[inquiry]

There are a lot of great hands that go unnoticed. I thought we would start a series of threads to highlight the best play/bid/false-card whatever that occurred on the BBO in a given week. Then we will pick monthly winners (by poll) from the weekly winner, and then yearly winner (from the monthly winners)...assuming people will submit good hands they see or play or hear about. Hnad must be randomly dealt ones.. no prepared hands, no ghoulash hands.

This idea was inspired by an insistent BBO member, who was so very proud of his defense on one hand that he thought it had to be published as best defense of the month on BBO. I was less impressed with it than he is, but he insisted that I publish it. So, here it is, the first nomination for best played hand on BBO during the week from september 18 to the 25th.

http://bridgebase.lunarpages.com/cgi-bin/h...etchlin=5896651

Scoring: IMP

---

West North East South

 -     -     -     1♠
 Pass  4♠    Pass  Pass
 Pass  

CK C2 CA C7
C3 C6 CQ C4
CJ C9 D4 C5
C8 CT ST SJ
S2 SQ SA S3
S4 S7 S8 S9
H3 HK H8 H5
D2 DJ DA D3
D7 D5 S5 D8
H2 HJ HA H6
SK HT H4 D9

The defense here cashes three quick club tricks, then west continues a club for declarer to ruff. When declerer plays a low spade towards the dummy, West with Q9 doubleton jumps up with spade queen to give declarer a losing option on the way back of a fineesee playing his partner for T973 of spades. Thereby setting an unsettable contract.

Anyone else got some more nominations? There has to be better hands out there that were played this week.

Ben

[paulhar]

I'm sure you must have a good one from one of your late night team games, otherwise check with Phil - he frequently comes up with some interesting hands...

[pclayton]

I think its a great idea (and maybe it will spurn more interest in the forums from some of the other good players on BBO).

Ben - maybe check with the other yellows and perhaps BBO can make an announcement on the news when a player signs in to BBO about the hand of the week.

As far as the hand given; .....I dont know. Admittedly I've never considered the restricted choice implications on this suit combo (without the uppercut); but my gut tells me its right to play LHO for the stiff 9 and RHO for QTxx.

So it seems routine defense (without the uppercut) leads to -1 too.

Giver West an A+ for imagination though.

[cherdano]

I like the idea. But this hand does not convince me. First of all, if you have 2 touching honors, it seems routine to play a random one. Secondly, declarer clearly went wrong here. If LHO has the singleton queen, then why on earth would RHO ruff with the 10 from 10973? It endangers is safe trump trick if partner has an honor im trump. And it is obvious for him that declarer has no losers outside of trump left.

Finally, with normal defense, declarer would just finesse into the spade queen. Or am I missing s.th. as usual?...

[inquiry]

cherdano, on Sep 26 2004, 01:11 PM, said:

I like the idea. But this hand does not convince me. First of all, if you have 2 touching honors, it seems routine to play a random one. Secondly, declarer clearly went wrong here. If LHO has the singleton queen, then why on earth would RHO ruff with the 10 from 10973? It endangers is safe trump trick if partner has an honor im trump. And it is obvious for him that declarer has no losers outside of trump left.

Finally, with normal defense, declarer would just finesse into the spade queen. Or am I missing s.th. as usual?...

I only posted the hand because, well, his dogged determination that I do led me to the idea behind this thread. Surely there was better hands last week. I can post three or four myself. But this guy may win by default if no one post a better one.

Ben

[inquiry]

There is still time to submit hands for the contest running through September 25th.. Since I am not wild about the only submission so far, let me submit one of my hands.. it is slightly flawed perhaps in that I should have passed 2♥ (i did think a while before bidding)... here is the link, here is the hand...

http://online.bridge....php?id=5993524

Scoring: IMP

West North East South

 -     1♥    Pass  1♠
 Pass  2♥    Pass  2NT
 Pass  Pass  Pass  

---

I hold a 14 hcp and partner opened the bidding. I toyed with responding 2D then reversing in spades (game force), but decided that my hand may not be good enough to force to game so I started 1♠. When partner rebid 2♥, I am not liking this hand. Still, ZAR fit (and fit minus points) this comes to 27.. and says we belong in game (as does hcp).. still I decide to make only an invitational 2NT rather than a game force. This is non-vul at imps, so I take it slow.. if vul, I would have forced to game. But here, if partner is really weak, even 2NT might be too high. I got to declarer 2NT (oh joy)....

