[fred]

Click this link to see declarer play problem

The contract is 6S.

The lead is a heart. East plays the Queen.

How do you play?

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[rwbarton]

I will just claim 12 tricks after the lead. Sure I have two losers, but that's fine since I have 14 cards in the South hand

edit: Hand has since been fixed

[matmat]

one fewer spade in the south, i believe.

Try this: Fixed Spades

I saw this hand played, i think; even double dummy it is not clear to me what the right line is :/ (i know what line makes... but...)

[mohitz]

Assuming one less spade, duck first heart. Win continuation. Remove trumps. Play Ace King of clubs. If Queen falls, claim. If not, ruff a heart, play all trumps.

WIll have to guess whether to finesse diamonds or play for minor suits with RHO.

Since fred posted this, I am sure this isn't the answer.

[fred]

Sorry - I did give South too many spades. I have fixed the link in the original post.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[Jlall]

Kind of brutal, the only way to rectify the count is to duck a HEART which obviously gives up one of our threats.

I see two possible lines:

1) Duck this trick, win the next pull trumps, AK of clubs, ruff a heart back, and then try to guess whether you've squeezed RHO or you should hook the diamond. Ducking is important here so that LHO can't get in and shift to a diamond forcing you to an immediate guess.

2) Win this trick, and play ace and a diamond ruff. If the king or ten falls you're home. Else duck a heart. Win the next trick and go ace of clubs, diamond ruff. If the king doesn't drop, try for a diamond-club squeeze on lefty (or Qx of clubs). Winning is important here because on Tx of diamonds you need the heart to loser on loser it etc.

Maybe theres something fancy without the count involving hearts but I can't see it.

I'm not sure which of these 2 lines is superior, but I'd probably go with line 1. I'm partial to lines that set up a guess for the endgame.

[pooltuna]

rwbarton, on Apr 14 2010, 01:11 PM, said:

I will just claim 12 tricks after the lead. Sure I have two losers, but that's fine since I have 14 cards in the South hand

you probably bit the dust on the 10 which you counted as 2 cards and which is why I specifically use the T for that card

[rwbarton]

I was going to suggest jlall's line 2, which also gives West a potential problem at trick 2 (ok not really).

[Jlall]

There is another possible advantage of line 2. Say they win the heart and play a major suit.

If we wanted to we could reduce to:

DQ9
CAK

S8
CJxx

I don't see us doing this though, maybe if RHO was short in both hearts and spades.

Of course, if LHO has the HK, he could break this up by shifting to a club when in with the heart!

Fred, do we have any read on the heart count from the lead?

[uday]

can try to duck at trick one and play for a trump sqz ( CQ with the DK )
or
win at trick one, CAK, run winners, making when CQ drops or you guess what to do in the ending - going down when you misguess or when a club honor gets ruffed or when opener has HK and CQ and RHO has DK.
or
win, ruff 2 D ( DA, CA as entries) and if nothing excellent happened in D, plan to endplay someone in H to lead away from CQ

too many choices!

[Jlall]

uday, on Apr 14 2010, 02:09 PM, said:

win at trick one, CAK, run winners, making when CQ drops or you guess what to do in the ending - going down when you misguess or when a club honor gets ruffed or when opener has HK and CQ and RHO has DK.

This could be pretty strong. You lose to 5-1 clubs immediately, but you gain a possible H-D squeeze endplay on RHO if you can guess it, when LHO has the CQ, and RHO has the HK.

If you have a diamond-club squeeze endplay on RHO you also had a squeeze on them. If LHO guards clubs+diamonds you don't have him automatically squeezed anymore if RHO guards hearts, which kinda sucks (more guessing.

I would really like more info on the heart spot lead, any clues there would be nice. I feel that risking 5-1 clubs + more misguessing is probably not worth it to get RHO in H+D unless we think they have KQ of hearts (mainly because I think if LHO is good it's likely they underled the HK, but that depends on the auction)

[Jlall]

uday, on Apr 14 2010, 02:09 PM, said:

can  try to duck at trick one and play for a trump sqz  (  CQ with the DK )

This, however, seems pretty unnecessary. If the trump squeeze works then the old fashioned squeeze works on RHO. Likewise, if the trump squeeze works on LHO then we had them show up squeezed.

On the downside, we can frequently misguess the ending, possibly going down on Qx of clubs. Seems like duck, then pull trumps then vienna coup then guess the ending is always gonna be better than trump squeeze then guess ending.

[fred]

Jlall, on Apr 14 2010, 07:05 PM, said:

Fred, do we have any read on the heart count from the lead?

I was intentionally trying to be vague about that.

I have no idea what the right answer is, but I thought it was an interesting hand both for thoughtful non-experts (who might realize that combining chances in the minors is a good idea, but might not realize that ducking the first trick is important) and for experts (because there are several possible lines and it is hard to figure out which one is best).

Here is what a line that is worthy of consideration (maybe someone mentioned it already):

- Win Ace of hearts
- Ace of diamonds
- Diamond ruff (claiming if K or 10 has appeared)
- Draw trump
- Club to dummy (claiming if Q appears)
- Diamond ruff (claiming if K appears)
- Run trump and play for a strip squeeze (works if an opponent has the King of hearts and the Queen of clubs, but you will have to guess the ending)

Starting diamonds before you draw trump seems smart as this will increase the chances that the Jack of diamonds gets covered.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[Jlall]

That line seems very strong fred, you make on like 40 % (?) of the diamond layouts, and then like half the remaining time, so maybe 70ish % if you always guess correctly (except I guess I have you misguessing when the have the HK and the other hand has Qx of clubs).

The line I suggested wins on the diamond hook or Qx of clubs which is like 60ish%(?), I will gain some equity figuring out to play for the minor suit squeeze in the end game sometimes but probably not enough to make up for 10 % because thats a lot heh.

Of course you have to guess whether they have stiffed the CQ or the HK every time also, but your line seems better.

Also my numbers might be off just guestimated.