[Trumpace]

I have tried to construct a hand which is similar to a hand devised by Paul Lucaks. So any goofs are mine.

You are South in a small slam in spades.

LHO leads the Heart Jack and you see:

Scoring: Rubber

Lead Heart J.

---

You win the heart Q in hand and play the Spade A, to which RHO discards.

Plan the play.

Adv/+ please don't spoil it too early.

[hanp]

I would try this:

Spoiler

Pull trump, cash 3 hearts pitching a diamond, cash the ace of diamonds and play a club to the 10.

If LHO wins the jack and plays a heart, you can ruff in dummy and pitch a club from hand.

If LHO wins the jack and plays a club or the diamond king, you can claim.

If LHO plays a small diamond you play the queen. If the queen is covered you can enter dummy in spades and try the second club finesse.

If all three finesses lose you are very unlucky.

[Trumpace]

Perhaps I should have stated some specific time period when I said 'early' .

I hope people still try this and not just read Han's post right away (which has the right line).

[hanp]

I saw it was posted yesterday and nobody reacted. The hand deserved a reaction.

[Trumpace]

hanp, on May 13 2010, 02:12 PM, said:

I saw it was posted yesterday and nobody reacted. The hand deserved a reaction.

I agree and thank you for that.

But since this is B/I forum, IMO, we should avoid posting complete solutions (hidden or not) till there has been at least one attempt at a solution (or too many days go by).

[vuroth]

It's ok Trumpace. I've wasted the last half hour of my life on the problem, so at least you know someone's trying it. I haven't given up just because han posted an answer, and I haven't read his post yet.

[vuroth]

Here's what I have.

Spoiler

If there's a 100% line, it's eluding me. No big surprise.

The obvious line is 75%. You only need 1 of 2 finesses to work to make.

You can improve that, I think, by drawing 3 rounds of trump, 2 more rounds of hearts discarding a diamond, ace of diamonds, then club to the ten. If this wins (25%), you're home. If it loses to the King (37.5%), you're home. If it loses to the Jack, LHO has to return a diamond or give you the contract. Insert the queen, if it holds (50%), you're home. If not, ruff, cross to dummy's last spade, and repeat the club finesse.

You basically improve your odds from 3/4 to 7/8.

Please let me know if I can do better, and I'll go back to the drawing board.

[gwnn]

Nice hand, thanks for posting it. I hope you don't, however, mind if I mention that you have ridiculous standards for 'spoiling'. If a BIL player wants to solve it, he solves it, if not, he selects hanp's post and he hopefully learns something.

[gdawg01]

Trumpace,

Nice problem.

I have not given it much thought so I might be way way off! (Maybe I should have peeked at Han's solution ) That said, I think I would :

Draw 3 rounds of trumps.

Play off the hearts and on the third heart, discard a diamond.

Cash the Ace of diamonds and keep Qx in dummy.

Then lead a low club to the 10 or the Queen.

If it loses and a heart is returned - I have a spade in dummy to ruff and toss a club from hand.

If it loses and they kindly return Diamond king - I am through since the queen is good for a club discard.

If a low diamond is returned, I put up the queen and hope it is not covered. If it is covered, back to dummy via the spade to try another club finesse.

Ofcourse I am down if all three cards (K of Dia, K and J of clubs) are in the wrong position, but can see no way out of that.

-G

[Phil]

Good problem and very appropriate for this section.

Over the years some masochist will post a hand here and get a "I don't think this is easy at all".

[Trumpace]

gwnn, on May 14 2010, 09:15 AM, said:

Nice hand, thanks for posting it. I hope you don't, however, mind if I mention that you have ridiculous standards for 'spoiling'. If a BIL player wants to solve it, he solves it, if not, he selects hanp's post and he hopefully learns something.

I think we had a discussion about this earlier, if only I could find the thread

My main concern was that it had not even been 18 hours since the hand was posted when han posted the solution and most of that was sleeping time for most readers I believe.

Anyway, I understand that hanp did it to generate more interest in the hand and it worked!

About posting solutions too quickly, I don't agree it is ok to post a complete solution which is hidden. Not knowing the difficulty of the solution, people might give up too quickly and look, or maybe get a peek accidentaly (high contrast settings/text to speech) etc. This is a discussion for a different thread I suppose.