 to East's ♥J. You win the 2nd heart as West pitches a diamond. You play ♦K. West wins ♦A and returns ♦J which you duck. You win 3rd diamond as East follows all the way. After ♣Q and ♠A, East pitches on ♣A. East is 2-7-3-1. You can't pickup ♠Qxxx with West so plonk down ♠AK as your only chance."

I recall being convinced at the time but now realise this is crap.

[Jlall]

yeah obviously you play for the black suit sqz on west.

[dellache]

This is not necessarily crap. If you think West's return after the ♦Ace was random, the probabilities obviously favour the endplay against West (just play Clubs).

Now my question is : who has the ♦T ? If West has it, play for the endplay. If East has it, I would think twice. West could have avoided the endplay by playing the ♣Jack back, retaining ♦Jx (actually, he could have unblocked Diamonds by discarding the J from AJTx, so again, where's the 9 ?). Who has the ♣8 ?

Is West strong enough to play a Diamond back with xxxx x AJxx JT8x in order to offer you a loosing endplay option ? In real life, probably not. In a textbook...

Another question is : Why did East play a second Heart with an entryless hand ? I would have expected a Diamond back if East had xx KQJxxxx Txx x.

What about ducking the second Heart ?

Not such an easy hand

[quiddity]

edit: removed nonsense.

[Jlall]

Jlall, on Jan 12 2010, 12:39 AM, said:

yeah obviously you play for the black suit sqz on west.

lol i thought we had ducked two hearts... black suit endplay then

[Jlall]

dellache, on Jan 12 2010, 01:29 AM, said:

What about ducking the second Heart ?

Not such an easy hand 

Why would we ever not duck the second heart? If west is 4144 he is just toast. I guess he can pitch the DJ but he wouldn't know that, and he still gets endplayed anyways.

[Jlall]

dellache, on Jan 12 2010, 01:29 AM, said:

Another question is : Why did East play a second Heart with an entryless hand ? I would have expected a Diamond back if East had xx KQJxxxx Txx x.

Why would you expect a diamond back from this hand, but a heart back if he had the SQ and the same hand? It is a mind game but generally I would switch if I did have the SQ rather than if I didn't. I think reading too much into this is asking to be owned.

[dellache]

Jlall, on Jan 12 2010, 06:47 AM, said:

dellache, on Jan 12 2010, 01:29 AM, said:

Another question is : Why did East play  a second Heart with an entryless hand ? I would have expected a Diamond back if East had xx KQJxxxx Txx x.

Why would you expect a diamond back from this hand, but a heart back if he had the SQ and the same hand? It is a mind game but generally I would switch if I did have the SQ rather than if I didn't. I think reading too much into this is asking to be owned.

True and not true. Anyway I would have ducked the second Heart !