[Echognome]

Scoring: MP

1♦ - (3♥) - Dbl - (P)
3NT - All Pass

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For better or worse, you take a stab at 3NT over your partner's negative double.

West leads ♥K (which you duck) and then continues with the ♥8. East plays the ♥9 and 6 (standard signals).

Take it from here.

[Free]

Seems like LHO wants a ♣ according to his ♥8. So ♣K and ♥KQJ are on our left, you need ♦K to be onside, the play is an open book. Use common sense. ♠ finesse probably won't work, so use it for an endplay later (if possible).

[pclayton]

Whats happening at other tables? West has been given a suit of KQJ-7th, but is vul. Pard made a fairly agressive negative double considering its the 3 level. He caught me with a nice 17 and a huge source of tricks, so here we are. I made a HUGE gamble with 3N and scored big.

However, I wouldn't expect all Wests to try 3♥ at these colors, so I think I am in the field contract, and pard has an auto double of 2♥. My hand now tries 3♥ and we still play 3N, but from pard's side.

At IMPs, the play is pretty obvious, but I don't think I can afford a safety play when 75% of the field rates to be in this game.

To me, what gets interesting is managing the endgame.

[matmat]

can i sit for 3hx?

KQJT854

so why the 8?
could easily afford to play a high heart honor for a diamond or a baby club for a club.

gnome needs to not try to (mis)lead people by titling the threads the way he does.

the 8, to me, indicates that west either has no entry, or is fairly certain of getting in independent of p being on lead. other possibility is that he has a bare king and does not wish to advertise so. it's also possible that their outside card is the spade queen.

i think i take an immediate diamond hook and go down a pile

[pclayton]

matmat, on Feb 16 2007, 03:15 AM, said:

can i sit for 3hx?

KQJT854

so why the 8?
could easily afford to play a high heart honor for a diamond or a baby club for a club.

gnome needs to not try to (mis)lead people by titling the threads the way he does.

the 8, to me, indicates that west either has no entry, or is fairly certain of getting in independent of p being on lead. other possibility is that he has a bare king and does not wish to advertise so. it's also possible that their outside card is the spade queen.

i think i take an immediate diamond hook and go down a pile

Matt: You will learn not to trust your opponents in their carding here.

Against a good player, I expect a false card, and against a great player, I expect a random card, UNLESS he has a cinch entry, which he doesn't.

[Echognome]

Trust or no trust, you have a chance to play for a stiff ♦K. Note you are still making if East has the ♦K. Hooking caters for Kx or Kxx in the East hand and rising caters for stiff K alone. Is it worth that extra chance?

Phil has made some sound reasoning that not all tables will get the 3♥ overcall, so perhaps playing for the hook makes sense.

[Echognome]

Scoring: MP

1♦ - (3♥) - Dbl - (P)
3NT - All Pass

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I wish I could report that West had a stiff ♦K and I was a hero for dropping it. But alas that wasn't the case. I took the 2nd heart and played the ♦8 to the A and then conceded a diamond to East. I won the spade return in hand, ran the diamonds and cashed the ♣A for an automatic squeeze. This proved to be unnecessary when the ♣K fell. However, I could obviously make 12 (or if I'm psycho 13) tricks through a similar line of play.

Yeap... I was crazy. I guess I play too much IMPs.