[inquiry]

Hands played the week starting sunday, october third are to be added to this thread. There is still time to add hands to the week two contest, as long as they were played the week ending on october 2nd.

Ben

[Fluffy]

Hi, this was near to become one of my best defences ever (if I did find the killing defence later), but anyway the hand is pretty to post at least:

http://online.bridge....php?id=6553246

E - S - W - N
ps-1NT-ps-ps
ps

---

DQ D4 D3 D9
DK D7 D2 D8
H2 HQ H6 H3
S2 S3 ST S6
D6 DA DT H4
CJ C4 C6 C2
CK C5 CT CA
C7 C3 C8 C9
CQ S8 D5 S4
H8 HA H7 H5
HJ HK HT H9
S7 S5 SJ SQ
SA S9 DJ SK

Alperen (south) is playing 1NT, I play with mauriciof (East) and I am West.

At start I pick to lead DQ from AKQ5, that is the standard lead from that holding, because it makes partner to signal with J.

Now we see the dummy, partner plays D3, wich can be either doubleton 32 or 863

When defending against a player that is strong as you always comes a lot of endplays, and the key is to extract the exit cards from your opponent in time often.

So I continue with DK to let partner knwo my holding, in the hope he will make a preference signal for spades or clubs.

Not today, declarer has 3 cards, and tehre is nothing we can deduce from D2.

Anyway there is no time for finding the right black suit switch, ♦J in dummy can be a vital trick, and we have to kill it, ♥Q is probably an entry so we have to take care of it now: I switch to ♥2 to remove dummy´s entry.

Alperen plays ♥Q (wich doomed the contract, you will see later). Probably in the hope mauricio would cover it and then he would ahve an entry to dummy again.

He is in dummy for the first and last time, and makes a good guess playing a ♠ to the ♠10, this makes me think partner has 1 honnor in ♠, either the ♠K or the ♠Q, he has still room for a ♣ honnor, and I will need that card to defeat the contract.

Now declarer exits with a ♦, and my partner discards ♥4 (played ♥6 before so he has 4 cards and the ♥ switch really removed dummy´s entry as we expected). It also is the lowest ♥ he has so it confirms he has a ♣ honnor.

I switch to the ♣J then, partner looks to have 4♣, so if he has ♣A 4th without the ♣10 we need to give the ♣Q early to have comunication to cash 3♣.

Alperen ducks the ♣J and I continue with ♣K then.

At this point Alperen started to think, if he ducks he will win a ♣ next and endplay me with the ♥K to either play a ♠ that gives him 4♠ tricks, or to play a ♦ wich gives a entry to dummy and also 7 tricks.

Right? no, I can UNBLOCK ♥K under the ♥A (rememebr the ♥Q play at trrick 3), to endplay him with only ♠ in his hand he would be forced to give a ♠ to mauricio who has a ♣ to cash.

I am not sure if I would unblock ♥K, since all I could think about when he was thinking over ♣K was... take it!, take it! , I think I wouldn´t have.

He finally took it, probably thinking I had ♣KQJ and exited with a ♣, maurcio cashed his ♣ and fineses my ♥K... 1 off.

The final position:

E - S - W - N
ps-1NT-ps-ps
ps

---

[inquiry]

In a pickup partnership, Dinos1 made a difficult 6♥ contract by picking the correct card at each opportunity.

http://bridgebase.lunarpages.com/cgi-bin/h...etchlin=6610274

Scoring: IMP

West North East South

 -     Pass  1NT   Pass
 2♣    Pass  2♥    Pass
 5♥    Pass  6♥    Pass
 Pass  Pass  

---

In a pick up partnership, I didn;t try anything fancy.. just bid 5H asking for good hearts. Dino's hearts were just good enough. Watch the elimination, and pick up of 10.27 imps.

Six hearts is a little unlucky in that the hands have mirror distributions (4S, 4H, 2D, 3C)... but dinos1 found the play to compensate for this problem

DQ DK D2 D8
CQ CK CA C3 <<--- club hook has best work.
HJ H2 H4 H9 <<--- heart hook too
H3 H8 HA HT <<--- West is marked with heart king left/
D3 D5 DA D4 <<--- eliminate diamonds from both hands
C6 CT CJ C7 <<---- Key to the hand. Cash the club to stripe exit from WEST
SK S2 S7 S5 <<--- now run spades, and....
S4 S3 SJ S9
SA HK S6 S8 <<--- if WEST doesn't ruff in (he did), throw him in with heart anyway
DJ H5 DT C8 <<--- forced to give up ruff and sluff...