T1. C8 C3 CK C4

If that is fourth best club I am toast, but then it was 8 from KT98(x) or AT98(x) or AKT8(x).. and when RHO wins CK.. i know it is not fourth best.. .and when RHO switched to a spade, I must say I was surprized.

T2. S7 S6 S9 SK

The spade seven is an interesting card. Could this be top of nothing? West with JT9(x) choose to lead a club from some worthless holding? No matter, I have real transportation problems, so big question here is do i remove my only sure entry to dummy out side of hearts by playing low. I finally decide to do so and win in dummy. I am going to need some luck.. But I had to wonder.. why the spade swtich? Club looks such a good start no matter what EAST's clubs are. The conclusion I reached was that clubs would not get him off the lead, and a diamond would not be attractive. And of course, he can't know that hearts are safe exit for them here... So I play RHO for diamond ACE.. hopefully doubleton...

T3. D8 DJ DK D9

So far so good...

T4. D5 H4 DQ DA

Darn it... All my diamonds will be of less value than I had hoped. The heart pitch is interesting, WEST would not throw a heart from four, and may not from three.. so I place EAST with four hearts....

T5. S3 SA S4 S5

Another, lower spade, and WEST echo's by playing the spade 4.. so the nine was a higher than necessary card on the first round. So West seems to have 4/5 spades, 1 diamond, probably 2 hearts, so 5/6 clubs. Hnand is now double dummy. East had no exit in clubs, so his clubs are AKT or AKT9... he has the diamond winner, and he has four hearts. I have him.

T6. SQ ST D2 S2

Spade queen to remove EAST's exit card if he has one (if he has 2 Spades, I will be down one, as he will throw a heart here, and cash three clubs when in, but down one is a wonderful result I woud think.)

T7. HK H5 H3 H6

Now unblock my heart king...

T8. CQ C2 CJ CA

Just showing off.. diamond exit is is just as good...club queen is style points...

T9. CT D4 C5 H2

Ok.. he cashes the top club...

T10. DT D3 C6 H9

Now the top diamond.. and we wait with baited breathe....

T11. H7 D6 C7 HT

Yes... got it right....

We win 7 imps as our opponents, reached 4♥ after my hand with 14 hcp responded 2♦ to 1♥ and reversed into 2♠.

So I nominate my own hand (blush) for hand evalaution (stopping in 2NT), and for lucking into the line to make this contract.

Ben

[luke warm]

that really was a good stop.. i admit i'd have bid diamonds first and reversed into spades... probably i'd have ended up in 4h

very nice

[inquiry]

luke warm, on Sep 27 2004, 06:54 PM, said:

that really was a good stop.. i admit i'd have bid diamonds first and reversed into spades... probably i'd have ended up in 4h

very nice

Thanks,

We need a few more hands from last weeks so we can have a vote... or we can vote for just these two... but I think there has to be more well played hands out there..

Ben

[cherdano]

Well if it's only these two hands, we might save the defense at the start of this thread more embarrassment by skipping the voting

What I don't understand is why you won the spade switch at trick two in dummy. If you win in hand, cash ♥K, cross to dummy in spades and start hearts, you make an overtrick when ♥J is doubleton or hearts are 3-3, and you can still come back to playing on diamonds when this doesn't work. (On the actual deal you would still make with a similar endplay against east.)

The play after winning ♠K is nice, of course.

