[Gerben42]

When it's too good to be true, it usually is. Opps dbl you in a 9-card fit with a combined 21-count on the 2-level. Making the contract is still nontrivial though. Here the great players can distinguish themselves from the good players.

Scoring: IMP

---

P 2♠* p p;
X p p p

* 9 - 12, 5+♠ unbalanced.

Lead ♥J

Continuation hidden but quite obvious:

Spoiler

if you duck, RHO wins the King and returns another heart. If you win and take another ♥, RHO wins the King and returns ♦6 (2nd 4th)

When at some point ♦ are played check here (but no cheating - thanks ):

Spoiler

If you play small from dummy, RHO inserts the Jack.

Your chance to make it?

[Halo]

Early days on this.

Seems obvious to win Ace of hearts and play another heart.

[Gerben42]

Quote

Early days on this.

Seems obvious to win Ace of hearts and play another heart

King wins on your right, ♦6 return (Polish carding: 2nd 4th)

Spoiler

If you duck this the King wins and a Club comes back

[Halo]

Seems I must let it go to the queen (EDIT of diamonds - written before previous post), another to the Ace and a trump towards the ten. If not someone else can take up the challenge.

[Halo]

Jlall, on Jul 19 2007, 05:28 PM, said:

Halo, on Jul 19 2007, 04:18 PM, said:

Early days on this.

Seems obvious to win Ace of hearts and play another heart.

Why? You lose a trick when LHO has the HK (not unlikely), you lose an entry, and you don't gain anything. This seems like a horrible line to begin with.

I like to play on the forum almost as if at the table.

The auction is alarming - I don't feel a favourite, but I do think I want to put RHO on lead.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

I will give it a try, although I probably will learn,
why usually dont post, if it comes to play problems.

I would play the heart as mentioned in your
post, it would not be a problem if East hat
one of the top honours, but I dont know yet,
it is pretty certain, but I dont know i.e. after
winning the Ace, I would play the ten of spades
and let it ride (East will most likely show out).

What I find a bit curious is, they have 9 hearts,
i.e. it is pretty certain that East has 6 and West
3, West also has 4 spades (?!), which means he
has can only exist once in hearts.
I plan to eventully play low to the Jack of clubs,
and I wont touch the diamonds, but if West plays
diamonds I would play small.

I take it, I am -1.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[Gerben42]

Quote

I take it, I am -1.

Yes.

[FrancesHinden]

LHO must have KQxx in spades.

That seems to make the shapes 4=4=2=3 opposite 0=5=4=4 which is consistent with the auction.

If LHO has the DK, then RHO has to have the HK, DJ, CAQ and I can't see how to avoid going off.

So let's give RHO the DK and LHO a club honour. Now all we have to do is get clubs right.

If we'd been told up front that RHO had HK then ace-and-another-heart looks good - it immediately endplays RHO.

[Gerben42]

Endplaying RHO with Ace and another ♥ seems to work well but looks really silly if the lead was from KJTxx after all, which would mean that ♣AQ are offside and you will most certainly go down, losing 2♠ 2♣ ♦ and ♥.

So you duck the ♥ to RHO's King and win the second round. The endplay would have worked but no point crying over that now.

As Frances suspected, this is now left:

---

How do you continue from here?
(I didn't make it from here at the virtual table but in fact one should)

[Halo]

Well I'll put my earlier, successful but disparaged line behind me.

Now I think East opens if he has the Ace of clubs, so he has the Queen. I'll play a spade towards the ten. West wins and returns a diamond and I duck, and win the second diamond.

I'll play another spade towards the ten and now I seem to be OK if my assumption about clubs is correct

[FrancesHinden]

I agree it looks right to play for the CA onside, given the auction, but we are still in danger of losing 3 trump tricks.

We're on table with the Ace of hearts.

Suppose we run the S10 next we are still in danger. S10 to LHO. Diamond back ducked, diamond won. Spade to LHO. Club to dummy's king. Now we are in dummy and can't get off dummy without letting RHO on lead for another diamond through, and we have J9 of spades while LHO has 8x.


Diamond off dummy having won the ace of hearts, ducking RHO's jack.
Win the diamond return and play a spade towards dummy's 10.

Now we are in control. On a club back, rise king and play the S10 now.
On a heart back, ruff in HAND, club to the King, S10.

[Halo]

Now Frances has forced me to play from the correct hand, I will play diamonds myself as she indicates.

[Gerben42]

Yes that's it. ♣A is on your left as some have remarked. 2♠X-1 is still about 0 IMPs though, not many pairs managed to stop in 2.

[pclayton]

I think its clear hearts are 4-5 and spades are 4-0. Nothing is certain but since I hate to guess in gerben's position I would have played AH, heart.