[kfay]

Scoring: MP

You reach 3NT after N opens 1♦, E overcalls 1NT, and W transfered to spades (Partner didn't want to double them).

---

W leads the ♦10 and East ducks twice, wins the ♦A on the 3rd round and shifts to a low ♥. You win the Q and?

[mikegill]

I would just exit a heart and try to make my contract as best I can. When making a 22 HCP 3NT stops being a good score I will go find a new game. If they can arrange to have LHO win the 3rd heart and exit a club then I guess I'll have to try and drop it.

[kfay]

Ah yeah they can do that can't they....

I think I didn't pause long enough on this one... Exiting a ♥ is a good play.

[y66]

Exit a heart? Good idea. Missed that. I would have played to drop CQ.

[gszeszycki]

Molly the Mule


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Dealer: West
Vul: Both
Scoring: MP
♠
♥ xxx
♦ K98xx
♣ AKJ9x

♠ AQ108
♥ Qxx
♦ QJx
♣ 108x

You reach 3NT after N opens 1♦, E overcalls 1NT, and W transfered to spades (Partner didn't want to double them).


W leads the ♦10 and East ducks twice, wins the ♦A on the 3rd round and shifts to a low ♥. You win the Q and?

there isnt much information left in this hand so analysis should be fairly easy.
Rho has dia A heart AK and assuredly spade K (or rho has 14 max) all that is missing are the spade J and the club Q rho has at least one and could have both.

there appear to be two lines of play figuring out how to play clubs or leading hearts and forcing opps to fix your problems for you. In order for the heart exit to work we must assume the opposing hearts break 43 (4 being in rho hand in which case the contract is cold no matter what happens)--not too mention if rho had 5 hearts headed by AK they might have preferred some other action than 1n

We werent given information on what lho did on second dia (sigh) so we are stuck guessing if dia break 32 or 41.

lho 5323 5314 6322 6313 rho 4432 4441 3433 3442

if hearts break 52

lho 5224 5215 6223 6214 rho 4531 4540 3532 3541

lets toss out rho hands with singleton/void so the only distributions we are dealing with are

lho 5323 6322 6313 6223 rho 4432 3433 3442 3532

since contract is ice cold (it is impossible for lho to gain lead twice to lead clubs through dummy) any time rho has 15 17 and 4 hearts headed by AK, heart exit should work well in excess of the 75% of the time suggested by remaining probable scenarios whereas trying to guess clubs would seem to be an exercise in pure guesswork alone for no particular reason 11-9 or 8-7 in favor of club Q being in "long" suit.

[kfay]

As Mike pointed out LHO can win the 3rd ♥ and lead a club so it's not ice cold.

[gnasher]

You should probably cross to a club and cash all the diamonds before playing the heart. In the critical case (5323-4432), everyone will have to discard spades on those, so we may get some clue about where [SL]Q is from the pips and the tempo.

It doesn't matter about stranding ♠A - we'll have plenty of club winners anyway.

[mikegill]

Quote

  You should probably cross to a club and cash all the diamonds before playing the heart. In the critical case (5323-4432), everyone will have to discard spades on those, so we may get some clue about where [SL]Q is from the pips and the tempo.

Doesn't this mean that whichever heart LHO wins he can just put a club through? And anyway, are we really going to finesse in clubs, play RHO to have < 15? You'd have to have a pretty cold read on their tempo. It seems like they both have easy spade pitches.

If we assume perfect defense then sure, using up a club stopper won't matter, but it doesn't seem like it's necessarily an obvious problem for them. If LHO has JTx and RHO AKxx, for example, LHO will probably play the T on the 2nd round and RHO will duck because he's afraid I started with QJx and his partner won't be able to win the 3rd round. Yes, LHO might have played the J under the Q with that, but maybe he didn't for whatever reason.

There's another reason to play hearts from hand. It seems like the type of problem where East, holding AKT (or AKx) left, will hop K reflexively when we lead from dummy, but then stop to think and realize that he'll be endplayed if he cashes high and thus play his partner for the hJ and exit small in hearts. If we lead from hand, he may win the T reflexively and then be toast.

