[P_Marlowe]

mw64ahw, on 2026-January-19, 16:29, said:

Director - we have 2x2♥

Thanks, ... H3.

[johnu]

mike777, on 2026-January-19, 22:09, said:

Hate East bidding, really, they are the limited well defined hand but they co-opt

In defense of East, the bidding box was defective and didn't have any bidding cards for the 4 or 5 level.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

I would not have found the bid, anyway, I can understand it.

#1 You started with a nice 14 count, 4333 being the only real minus
#2 You discovered a double fit
#3 11 of your 14 points are working, the King of spade grew in value,
knowing the Ace in partners hand

Could p hope for more?
Can you tell p everything, especially the double fit is hard send across
the channel.
Add to this: Blasting may get you a favourable lead, at several table the
ace club was lead, ..., it depends a lot on, who was declarer.

The bid is not that bad, ..., not a bid I would make, but I can understand it,
maybe the Pawlov effect trained me to understand it / or fatalism having
endured those bids often enough.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[pescetom]

jillybean, on 2026-January-19, 21:06, said:

I find the easiest way is to add the text to the alert box when making the auction.

That works too, of course, but you have to decide there and then and you also get messy text with %20 instead of space and so on.

I can never figure out how to insert some play, but that is usually no issue on the forum.

[pescetom]

 P_Marlowe, on 2026-January-19, 14:42, said:

Anyway you are in 6D, and you get the H3 lead, 4th best. Plan the play.

---

With all this silence there must be a catch beyond the obvious why hearts dilemma
but at the table I would just take the hearts lead in hand, then run diamonds hoping K drops in N.
If S wins with K, then take any return in hand, hoping it is not a heart ruffed by N.
Now pull trumps ready to replan if they start to look short.
If ok then run the hearts pitching a spade and a club, cash top spades and cross ruff the rest.

[P_Marlowe]

pescetom, on 2026-January-20, 16:51, said:

With all this silence there must be a catch beyond the obvious why hearts dilemma
but at the table I would just take the hearts lead in hand, then run diamonds hoping K drops in N.
If S wins with K, then take any return in hand, hoping it is not a heart ruffed by N.
Now pull trumps ready to replan if they start to look short.
If ok then run the hearts pitching a spade and a club, cash top spades and cross ruff the rest.

Ok, ..., a better start than my own, I was dead after trick 2: If you lead a trump towards Dummy,
LHO will show out.
Ideally, this is a case for a classical question at trick1: the contract looks great,
what could go wrong. The answer ... 4-0 break with RHO holding all trumps.
South will duck.

But the way you descibed it, you will most likely make.

[fred]

blackshoe, on 2026-January-19, 13:55, said:

If I'm not mistaken Last Train was invented and named by Jeff Meckstroth.

I learned about the concept from Eric Rodwell in the late 1980s when Eric was living in Toronto. Since that time I have been under the impression that Last Train was both a Rodwell idea and a Rodwell name.

You could be right that Meckstroth is the one who came up with the idea, but I would bet that Rodwell came up with the name.