Whew.. the only chance. Well played.

[inquiry]

A little double squeeze, executed by a lucky bbo player (inquiry), again with a pickup partnership.

http://bridgebase.lunarpages.com/cgi-bin/h...etchlin=6613493

Scoring: IMP


West North East South

 -     -     1♣    Pass
 1♦    1♠    2NT   Pass
 6♦    Pass  Pass  Pass
 

---

This is a hand where if the club finessee is winning, you never have to take it. Declarer managed to find the winning line taking advantage of a third chane too boot.

T1. H3 HQ H7 H6 <<--- tricky heart lead, but West needs ♥K for the 1♠ overcall
T2. D6 D7 DQ DK <<--- losing diamond hook
T3. HK HA H8 H4 <<---- some thought a club back will set, but it will not, see why later
T4. SQ S4 SA S6 <<--- who knows? East may have king and may cover (yeah right)
T5. DA D3 H5 D4 <<--- 11 tricks (6D, 2H, 1S, 2C), one loser, ripe for squeezes
T6. DJ S2 S5 DT
T7. D9 S3 C2 S7
T8. D8 S8 ST C7
T9. D5 S9 C8 HT
T10. D2 CT SJ HJ <<--- squeeze west in clubs and spade, east in hearts and spades
T11. H9 C5 CJ C3

Pick up 10 nice imps...

At trick 11, if WEST happened to have the club queen, he couldn't keep three clubs and the spade King... Thus there is never a need to hook the club.. .if it is onsides, it will fall (or spade in dummy will be good). The added benefit here is EAST with four hearts, can't hold onto three clubs as well...

What if WEST had returned a club, instead of the second heart? Now instead of a "double" squeeze (actually a simple played as a double), the play would be win the club in dummy, cash second club for a heart discard, and continue with club JACK pinning the club TEN. That is probably a harder play to find, but on club 10 back, and iwth the intial heart lead and spade overcall, probably the only line (an alternative would be to play the spade bidder for KJT3 of hearts and run a type-0 positional simple squeeze on her, but no one would lead heart three from KJT3 agaist slam.....but you could still play her for KJxx or KTxx...and here that would have been wrong.. so the tricky heart lead might have worked out well for the defense.... with a club shift.

Ben

[inquiry]

A six club contract by Beto that is hard (impossible) to Bet-oh!!

Here the auction wasn't perfect, but Beto drew the correct inferences from the bidding and played EAST for Qxx of turmps (instead of 2-2 split) and played diamonds to be 3-3... Long odds perhpas, but he brought tis slam home... To add the excitment, this was a table of 4 gold stars with 55 kibitzers at the time this hand was bid and played.

http://online.bridge....php?id=6767609

Scoring: IMP


West North East South

 -     -     -     1♦
 2♦!   Pass  3♠    5♣
 Pass  6♣    Pass  Pass
 Pass  

---

SK S3 S2 C4
CA C3 C2 C5
DA D4 D8 D5
D2 D3 DK D7
C6 C7 CT H3
HK H2 H7 HA
SA C8 S6 S4
HQ H8 H9 H4
H6 HT C9 H5
CJ CQ CK S9
DQ DT S7 DJ

Here is the "traveller" for this hand.. Note no one else bid slam, and only four pairs even found the five club "game",

Time           Result           Points           Score           
16:56           3CW+1           -130           5.47           
17:00           4CW+1           -150           5.07           
16:54           2CW+3           -150           5.07           
16:53           3DW+2           -150           5.07           
16:52           2CW+3           -150           5.07           
16:51           1DW+4           -150           5.07           
16:59           3CW+3           -170           4.27           
16:57           1DW+5           -170           4.27           
16:54           3CW+3           -170           4.27           
16:54           2CW+4           -170           4.27           
16:49           5CW+1           -620           -4.67           
16:56           3NW+2           -660           -5.47           
16:57           5CWx=           -750           -7.07           
16:53           5CWx=           -750           -7.07           
17:03           5CWx+1           -950           -9.73           
17:02           6CW=           -1370           -13.87           