[inquiry]

cherdano, on Sep 28 2004, 10:45 AM, said:

Well if it's only these two hands, we might save the defense at the start of this thread more embarrassment by skipping the voting

What I don't understand is why you won the spade switch at trick two in dummy. If you win in hand, cash ♥K, cross to dummy in spades and start hearts, you make an overtrick when ♥J is doubleton or hearts are 3-3, and you can still come back to playing on diamonds when this doesn't work. (On the actual deal you would still make with a similar endplay against east.)

The play after winning ♠K is nice, of course.

Yes we need a few more nominations... I guess we should let the entrie run until the next weeks time ends (so when the time frame for week two ends, all entries must be in for week one, etc).

On my line, I was influenced by the switch from clubs. My line of reasoning was that EAST must feel endplayed already. If he felt that way, that means that a diamond lead from his hand was no satisfactory. The only reason that would be the case is if he held the diamond ACE. Note if he cashes his club winners and switches, how much easier it is to find the right play.. it falls in your lap. The good defenders gave me some rope to try to hang myself with. For once, I slipped the noose.

The line you suggest calls for hearts 4-2 or 5-1 with the hand short in hearts having the jack. A quick estimate would put that at under 20%. The diamond play from dummy, when EAST has the ACE has some greater chances.. If I catch EAST with a singleton diamond ACE, or either opponent with a doubleton diamond ACE. I am home (assuming the club blockage I suspect from this defense). The diamond play (looking for 2-2 or EASt with singleton ACE) is much better precentage chance, I didn't work out the odds a the time, but it is close to 47%. And even when EAST has three diamonds ACE, even if ATx or AJx, I can keep WEST off the lead and work the endplay.

Now one might argue, that not playing on hearts in hope of jack falling gives them a chance to revert to clubs and take 5C and 1D to defeat you. But against these good defenders, I knew they could not be cashing five club tricks on this line of defene.

Ben

[cherdano]

inquiry, on Sep 28 2004, 03:52 PM, said:

cherdano, on Sep 28 2004, 10:45 AM, said:

What I don't understand is why you won the spade switch at trick two in dummy. If you win in hand, cash ♥K, cross to dummy in spades and start hearts, you make an overtrick when ♥J is doubleton or hearts are 3-3, and you can still come back to playing on diamonds when this doesn't work. (On the actual deal you would still make with a similar endplay against east.)

The play after winning ♠K is nice, of course.

The line you suggest calls for hearts 4-2 or 5-1 with the hand short in hearts having the jack. A quick estimate would put that at under 20%. The diamond play from dummy, when EAST has the ACE has some greater chances..
Ben

No, my line also works with hearts 3-3, so this alone makes it a little better than 50% for an overtrick. Moreover, I can still play for diamonds after hearts don't break:

Win ♠A, cash ♥K, cross to ♠K, cash ♥AQ. If hearts break, you make with an overtrick. If not, lead a diamond. RHO has to play low, otherwise he can only cash 5 tricks (♥J, ♦A and three clubs), and you have 8 from the top (3 spades, 3 hearts, 2 diamonds). So you get to hand with the ♦K. Cash the ♠Q, and exit with clubs. RHO is endplayed into giving a trick to ♦Q eventually.

This works when hearts are 3-3 or jack doubleton/singleton, or when RHO has ♦A (as you rightly assumed), at most 3 spades, and at most 3 top tricks in clubs.

[inquiry]

I will defend your line, then explain why not to play it.

It has mathematically good odds. 56% of the time you win at least 8 tricks by winning spade in hand, cash heart king, enter dummy with spade and run hearts (works if H 3-3, or doubleton or singleton jack). Some modest changes even when heartd do not behave.

Win spade in dummy and lead a diamond has 47% chance, but can go down if they can run five club tricks and had misdefended. But unlike the heart play, my line has a lot of extra chances when diamonds are 3-1.

Now, is the 56+% chance better or worse than the 47& +/- chance?

Against average players, go with the percentages. Against a very good pair, which is what I was playing against,you can draw some inferences.

