[lamford]

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At last night's nonagenarian pairs (sponsored by Specsavers) I had to rule on two issues on this hand. South claimed at trick one, stating that he had 13 top tricks. When he showed his hand, the queen of diamonds was lurking among his hearts. West thought declarer would enter dummy with a club to take a heart finesse at some stage, but dummy disagreed, believing that finessing for a card declarer thinks he possesses himself was not a normal line, and that South would not know what a finesse was if he read Chapter One three times. East thought this remark was a breach of 74A2, and he also thought South had UI from the explanation of 4NT provided by North, when asked by West, that it was "simple Blackwood". South thought that 4NT was Specific Ace Blackwood, but he played that the responses were the same as ordinary Blackwood. How do you rule? And how would you rule if the queen of hearts was with East?

[blackshoe]

South has UI? Shoot him. North made an inappropriate comment? Shoot him. Give EW Avg+ on the rest of the boards for this round. On this board? Well, having shot both members of the pair and given EW what is probably a nice windfall on the other boards this round, I think I'll rule that South thinks he doesn't need to finesse, so he won't. Since the ♥Q will fall when the ♥AK are played, contract makes. If East had the ♥Q somewhere in amongst all those hearts, it's down one.

OTOH, the cats just woke me out of a sound sleep, so that may have affected my judgment*.

*I have a plaque hanging in my kitchen. It says "There is no snooze button on a cat who wants breakfast!"

[Cyberyeti]

If you think you have ♥AKQJ, do you play the A first or the J ?

There is no particular reason (in this case where concealing how many winners you have is irrelevant) to play them in any particular order, but I would wager 90%+ of people play the A first and cash them down the line.

Why was W asking a question when he was never going to bid ? but S can work out what's going on as 5♦ is never going to be no ace, so there is effectively no UI.

I would rule that declarer cashes all suits from the top (effectively still fails to notice it's the Q♦ not the Q♥ he's cashed) and he makes if Q♥ drops, and doesn't if it doesn't whichever side it is, but I suspect the law says if the finesse or drop could lose, declarer gets it wrong so he only makes if it drops onside.

[bluejak]

Cyberyeti, on 2011-January-16, 10:18, said:

If you think you have ♥AKQJ, do you play the A first or the J ?

There is no particular reason (in this case where concealing how many winners you have is irrelevant) to play them in any particular order, but I would wager 90%+ of people play the A first and cash them down the line.

I am sure you are right, but should we be ignoring the 8% or so?

[suprgrover]

Don't we allow a South who realizes that his hearts are not solid (but his diamonds now are more solid) to cash diamonds first to see if the suit splits?

[mfa1010]

Cyberyeti, on 2011-January-16, 10:18, said:

I would rule that declarer cashes all suits from the top (effectively still fails to notice it's the Q♦ not the Q♥ he's cashed) and he makes if Q♥ drops, and doesn't if it doesn't whichever side it is, but I suspect the law says if the finesse or drop could lose, declarer gets it wrong so he only makes if it drops onside.

Yes I suspect so too.

I don't think the law allows for such serendipitous makes. It is an unclear point if and when declarer would have realized his missorting during his cashout. This should be resolved against the claimer, law 70A. So when the ♥Q drops we rule that is would be normal for declarer to realize his mistake before he gets to test ♥AK.

I don't think we should rule that it is normal to 'cash' ♥J from ♥AKJ on the first round, but maybe I'm wrong about this.

Here diamonds are good for 4 tricks and that could save declarer. Is it normal to overlook the diamond chance? Unclear - depends on the level of the player. It seems that it might be normal for this south.

[iviehoff]

It would be within the realms of normality to wake up to the missorting and finesse the heart. So I'm ruling it's off. Looking for ways in which it could be more off is probably unimportant in the context of things so that's about as much attention it is worth. If South was constrained by UI from not bidding 7N, he would have been in 6N and almost certainly have made, so I don't think it is in the interests of EW to pursue that one.