[inquiry]

In a topflight tournment (well, friends of Topflight), Ritong brings home a difficult six club contract....

http://bridgebase.lunarpages.com/cgi-bin/h...etchlin=6776981

Scoring: IMP

West North East South

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

---

SJ H2 S6 SQ <-- the spade lead looks normal, but singleton heart would set at trick 2
S4 S7 C7 S9 <<-- only way to make is the following sequence of play.. spade ruff
CA C3 C2 C4 <<-- pull two rounds of trumps
CQ D5 C5 C6 <<--
D3 D6 DJ D8 <<-- diamond ruff
S5 S8 C8 SK <<-- spade hook
D4 D7 DA DT <<-- diamond to ACE
CK C9 H3 H4 <<-- pull trumps and set up the heart trick
CJ CT H5 H7
HK H9 H6 HA
D9

Very good, only one making slam, and a gain of 14.29 imps.

[helium]

Hi:) this was a very nice hand both in bidding and defence i think, hope u agree:)

http://online.bridge....php?id=6832935

My p was ANAA a bbo star and opps were a regular strong partnership whos alwso a bbo star. it was a team mach and this was the secound deal

Scoring: IMP


West North East South

 -     -     2♥    3♦
 5♥    Dbl   Pass  5♠
 Pass  Pass  Pass  

---

HT HK H6 C2
S3 S5 S7 S8
H9 HA H5 D6
D4 D2 DA D5
DK SJ D7 D3
H4 H2 H7 S2
D8 SQ DQ DT
SK S9 S6 S4
H3 C7 H8 ST
C6 C5 CQ C4
CK SA C3 C9
HQ D9 CT C8
HJ DJ CJ CA

kenneth

[helium]

And here is one where my p geysir (who is a real star in norway) show really good jugement imo.and it got us a 100% score on the board in a acbl turney.

the defence and lead could be better but that dosent change the good bidd and play from my partner.if he get 11 tricks we still get 100% and if he get 10 we get 90% on the board. so WDP:)

http://online.bridge....php?id=6408655

Scoring: IMP


West North East South

 Pass  Pass  Pass  1NT
 Pass  2♣    Pass  2♥
 Pass  3NT   Pass  4♠
 Pass  Pass  Pass  

---

D2 DA D9 D4
DK DJ D8 D3
C5 C3 CA C6
CK C9 C7 C8
CQ C2 H2 CT
C4 SJ HT CJ
D5 D6 S2 S3
H4 H8 S5 H7
D7 S4 SK DQ
H5 HJ S6 HK
DT S7 SA H3


kenneth

[inquiry]

I moved both of the two hands kenneth posted above from the week four contest to the week three one. Technically the first one of these seems to have been played very late on october 2nd and thus should have been in the week two context, but voting has progressed nicely on that one so moving it to week two would not be useful.

The second hand is nice bid. The first hand (a phantom 5♠ "save" in a 4-2 fit over a sure down two 5♥ doubled) seems not suitable for thie competion to me. Neither side seemed to distinquish themselves. I wonder if this is the hand kenneth meant to link too.

Ben

[helium]

thx for setting up the hands ben, and the first one was nominated for the 5♥bid and the defence not the 5♠bid obviussly:)))

and im sure the 5♠bid was not meant as a save

[inquiry]

Nigo played a nice squeeze in the week two contest, but I accidently overlooked the hand when preparing the voting post. So I have copied the original squeeze hand and included it in the week three contest... here is the info.

6008945

Here's a nice squeeze executed by nigo. The deal was played in an MP tournament on 2004-09-26. 1NT+1 scored 84.04% of the matchpoints.

Scoring: IMP

West North East South

1♥ Pass Pass 1NT!
Pass Pass Pass

---

H4 H2 H5 HK
C2 C4 CQ CK
CT CJ CA C8
H9 H7 D7 HT
C7 C5 D5 C9
S5 S6 SK S2
H6 H8 D2 HJ
HA H3 S3 S4
C6 S8 SJ S9
C3 D8 SQ D3
DT DK DA D4
D6 DJ DQ HQ
S7 SA D9 ST