First, is clubs are blcoked,
Second iis east not west must have diamond ace
Third. Looking at three hearts, EAST would try a more agreesive defense than a timid spade throough me.

The club 8 tricked me (they had not said 2/4 leads), so I assumed EAST was 4 clubls to AKT9, and the diamond ACE. So try to imagine their hands.. I think EAST has four or five hearts (but certainly not 3), this makes him 2-4-3-4 or 3-4-2-4 most likely. If I play the heart play, the odd are the jack is with the long hearts, and if it is EAST, they will win 1H, 2D, and 4C for down two. Call it table fell if you like, I call it trusting the defense here. Note if EAST takes his three clubs and then switches, it is very easy to get it right. It falls in your lap. This is the kind of defenders these guys are. So I stand by my line,,, and it has one thing going for it, it is the one that works. I could have mucked with it a bit, I could win Spade ACE, cash heart king, cross to spade King, cash ONE TOP HEART only, then exit a club or diamond... but the endplay then would be the same..

Ben

[cherdano]

Ok, I see. It comes down to judging the opening lead. If you think East has four top tricks in clubs, then my line isn't so good, since it has no extra chances at all. If he has only 3 top tricks, then I would still think it is better (despite your inference about East's heart length, that I missed), as it makes always when East has at most 3 spades. (So pretty much always according to your analysis.)

The hand has my vote. Partly for the nice endplay, but even more for the interesting inferences, that you got right at the table.

[inquiry]

Well, I would like to see many more hands submitted.. if I am the only one finding and submitting, this isn't going to work. Of course, this is new, so few people know about it yet. Maybe we will keep the first couple weeks open until the hands disappear from the myhands site...but the best idea is when you see or play one, come post it here immediately. Even some clunkers get in, that is ok, we will vote for the good ones.

Ben

[cherdano]

Maybe we should start small, with a hand of the month. Once there are more hands than we can reasonably deal with in a poll, we can switch back to hand of the week.

Arend

[inquiry]

cherdano, on Sep 29 2004, 10:25 AM, said:

Maybe we should start small, with a hand of the month. Once there are more hands than we can reasonably deal with in a poll, we can switch back to hand of the week.

Arend

That;s probbalby a good idea... but no need to rush in hands if it is once a month.. .besides... get any other hands and I would have not chance to win... :-)

Anyway, I will stick a few more hands in to round out competition. Here is one from maybe the best player on BBO, ppilot... This was from a Topflight event...

A link to the hand is... http://bridgebase.lunarpages.com/cgi-bin/h...etchlin=5851798 the hands was (give hand so you don;t have to look it up, and because in three weeks the link will be broken)..

Scoring: IMP

West North East South

 -     -     -     1♦
 Pass  2♣    Pass  2♥
 Pass  2♠    Pass  2NT
 Pass  3♦    Pass  3♥
 Pass  4♣    Pass  4NT
 Pass  5♠    Pass  6♦
 Pass  Pass  Pass  

---

This hand earned ppilot 12.5 imps against VERY GOOD competition (most at other talbles are all gold stars). Ppilot is south in this diagram. For the bidding, 2S was FSF, and 2NT showed stopper. 3D showed diamonds support and 3H showed was a cuebid. Here norht took an agreessive view and went past 3NT due to excellent trumps and fitting heart control. Ppilot took over the controls, as all good pilots do, and broght this baby home.

The slam makes even without the helpful heart opening lead. Not only is the spade ACE onside. but heart are 3-3 with ten on sides, and clubs are 3-3.

