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Taking Guard A pretty line

#1 User is offline   lamford 

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Posted 2021-April-16, 15:52


West leads the queen of diamonds against your ambitious slam; plan the play. East will play the three, normal count, if you win the first trick in dummy.
I prefer to give the lawmakers credit for stating things for a reason - barmar
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#2 User is offline   gszes 

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Posted 2021-April-16, 19:13

trick 1 dia A
trick 2 ruff a dia small
trick 3 small club toward the T
If lho wins trick 3

assuming they return a trump
trick 4 win in hand
trick 5 heart to A
trick 6 dia K pitch heart
trick 7 club finesse
trick 8 ruff club
trick 9 ruff a heart high*
pull trumps and claim

if rho wins the trick
assuming they return a trump
trick 4 win in hand
trick 5 club A
trick 6 ruff a club
trick 7 dia A pitch a heart
trick 8 heart A
trick 9 ruff a heart high*
pull trumps and claim
* if i suspect trumps are 4-1 I can ruff the heart low it merely makes a poor contract a tad worse

If this works I apologize to opps
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#3 User is online   smerriman 

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Posted 2021-April-16, 22:28

View Postgszes, on 2021-April-16, 19:13, said:

assuming they return a trump
trick 4 win in hand
trick 5 club A
trick 6 ruff a club
trick 7 dia A pitch a heart
trick 8 heart A
trick 9 ruff a heart high*
pull trumps and claim

I don't get it; you still have a club loser? Are you claiming down 1?
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#4 User is offline   lamford 

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Posted 2021-April-17, 04:24

View Postsmerriman, on 2021-April-16, 22:28, said:

I don't get it; you still have a club loser? Are you claiming down 1?

Gszes did get trick two right, but then fell at the next hurdle.
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#5 User is offline   Cyberyeti 

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Posted 2021-April-17, 05:26

View Postlamford, on 2021-April-17, 04:24, said:

Gszes did get trick two right, but then fell at the next hurdle.


I think at the table I'd do what they did, and play for LHO to have Hxx.
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#6 User is offline   Winstonm 

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Posted 2021-April-17, 11:26

Win diamond and ruff diamond. Heart to the 9 could work but west can scuttle this by playing a heart honor.

Playing on clubs works if LHO has Hxx. Best return by opps is a heart which scuttles the chances of a long diamond trick.

I lead a low club at trick 3 and play for LHO to have honor third and thus establishing by ruff the club J as trick 12
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#7 User is offline   mikeh 

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Posted 2021-April-17, 13:54

View PostWinstonm, on 2021-April-17, 11:26, said:

Win diamond and ruff diamond. Heart to the 9 could work but west can scuttle this by playing a heart honor.

Playing on clubs works if LHO has Hxx. Best return by opps is a heart which scuttles the chances of a long diamond trick.

I lead a low club at trick 3 and play for LHO to have honor third and thus establishing by ruff the club J as trick 12

Even if a low heart to the 9 drove out the K or Q, and even if west held H10x(x), you can’t get 12 tricks unless you find an unlikely squeeze layout....and even then an unlikely heart return by east kills any squeeze....it’s not that unlikely if west can be trusted to give honest, readable count.
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#8 User is offline   Winstonm 

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Posted 2021-April-17, 14:31

Exactly, which is why I abandoned the hearts for hoping clubs acted nicely.
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Black Lives Matter. / "I need ammunition, not a ride." Zelensky
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#9 User is offline   nige1 

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Posted 2021-April-17, 15:48

Lamford 'West leads the queen of diamonds against your ambitious slam; plan the play. East will play the three, normal count, if you win the first trick in dummy.'
++++++++++++++++++++
Richard Pavlicek published many intriguing problems, where the best line is to run winners, hoping to read opponents' discards. Here however, when split 4-3, there seem to be promising straight-forward lines.
IMO, after winning K, at trick 2, declarer should advance T
If RHO has, say Qxx it isn't always correct to cover. (For example, it saves declarer a guess with KJx).
If LHO wins T then you can finesse J and ruff a .
If RHO covers T then you win A, cash A, K and lead another .
You have good chances when RHO has both honours.
If RHO was dealt KQxx he will need nerves of steel to duck the second . Although, if RHO does play low, then you should probably elect to duck, hoping to ruff out an original tripleton honour.

Edited for completeness.

This post has been edited by nige1: 2021-April-21, 14:55

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#10 User is offline   lamford 

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Posted 2021-April-18, 12:35

View Postmikeh, on 2021-April-17, 13:54, said:

Even if a low heart to the 9 drove out the K or Q, and even if west held H10x(x), you can’t get 12 tricks unless you find an unlikely squeeze layout....and even then an unlikely heart return by east kills any squeeze....it’s not that unlikely if west can be trusted to give honest, readable count.

