[mikeh]

At a home social game, playing with an expert but unfamiliar partner, you have an auction that ends up at the 5-level, after you opened 1♠ and partner made a 2/1 gf response of 2♦ and then, over your 2♠, bid 3♥. I won't give the full auction because it isn't clear to me that reaching 5♠ would be normal, but the play's the thing.

The opening lead is a nonedescript heart and the hand is:

---

You win perforce and cash the spade Q, nothing interesting happens. You elect to cash as many hearts as you can, and 3 winners live, as you toss 2 clubs. So you try the 4th one, pitching a 3rd club, and LHO ruffs low. He then plays the club K, which holds, and switches to a small diamond, which you win in dummy. You now hold AK10xx void 10 void, and dummy is void void AJxx xx, and you have lost two tricks. How do you proceed and why?

If it matters, RHO is an expert playing with an advanced/maybe expert, but they almost never play together and won't have had any extensive discussion or experience.

[ahydra]

Isn't the only hope that spades come in? We don't have the entries to shorten our trumps enough to coup RHO if he started with four to the Jack (suppose we play club ruff and diamond to the Ace, we'd be forced to then ruff our next diamond as RHO discards his last heart). And if LHO has three to the Jack left we can't do anything.

So I ruff a club and bang down ♠AK.

I must have missed something though as this has been posted as a puzzle Edit: maybe it's

Spoiler

that you want RHO to ruff if he does have 4 to the J, so assuming you haven't given away your 6th spade on the auction, you fake having started with 5134 by ruffing a club then finessing in diamonds, then when you "cash" the Ace RHO may be tempted to ruff. However you look like a right idiot if spades come in and RHO started with the DQ!

?

ahydra

[MrAce]

deleted

[WesleyC]

I'm probably missing something because this doesn't seem hard enough for a typical mikeh problem.

If RHO has all the remaining trumps, we can't shorten ourselves twice and get to dummy at trick 11, so give up on that and assume the remaining trumps are 2-1.

If trumps are 2-1 then the only risk is a club over-ruff by LHO. For LHO to ruff the 2nd club he must have started with exactly [?xxx xxx Qxxxx K] although that doesn't seem likely, (why not return a diamond?) we can give ourselves a slight extra chance by ruffing the club with the ♠T.

[alok c]

deleted.

[andrei]

If LHO has a singleton K♣, as in: Jxxx xxx xxxxx K, we are down as RHO can overtake K with the A and play another club for a promotion.

So we should be safe to ruff a club in hand ( with the T if it makes you feel better ) and hope that spades behave.

[mikeh]

andrei, on 2015-August-11, 10:10, said:

If LHO has a singleton K♣, as in: Jxxx xxx xxxxx K, we are down as RHO can overtake K with the A and play another club for a promotion.

So we should be safe to ruff a club in hand ( with the T if it makes you feel better ) and hope that spades behave.

RHO is an expert, altho in these social games one's attention sometimes falters. I don't know if he thought this through but on any layout wherein LHO has a stiff club, there is no need to overtake the K and return the suit, and it would be a mistake to do so if RHO held, as he did, Jx in spades originally (thus a stiff J at this point).

Wesley got it right.

We are in dummy and we have to get to our hand to pull trump. We can do so either by ruffing a club or by cashing the second diamond and then ruff the 3rd.

Ruffing the club risks being overruffed if LHO had a stiff K, and the switch to that card, followed by a diamond, suggests that this is quite possible.

However, on all layouts on which he has a stiff club, he had either 5 spades originally, and now has 3 left and we cannot make, or he had 4 spades. If he had 4 spades, he is 4=3=5=1 and now RHO has a stiff diamond.

So on all hands where LHO has a stiff club, and it matters, we cannot hope to cash a second diamond. Like it or not, the only way back to the hand is a club and we HAVE to ruff with the 10. This is not to make us feel better, other than that we don't like to go down in a cold contract, as we would were we to ruff low.

If LHO had Jxxx xxx Qxxxx K, we can't make anyway. He actually held 9xxx xxx Qxxxx K.

Note that had RHO overtaken the club K to return one, any declarer with a pulse would know that LHO had a stiff club and would have no choice but to play the 10. Further, if LHO held the 10 of spades, then there was no need to overtake and return one....we're going to be in dummy next trick and will have no winning option.

[Cyberyeti]

So W has screwed up, if he returns a diamond without cashing K♣ so long as his partner can duck if a club is led next (hopefully his choice of diamond had SP indications) you're just off.