[gnasher]

mikegill, on Jun 11 2010, 10:22 PM, said:

Doesn't this mean that whichever heart LHO wins he can just put a club through?

Whenever hearts are 3=4, they can arrange for West to win the third heart. If hearts are 2=5 and RHO has ♣Qxx, that makes the spades 7-2, which is possible but unlikely given that West didn't bid.

The immediate heart exit is mainly playing for them to mess it up by having West win the second heart when they're Jxx-AK10x. On the other hand, to cash the diamonds first is to hope for informative discards when they should just be discarding spades in a random order. There's probably not much in it.

Quote

And anyway, are we really going to finesse in clubs, play RHO to have < 15?

KJ+AK+A = 15, so ♣Q can be in either hand.

Quote

If we assume perfect defense then sure, using up a club stopper won't matter, but it doesn't seem like it's necessarily an obvious problem for them.  If LHO has JTx and RHO AKxx, for example, LHO will probably play the T on the 2nd round and RHO will duck because he's afraid I started with QJx and his partner won't be able to win the 3rd round.  Yes, LHO might have played the J under the Q with that, but maybe he didn't for whatever reason.

If we had the same hand with ♥QJx, didn't we have the 100% line of crossing to a club and leading a second heart through East?

I suppose East might think we're being clever with ♠AJ and ♥QJ. Still, I think he'd expect his partner to have thrown an encouraging spade if that were the layout.

[ceeb]

It would be helpful to know what bidding persuaded LHO to lead ♦10x, but offhand I would not play LHO for only ♠Jxxxx. Who overcalls 1NT with a scant stopper and 4-4 in the majors?

I would cross in ♣ and run the diamonds both on general principles, and because it wins outright if LHO has Jxxxxxx,Jxx,10x,x.

[Fluffy]

I'd play a heart right away, if they clear the 3 rounds of hearts west exisitng with a club at least I am now picking up all 3-2 club breaks, only losing when east is 3433 with ♣Q.

[gnasher]

Fluffy, on Jun 13 2010, 09:46 AM, said:

I'd play a heart right away, if they clear the 3 rounds of hearts west exisitng with a club at least I am now picking up all 3-2 club breaks, only losing when east is 3433 with ♣Q.

Aren't you also coping with those hands if you cash the diamonds first?

[dburn]

gnasher, on Jun 12 2010, 03:13 AM, said:

mikegill, on Jun 11 2010, 10:22 PM, said:

Doesn't this mean that whichever heart LHO wins he can just put a club through?

Whenever hearts are 3=4, they can arrange for West to win the third heart. If hearts are 2=5 and RHO has ♣Qxx, that makes the spades 7-2, which is possible but unlikely given that West didn't bid.

Yes, he did - apparently he "transferred to spades". But I am finding it hard to imagine how the auction actually went, and without knowing that I find it rather difficult to plan the play. The OP says that "partner didn't want to double them" in 2♠, which I can well understand, but I should like to know at what stage he was given the chance to double them in 2♠ and what he did instead.

My best guess at the moment is that East knows I cannot run the clubs. This is matchpoints, and if he thought I could run the clubs he would not underlead in hearts to give me an eleventh trick - instead, he would cash a top heart intending to lead a low one next if his partner encouraged, a high one next otherwise.

Hence, I will cross to a club and run the diamonds; if East started with ♠Kxx ♥AKxx ♦Axx ♣Qxx, he will have to discard down to the singleton ♠K and play low on the second or third round of hearts, which would risk handing me an eleventh - and indeed a twelfth - trick if I had ♥J.

If East does all of that, he deserves to beat me - but since I couldn't make the contract anyway, I shall not mind all that much.

[Fluffy]

gnasher, on Jun 13 2010, 10:39 AM, said:

Fluffy, on Jun 13 2010, 09:46 AM, said:

I'd play a heart right away, if they clear the 3 rounds of hearts west exisitng with a club at least I am now picking up all 3-2 club breaks, only losing when east is 3433 with ♣Q.

Aren't you also coping with those hands if you cash the diamonds first?

yeah sure, but the endplay is less obvious then I think. Playing the diamonds givs the opponents time to awaken