Au contraire, Mike. On a fairly normal layout with both sides guarding hearts and clubs you have a compound guard squeeze. Declarer ruffed a diamond and cashed five more rounds of spades. There was no defence. Declarer just played a heart to the nine in the ending. West was 2-5-4-2 with the ten of hearts.

I looked up "unlikely" in my bridge dictionary and it said "one that cannot be foreseen by most experts". West had xx QTxxx QJTx Qx and could, maybe should, have broken it up by an initial heart lead.
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#11 User is offline   lamford 

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Posted 2021-April-18, 12:41

View Postnige1, on 2021-April-17, 15:48, said:

Didn't mean to comment but, for what it's worth, would start diamond king, club ten.

A hopeless line, far below your normal high standard.
I prefer to give the lawmakers credit for stating things for a reason - barmar
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#12 User is offline   mikeh 

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Posted 2021-April-18, 15:23

View Postlamford, on 2021-April-18, 12:35, said:

Au contraire, Mike. On a fairly normal layout with both sides guarding hearts and clubs you have a compound guard squeeze. Declarer ruffed a diamond and cashed five more rounds of spades. There was no defence. Declarer just played a heart to the nine in the ending. West was 2-5-4-2 with the ten of hearts.

I looked up "unlikely" in my bridge dictionary and it said "one that cannot be foreseen by most experts". West had xx QTxxx QJTx Qx and could, maybe should, have broken it up by an initial heart lead.

I was responding to a comment suggesting a heart to the 9 at trick 3. If you can find a squeeze, of any kind, after that start, you see much deeper into the hand than I do.

Whether the winning line is the best, on a mathematical basis, is a question I cannot answer, but to claim that finding west with 5=4 reds and the heart 10 is ‘common’ strikes me as requiring a pretty loose definition of common.
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#13 User is offline   Cyberyeti 

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Posted 2021-April-18, 15:59

View Postlamford, on 2021-April-18, 12:41, said:

A hopeless line, far below your normal high standard.


Not completely hopeless by any means, all these lines work if W has Hxx or Hx and no trump higher than the 6 so 52 will do on the actual distribution (or E has KQ stiff and no trump higher than the 6 or KQx)

Not sure how this compares with the layouts the guard squeeze picks up
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#14 User is offline   lamford 

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Posted 2021-April-19, 04:15

View PostCyberyeti, on 2021-April-18, 15:59, said:

Not completely hopeless by any means, all these lines work if W has Hxx or Hx and no trump higher than the 6 so 52 will do on the actual distribution (or E has KQ stiff and no trump higher than the 6 or KQx)

Not sure how this compares with the layouts the guard squeeze picks up

Agreed, but West could well have led a trump if he had Hxx in clubs and no spade pip. He expects North to be 2-4-5-2, typically. He should have led a heart on the actual hand.
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#15 User is offline   Cyberyeti 

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Posted 2021-April-19, 04:31

View Postlamford, on 2021-April-19, 04:15, said:

Agreed, but West could well have led a trump if he had Hxx in clubs and no spade pip. He expects North to be 2-4-5-2, typically. He should have led a heart on the actual hand.


He can't know for certain his spade pip is sufficient, N could have as much as Jx, knowing 7x is enough and 5x isn't is fantasy.
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#16 User is offline   lamford 

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Posted 2021-April-19, 06:07

View PostCyberyeti, on 2021-April-19, 04:31, said:

He can't know for certain his spade pip is sufficient, N could have as much as Jx, knowing 7x is enough and 5x isn't is fantasy.

He can know there is a risk of a club ruff in dummy, so he should lead a trump whatever his pip when he has Hxx in clubs
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#17 User is offline   Cyberyeti 

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Posted 2021-April-19, 07:07

View Postlamford, on 2021-April-19, 06:07, said:

He can know there is a risk of a club ruff in dummy, so he should lead a trump whatever his pip when he has Hxx in clubs


That holds for pretty much any club holding he might have, trump lead looks good pretty much whatever his other holdings unless he has a load of clubs and suspects partner might overruff.
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#18 User is offline   lamford 

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Posted 2021-April-19, 08:12

View PostCyberyeti, on 2021-April-19, 07:07, said:

That holds for pretty much any club holding he might have, trump lead looks good pretty much whatever his other holdings unless he has a load of clubs and suspects partner might overruff.

Interestingly, on the actual hand, where he had 9x QTxxx QJTx Qx a trump lead was fatal as he needs to start attacking the hearts straight away, although an improbable Q also beat it in an unlikely way. Sometimes bridge is just too tough.
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