[Trumpace]

You decide to play bridge just before going to work in the morning.

You join a table as East with the hand: _, A9875, A2, AK7653

You look at the bidding box which reads (North was dealer)

P- 1H - P - 1S - P - 2C - 2D - P - 2NT - 3C - P - 3H - X - P - P - P.

South has lead the ♦Q. Apparently, the previous east left after seeing the dummy.


This is what you see:

Lead: ♦Q.

---

Plan the play.

[scoob]

gotta love joining tables mid-play. i don't have a lot of hope of making this, but for what it's worth this is what i'll attempt:

Spoiler

take and exit in ♥, repeat until they break
setup clubs

how many tricks i actually get depends on how ♣/♥ suits break. if 3-3 in each i could make 10 tricks, but realistically i'm expecting 4-2 in both which means i'm screwed.

[whereagles]

You can try ruff 3 times in hand. That will work if clubs break 33, regardless of hearts.

[scoob]

see, didn't even occur to me to rough ♣ as extra transport into dummy for that approach.

:moron:

[Trumpace]

whereagles, on Jul 20 2005, 12:23 PM, said:

You can try ruff 3 times in hand. That will work if clubs break 33, regardless of hearts.

What 3 cards would you ruff in hand?

[coyot]

diamond and 2 spades.
If clubs are 3-3, you're safe on crossruff. Take d in hand, cross in d to table, ruff spade. Club ace club ruff, ruff spade, club ruff, ruff spade.
You will make AK♦, A♣, A♥ and 5 ruffs.

[Trumpace]

coyot, on Jul 20 2005, 03:55 PM, said:

diamond and 2 spades.
If clubs are 3-3, you're safe on crossruff. Take d in hand, cross in d to table, ruff spade. Club ace club ruff, ruff spade, club ruff, ruff spade.
You will make AK♦, A♣, A♥ and 5 ruffs.

Eh? That's confusing.

You say a diamond and 2 spades, but your next sentence ruffs 3 spades... What did you actually mean?

[coyot]

Trumpace, on Jul 20 2005, 06:16 PM, said:

coyot, on Jul 20 2005, 03:55 PM, said:

diamond and 2 spades.
If clubs are 3-3, you're safe on crossruff. Take d in hand, cross in d to table, ruff spade. Club ace club ruff, ruff spade, club ruff, ruff spade.
You will make AK♦, A♣, A♥ and 5 ruffs.

Eh? That's confusing.

You say a diamond and 2 spades, but your next sentence ruffs 3 spades... What did you actually mean?

Oh, sorry . It does not really matter what you ruff from the table. - 3rd spade is perhaps a little less safe than a diamond, though.

[Trumpace]

coyot, on Jul 21 2005, 02:28 AM, said:

Oh, sorry . It does not really matter what you ruff from the table. - 3rd spade is perhaps a little less safe than a diamond, though.

It actually does matter.

You have exactly 3 entries to dummy (2 club ruffs and ♦K). You need those entries to ruff with _small_ trumps in hand.

On the table the play went:

♦A, ♣A, club ruff, spade ruff, club ruff, spade ruff. ♥A. (LHO dropped the Q). ♦ to King. Now I was at the crossroads, ruff a diamond or ruff a spade... I thought what you say, that diamond would be safer than a third spade (as there were 4 diamonds outstanding compared to 2 spades) and tried to ruff a diamond, but RHO jumped in with the King of trumps! The contract was down one now.

I had clues from the bidding (which I happily ignored!): LHO bid 2D, RHO didn't raise diamonds but bid 2NT... It was likely diamonds were 6-2. If that was the case, the third ruff has to be a spade. Incidentally RHO played high-low on diamonds, which I ignored too!

RHO held a 3-5-2-3 hand and was doubling with 5 trumps to KJT.

As Sherlock Holmes would put it, "I took a mouse and rode it like an elephant".
Just because there are 2 spades and 4 diamonds outstanding, does not make the diamond ruff safer! We should learn to look at as many clues possible. When LHO dropped the Q on the ♥A, it was likely that the he had 6 diamonds (bidding inference), 3 clubs (fact), 1 heart (bidding+play inference) and 3 spades! This means we must ruff the third spade and not a diamond.

In the words of Terence Reese, "Each hand is a jigsaw puzzle and each piece must fit".