[dkharty]

Here are two interesting hands from a 1976 book by Terence Reese and Roger Trezel. I would estimate both are "upper intermediate", with the second hand being slightly more difficult than the first. If you are advanced+ please hide your solution.

1.

Scoring: IMP

South is declarer in 6♣ with no opposition bidding. West leads the ♣10. What is your plan?

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2.

Scoring: IMP

South is declarer in 6♣ with no opposition bidding. West leads the ♣10. What is your plan?

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[vuroth]

Hand 1: Win in dummy, DD ruff. That's the easy part. Now I'll try AS throw last diamond, ruff a spade, draw trumps (3-2 I hope!) and heart finesse. If the King is with east, I'll be left with a guess on his lead.

If I don't get a heart return, maybe my best line is to ruff and play west for the KS and Jx of hearts and squeeze him?

This does seem upper intermediate, as it feels like it's over my head.

[Jlall]

vuroth, on Apr 5 2010, 12:56 PM, said:

This does seem upper intermediate, as it feels like it's over my head.

Heh, I think hand 1 is much much harder than hand 2. Actually tbh I'm not really sure my solution is right for hand 1, maybe I'm missing something obvious.

[dkharty]

Jlall, on Apr 5 2010, 01:10 PM, said:

Heh, I think hand 1 is much much harder than hand 2.

Reese gives four predicted "reasonable" lines of play for hand 2, depending on declarer's level. I'd be interested in finding out if you think the "level 4" line (theoretically best) is still easier than the first hand. Here is the level 4 line for hand 2 (hidden):

Spoiler

Win the Ace, ruff a spade, club to dummy, ruff a spade, club to dummy. Now play the heart 9, ducking if RHO plays low. LHO is endplayed into leading into a major suit tenace or giving a ruff and sluff. If RHO covers the heart with an honor, win and play a low heart, establishing two hearts for diamond discards.

[vuroth]

Hand 2. Can't see any reason to duck trick 1. AS, then immediately run the 9H. I'll ruff a spade return with the J, Cash the AC (and another if clubs are 3-0), then run the TC to the Queen. Now I'll run the 8H to the TH.

Since east seems to hold the KS, east also holding the KD seems kind of unlikely. I won't be surprised if trumps are 3-0, but I think I can draw 3 rounds of trump and still have the trump entries to dummy that I need.

V

[Jlall]

dkharty, on Apr 5 2010, 01:25 PM, said:

Jlall, on Apr 5 2010, 01:10 PM, said:

Heh, I think hand 1 is much much harder than hand 2.

Reese gives four predicted "reasonable" lines of play for hand 2, depending on declarer's level. I'd be interested in finding out if you think the "level 4" line (theoretically best) is still easier than the first hand. Here is the level 4 line for hand 2 (hidden):

Spoiler

Win the Ace, ruff a spade, club to dummy, ruff a spade, club to dummy. Now play the heart 9, ducking if RHO plays low. LHO is endplayed into leading into a major suit tenace or giving a ruff and sluff. If RHO covers the heart with an honor, win and play a low heart, establishing two hearts for diamond discards.

Umm yeah I knew that was the right line thx

FWIW the problem with the first hand imo is:

Spoiler

Say you win the club, ruff a spade, ruff a diamond, ruff a spade, pull trumps and exit a diamond. If RHO wins he's endplayed, if LHO wins he has to come back a heart. Now you hook, and might go down when it was Kxx of spades and the HK offside.

On the other hand if you win ruff a spade, ruff a diamond and then go ace of spades pitching a heart, and ruff a spade and now exit a diamond if RHO wins and exits a low spade from Kxxxx, you will probably misguess and ruff. Also you expose yourself to 6-2 spades playing this way. However if we place RHO with 3 clubs then it is very unlikely he'll have 4 diamonds and 5 spades. On the other hand, RHO could have 2 clubs, the lead could be a falsecard, etc.

If you win and ruff a spade ruff a diamond, and cash the ace of spades pitching a diamond followed by ruffing a spade, and then exit a heart to the queen, if that loses and RHO comes back a diamond (if he has one) you are down to a squeeze or the HJ dropping. RHO might be able to come back a heart to put you to a guess, or legitimately break up the squeeze. If RHO is actually endplayed he might come back a low spade from Kxxxx again...

Overall I would say that line 1 of ruffing 2 spades and then exiting a diamond is probably the suggested line though but it's unclear to me.

[vuroth]

Footnote to 2:

Spoiler

There are probably interesting things to be learned by getting count on hand 2. If west started with 6 spades and 3 clubs, Heart finesse then AK might drop the queen. If east started with the 3 clubs, one of the red finesses has to catch him with something (unless raising spades on Kxxx and out is feasible).

Low intermediates like me have real problems with lots of options, I think.

[dkharty]

Jlall, on Apr 5 2010, 01:32 PM, said:

Umm yeah I knew that was the right line thx

Lol didn't mean to imply that you wouldn't know this I was just putting it in now for later reference if anyone wanted to see it. Do you really think this is easier than hand 1?

[cherdanno]

dkharty, on Apr 5 2010, 01:35 PM, said:

Jlall, on Apr 5 2010, 01:32 PM, said:

Umm yeah I knew that was the right line thx 

Lol didn't mean to imply that you wouldn't know this I was just putting it in now for later reference if anyone wanted to see it. Do you really think this is easier than hand 1?

Yes this line is kind of automatic once you think of an endplay on this hand, and it is easy to see that it is 100% once you have found it.
On hand 1 it is much harder to figure out which line is best. I guess after DD, D ruff you should try to see whether you can guess the diamond count (hopefully having read Anders Wirgren's Bridge World article).