[CamHenry]

---

You arrive in 4♥, with an apparent loser in each suit and two in trumps. LHO leads the ♣6, which goes 7-K-A. Well, that misdefence takes care of clubs, so there's some hope.

You then lead a heart, won by W who then cashes a second heart (they split 2-2) and exits with a club. Short of a miracle or a defensive revoke, how do you proceed?

[PhilKing]

Can't I just establish a diamond?

[Cyberyeti]

PhilKing, on 2012-December-01, 12:34, said:

Can't I just establish a diamond?

Not that simple, provided you guess correctly either initially or second time, you can survive split diamond honours.

Cash the clubs, extract E's last spade by cashing the K and play a diamond to the J, if it loses to the Q and a diamond comes back you have to guess well, run it or ruff and squeeze W.

With opps red v green and E having neither heart honour, I'm playing E for ♦AQ though.

[PhilKing]

Cyberyeti, on 2012-December-01, 12:46, said:

Not that simple, provided you guess correctly either initially or second time, you can survive split diamond honours.

Cash the clubs, extract E's last spade by cashing the K and play a diamond to the J, if it loses to the Q and a diamond comes back you have to guess well, run it or ruff and squeeze W.

With opps red v green and E having neither heart honour, I'm playing E for ♦AQ though.

That sound pretty simple.

You are missing two points:

1. The title says it is an elegant hand

2. And the statement Short of a miracle or a defensive revoke, how do you proceed?

Obviously the hand is cooked. If forced to guess, I would say we have Qxx spades, which requires a more elegant solution (though East can duck after we eliminate and play a diamond to the jack with Axxxx). Yours gains nothing over the bovine diamond to the jack without bothering to cash any winners line.

[phil_20686]

Isn't rho marked to be 1255? If so, its just cold now provided east has the diamond ace. You cash one spade the clubs and play a diamond to the J. Either this forces the ace, or rho is endplayed, forced to concede a ruff and discard or establish a diamond for you.

I suppose I could cash two spades, in case I was worried rho might be 2245.


Easy game

[PhilKing]

phil_20686, on 2012-December-01, 13:18, said:

Isn't rho marked to be 1255? If so, its just cold now provided east has the diamond ace. You cash one spade the clubs and play a diamond to the J. Either this forces the ace, or rho is endplayed, forced to concede a ruff and discard or establish a diamond for you.

I suppose I could cash two spades, in case I was worried rho might be 2245.


Easy game

Why bother eliminating?

[Cyberyeti]

PhilKing, on 2012-December-01, 13:20, said:

Why bother eliminating?

Because it gives you the option of dealing with Axx/Qxxxx and Qxx/Axxxx in the diamond suit which I would have considered if the vulnerabilities were reversed.

[PhilKing]

Cyberyeti, on 2012-December-01, 16:40, said:

Because it gives you the option of dealing with Axx/Qxxxx and Qxx/Axxxx in the diamond suit which I would have considered if the vulnerabilities were reversed.

Don't. It's irrelevant because East is never underleading the ace (see trick 1), but he always has it (West can hardly have QJxxx AK Axxx xx).

[Cyberyeti]

PhilKing, on 2012-December-01, 16:43, said:

Don't. It's irrelevant because East is never underleading the ace (see trick 1), but he always has it (West can hardly have QJxxx AK Axxx xx).

This is a good point, I don't see a distribution for the EW hands that makes any sense.

If I had 4 diamonds, a doubleton AK of opps suit and 5 spades opposite a red v green 2N bid, I'd be bidding over 3♥, partner would appear to be 1255 and we should be pretty close to 4♦, quite probably making it. The play of the K♣ makes it very unlikely he has 5, but I suppose 1264 is just about possible although he should play whichever of the 9 or 10 he possesses. The K ought to indicate he has <4 so what does he have ?

He can't have diamonds and hearts, nor diamonds and spades as W would have raised one of the minors so what does he have ? if he's played the K from K1098x I'll eat my hat so what has he got ?

[mikeh]

I'm still looking for the 'elegance'.

We know rho is a beginner, and not a very strong one, so it is possible that he has only x xx Qxxxx K109xx and bid this way at unfav, and that his presumably equivalent partner holds QJxxx AK Axxx xx and is a trappist monk, but playing for that layout after a diamond to the J and a diamond back would work but hardly qualifies as 'elegant'. I'm a simple soul: I play RHO for the diamond A.

[CamHenry]

mikeh, on 2012-December-02, 08:59, said:

I'm still looking for the 'elegance'.

We know rho is a beginner, and not a very strong one, so it is possible that he has only x xx Qxxxx K109xx and bid this way at unfav, and that his presumably equivalent partner holds QJxxx AK Axxx xx and is a trappist monk, but playing for that layout after a diamond to the J and a diamond back would work but hardly qualifies as 'elegant'. I'm a simple soul: I play RHO for the diamond A.

The elegance is not that the endplay always works, but that it's opps' UNT that made it clearly the right line. Maybe I'm a simple soul, but it pleased me at the table!

(And yes, the spade elimination is necessary: RHO's shape was 1=2=5=5, so without the spade elimination he's got a safe exit.)

[mikeh]

CamHenry, on 2012-December-03, 11:54, said:

The elegance is not that the endplay always works, but that it's opps' UNT that made it clearly the right line. Maybe I'm a simple soul, but it pleased me at the table!

(And yes, the spade elimination is necessary: RHO's shape was 1=2=5=5, so without the spade elimination he's got a safe exit.)

I applaud you for deciding to contribute to the forum, and I hope my criticisms of this thread don't stop you from participating.

However, your analysis here is not very good.

There is no need to play on elimination lines.

We won trick one, then played a trump and won trick 4 (the second round of clubs) in our hand. Dummy still has the spade A and the club Q and the trump J as entries.

We lead a diamond to the J, losing to the Q. Back comes a black card.

We win in dummy and lead another diamond, intending to pitch a spade if the A isn't played. If it appears, we ruff and use onoe of our two remaining entries to enjoy the diamond 10.

Had you wanted to ensure that we needed an elimination, you needed to weaken our diamonds: make them KJ9, and now we need to strip the blacks before playing a diamond up.

That would have been a decent hand to post in either the Intermediate section (maybe a bit too simple) or the Novice section (not sure if too complex for there) but it isn't, frankly, an 'interesting hand' the way it was presented and there's definitely no elegance.

Having said that, you are to be commended for seeing the possibilities of the endplay. You just didn't need it on this hand, but being able to recognize such situations will be a definite asset on other hands.

[PhilKing]

CamHenry, on 2012-December-03, 11:54, said:

(And yes, the spade elimination is necessary: RHO's shape was 1=2=5=5, so without the spade elimination he's got a safe exit.)

Wanna bet?

[CamHenry]

PhilKing, on 2012-December-03, 12:18, said:

Wanna bet?

OK, safe for now: you can fall back on a ruffing finesse in diamonds.

[CamHenry]

mikeh, on 2012-December-03, 12:17, said:

I applaud you for deciding to contribute to the forum, and I hope my criticisms of this thread don't stop you from participating.

However, your analysis here is not very good.

<snip>

Thanks for the critique, and I agree with many of your points! I will only argue with your statement that there is no elegance: I think elegant is subjective, and I was quite pleased with it at the table