H4 H5 HT HJ
C2 C4 CA C7
CK C3 CJ CT
C5 CQ D9 C9
D5 D3 DJ D6
DQ D2 D7 D4
DK D8 DT S3
C8 S6 S7 S4
C6 H3 SK S5
HK H2 H7 H8
H6 SA HA HQ

[inquiry]

Hand link.. http://bridgebase.lunarpages.com/cgi-bin/h...etchlin=5643536

Scoring: IMP

West North East South

 Pass  Pass  1♥    Pass
 Pass  2♦    Dbl!  Pass
 4♥    Pass  6♥    Pass
 Pass  Pass  

---

There is nothing to the play of this hand, but I nominate it for the utter brillaince to envision a slam opposite a partnew who could not keep the bidding alive after a 1H opening bid. South on this hand was our own Fluffly, who is a major contributor to this forum. It is true one other pair (out of 16) bid to this slam, but there, norrh had raised 1H to 2H. In fact, Fluffy was the only one to face a pass after 1H, and he handled it beautifully once given a chance to reopen. And to make it even more exciting.. he was playing againt ritong and caroltom, two of the most recongized gold stars on the BBO... well done!!

D3 D5 DA H3
HA H7 H8 H2
HK H6 H9 H5

[inquiry]

I nominate hedyg and vavo for this 4H hand which is hard to bid, especially after hegyg''s intial pass... combined hcp total two hands is 20. Great hand evalatio.

http://bridgebase.lunarpages.com/cgi-bin/h...etchlin=5950899

Scoring: IMP

West North East South

 -     -     Pass  1♥
 1♠    Pass  2♠    3♦
 3♠    4♥    Pass  Pass
 Pass  

---

Hedy does a great job realising how valuable the diamond queen and short club is for her partner. 4H easily made.

Ben

[inquiry]

http://bridgebase.lunarpages.com/cgi-bin/h...etchlin=5561403

Scoring: IMP

West North East South

 -     -     -     Pass
 Pass  1♥    Pass  1♠
 Pass  2♠    Pass  3♦
 Dbl   Pass  Pass  4♠
 Pass  Pass  Dbl   Pass
 Pass  Pass  

---

This entry is slightly flawed, in that 4♠, due the four-0 trump split could go down with a different lead besides the undbid sit. Once they lead he wrong suit, malucy made no mistake and brought home the major suit game despite three losing trump tricks.

I had the pleasure of being malucy's partner on this hand, so i can explain the bidding. My 1H looks like a typical light third seat opening bid, but I did not treat it as such. When mike bid a spade, I raised. When mike bid 3♦, that was a game try, and WEST then doubled. We play an immediate 3♠ by me shows weak hand, so my pass of 3♦ showed EXTRA values. Mike obviously jumped to game playing me for more. But I evaluate this hand as more. Using ZAR point scale, I have 13 distributional, 9 hcp, 2 control, then I get 2 for fitting spade honors, and 2 more for singleton diamond. This totals 27 ZAR points I actually think after the help suit game try my fourth trump along with singleton in that suit is worth more than 2 points... So I treat that as 4 pts.. bringing my total to 29. More than a half trick better than a mere opening bid.

Aggressive, yes, but we are vul and this is imps.

The play...


C2 C9 CT CQ
C3 C5 CJ C4
CA C7 H9 CK
D4 D5 DA D7
D2 D8 S4 D6
H4 HJ HA H2
D3 D9 S9 DT
H5 HQ S5 H3
DJ DK ST SJ
S3 S2 HT SA

[inquiry]

A tie on this submission between Clarsen/sedar and ca_n.katerina93 who both bid and made 6NT on this hand. The link is...

http://bridgebase.lunarpages.com/cgi-bin/h...etchlin=5602188

Scoring: IMP

West North East South

 -     -     -     1♥
 Pass  1♠    Pass  3♦
 Pass  4♣    Pass  4NT
 Pass  6♣    Pass  6NT
 Pass  Pass  Pass  

---

Big misfits are notoriously hard to bid. It not entirely clear to south how excellent his club values for notrump, but hey fill out the club suit perfectly. After the spade opening lead, all South needs to do is establish the clubs and manage his transportation problems. It is especially nice to see they avoid the 6S trap in a 6-2 fit. 6S is always down.

S5 SJ S3 S6
C2 C5 CQ CA
C3 CK C8 CJ
DQ D3 D9 D2

Well done...