[mikeh]

Cyberyeti, on 2015-August-11, 11:43, said:

So W has screwed up, if he returns a diamond without cashing K♣ so long as his partner can duck if a club is led next (hopefully his choice of diamond had SP indications) you're just off.

Note that I was careful to describe LHO as 'advanced/maybe expert'. The point wasn't to assume infallible defence, especially at a social game A good catch, nevertheless.

[alok c]

11 tricks were assured if south cashed HAKQ discarding both Diamonds from hand,keeping HJ in dummy & then playing small D to ruff in hand.

[WesleyC]

alok c, on 2015-August-11, 22:03, said:

11 tricks were assured if south cashed HAKQ discarding both Diamonds from hand,keeping HJ in dummy & then playing small D to ruff in hand.

This line would work on the actual hand but relies on trumps are 3/3 (or doubleton J). The line declarer played is surely better, because it picks up all 4-2 spade breaks if the hearts are 4-4 and also picks up ♠Jxxx with short hearts almost all the time.

[alok c]

WesleyC, on 2015-August-11, 23:56, said:

This line would work on the actual hand but relies on trumps are 3/3 (or doubleton J). The line declarer played is surely better, because it picks up all 4-2 spade breaks if the hearts are 4-4 and also picks up ♠Jxxx with short hearts almost all the time.

If SJxxx is with LHO declarer can not do anything.
Even for that matter the way it is played,SJxx with LHO would have defeated the contract.

[WesleyC]

alok c, on 2015-August-12, 04:57, said:

If SJxxx is with LHO declarer can not do anything.
Even for that matter the way it is played,SJxx with LHO would have defeated the contract.

You only go down when West holds SJxxx on this deal because they also have a singleton club (less than 10%). Your line would go down ALL of the time.

[alok c]

The line i sujjested would succeed if either
1)Spades are 3-3.
2)spade Jx in one hand.
3)club honour singleton in one hand.
The line you are referring would succeed if either

1)hearts are 4-4,west can not have SJx if he has singleton C,east can not have singleton D
2)If west ruffs 4th heart-west can not have singleton club,can not have originally SJxx,east can not have singleton diamond.
There are other variations i.e instead of ruffing 4th heart west discards cK now sJx with west is enough if east has sigleton diamond etc.
Go figure..

[beautyleg]

The contract should be NT not 5S when you two were stopped everywhere. Selfish bidding is no good and never appreciated. Bridge is a cooperative game.

[phil_20686]

mikeh, on 2015-August-10, 16:31, said:

At a home social game, playing with an expert but unfamiliar partner, you have an auction that ends up at the 5-level, after you opened 1♠ and partner made a 2/1 gf response of 2♦ and then, over your 2♠, bid 3♥. I won't give the full auction because it isn't clear to me that reaching 5♠ would be normal, but the play's the thing.

The opening lead is a nonedescript heart and the hand is:

---

You win perforce and cash the spade Q, nothing interesting happens. You elect to cash as many hearts as you can, and 3 winners live, as you toss 2 clubs. So you try the 4th one, pitching a 3rd club, and LHO ruffs low. He then plays the club K, which holds, and switches to a small diamond, which you win in dummy. You now hold AK10xx void 10 void, and dummy is void void AJxx xx, and you have lost two tricks. How do you proceed and why?

If it matters, RHO is an expert playing with an advanced/maybe expert, but they almost never play together and won't have had any extensive discussion or experience.

If either player still has all 3 trumps they will not go wrong here. No chance to lure them in. The only way to go wrong is to have lho be able to overruff you. That could happen if he started out with teh singleton K of clubs and some 4351 hand. Then again he could be trying to psyche you of out the came with some 4324 hand. K of clubs is a big play from that hand though. Also, it feels like an obvious club lead unless the auction inhibited it? Ok Ill bite and will try to ruff a diamond. Its pretty hard to imagine a diamond getting over ruffed unless lho pitches the Q at trick two. I suppose that is what you are meant to do with Jxxx xxx Qxxxx K but it would still be a v good play.

EDIT - OOPS nearly there, but rho can obviously ruff the diamond on these layouts. So have to ruff a club with the ten of spades I suppose.

[MrAce]

beautyleg, on 2015-August-13, 20:56, said:

The contract should be NT not 5S when you two were stopped everywhere. Selfish bidding is no good and never appreciated. Bridge is a cooperative game.

You nailed the topic in hand.

Welldone!

[Trumpace]

If this was in a textbook, the answer would be to cash diamond AK before the fourth heart