[inquiry]

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Ben

[junyi_zhu]

The Hand

Scoring: IMP

This is a hand I played with my partner Qing Yang against Hansa Narasimhan and
Irina Levitina in a set game on Nov. 3. The bidding was rather straight forward: 2♦ was natural weak two opening and my 2♠ got doubled.
Irina led ♥A and K, noticed her partner gave high low in hearts, she switched a diamond
(a low heart would kill the contract here), which I had to duck, otherwise, e-w would have communication in diamonds. After the duck, the contract is virtually cold.
Hansa did well by switching a club, which I won in hand; and here came the second key play: I have to play ♠9 to pin down Hansa's ♠8, which did pin down ♠8. now I cashed ♦A to eliminate Irina's exit card, and played another spade, which Irina ducked, but it made no difference. now I have the whole count of the hand, Irina had 5-4-2-2 shape, and I made the third key decision to drop down her ♣Q and soon claimed the contract. This contract was indeed defeatable, however the winning defence wasn't very obvious.

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[PriorKnowledge]

Instead of ducking the KS, why can't North play the AS and then KH, getting 2 more spades to go with the previous 4 tricks.

[junyi_zhu]

PriorKnowledge, on Nov 4 2004, 09:08 PM, said:

Instead of ducking the KS, why can't North play the AS and then KH, getting 2 more spades to go with the previous 4 tricks.

she can still only get two trumps even if she played a top heart to force me to ruff.
I get 4 sapdes, 1 heart, one diamond and two clubs instead. after the diamond switch, the contract was cold.

[PriorKnowledge]

right, sorry. looked at it too fast. well played

[inquiry]

Just so there will be some comepetition, and to encourage others to submit, let me give this little tame 1NT contract I played against two EXPERT players, SusieQ and dank.

http://bridgebase.lunarpages.com/cgi-bin/h...etchlin=8519801

Scoring: IMP

West North East South

 -     -     -     1NT
 Pass  Pass  Pass  

Two hearts is a better contract, but after 1NT it is somewhat hard to reach, especially as this was a pickup partnership.

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S3 S8 SK SQ <-- Fourth best "standard leads", unblock not necessary, but gives the impression I want to reach dummy for some reason.

S6 ST S2 SJ <-- the spade 2 shows five, and they keep communication open, excellent idea... I said they were good.

H6 H4 HQ HJ <-- Heart to the Queen, looks to WEST like a finessee

HA D2 H2 H9 <-- Heart ACE, completes the image of a finessee, "the reason for unblock". The combination of plays suggest. The nine of hearts may suggest a diamond values instead of clubs. I took it that way, This may not be clear to susieQ at trick four, but when the heart ten wins, all will be shown.

H3 D5 HT H5 <--- Another diamond discard. I think I have a reasonable count. Suisie is 5-1-4-3 as it seems unlikely that she would not have thrown a club with four and kept diamond for the exit.

H7 H8 HK D6 <-- Endplay coming after all these diamond pitches

D4 DJ DA D9 <-- First cash the diamond (and gain access to dummy)

S7 S5 C5 S9 <-- exit a spade. They will cash their spades and have to open up clubs for me. This way, I make two club tricks, as long as club honors are split.

SA D7 C9 D3
S4 C2 DQ D8
C4 C7 CJ CA <-- what I was playing for, the club lead.
CT CK C8 C3
C6 CQ DK DT

Ok, let's be honest, others just lead a club towards the Queen, with the king onside, they made two also. Somehow, I think this line was better.

Ben