[cherdano]

Scoring: IMP

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The unopposed auction was, starting North, 1♠-1NT-2♦-3♠-4♠
You lead the ♥T which holds.

Plan your defense. Anything in particular to watch out for?

Once we have established the right play, have a vote above.

Arend

[FrancesHinden]

What does partner play on the H10?
What does it mean?

[FrancesHinden]

p.s. my speedball instinct is to switch to trumps.
But then my speedball instinct was to lead a trump...

[Gerben42]

Quote

Anything in particular to watch out for?

Partner's signal and declarer's falsecard.

[cherdano]

Hmm, I guess I didn't pose this problem very well. Let's say on first trick partner encourages. You continue with a heart as ordered, which declarer ducks in dummy and ruffs in hand, while partner gives you a suit preference signal prefering clubs over diamonds.

[FrancesHinden]

This has come up before: what's the point of partner encouraging when he knows the 10 is going to hold the trick? Count would have been more useful...

Anyway, we continued hearts 'as ordered' and declarer ruffed. It's not our go any more: what does declarer do next?

[FrancesHinden]

p.s. one possible danger is that we get squeezed in the minors. But switching to a club at trick 2 won't break that up anyway if declarer is 5143.

[cherdano]

FrancesHinden, on Oct 24 2005, 01:39 PM, said:

This has come up before: what's the point of partner encouraging when he knows the 10 is going to hold the trick? Count would have been more useful...

Anyway, we continued hearts 'as ordered' and declarer ruffed. It's not our go any more: what does declarer do next?

Well problem is when I give you the point where the problem arises, it becomes too obvious -- and anyway, I don't think this play works as well if you can't make it in tempo.

Arend

[cherdano]

FrancesHinden, on Oct 24 2005, 01:39 PM, said:

This has come up before: what's the point of partner encouraging when he knows the 10 is going to hold the trick? Count would have been more useful...

Anyway, we continued hearts 'as ordered' and declarer ruffed. It's not our go any more: what does declarer do next?

Hmm. Don't you think McKenney might be useful there too? And if partner doesn't want a switch, what else can he do but ploay a middle card, which should encourage a continuation?

Anyway, I don't know about the signals used at the tables (this is from vuegraph), but at both tables East continued a heart. And after the first two tricks. I suppose partner should have been able to signal his ♣K.

[bearmum]

cherdano, on Oct 24 2005, 10:17 PM, said:

Scoring: IMP

---

The unopposed auction was, starting North, 1♠-1NT-2♦-3♠-4♠
You lead the ♥T which holds.

Plan your defense. Anything in particular to watch out for?

Once we have established the right play, have a vote above.

Arend

The total auction makes NO sense to me as W was the opening bidder -- and presumably passed??

AFTER W passed and N bid 1♠ I am assuming that E alerted the 1NT overcall as "6-10 with 5/4 minors" ??

If that happened WHY did S bid 2♦???


IMHO with the bidding as quoted ALL the players were COMPLETE beginners and asking what level you need to play at the table is SILLY but I guess as usual I am missing something ????? and will never get an answer as these boards seem to be only for the regulars to talk to one another

[PMetsch]

Bidding

(pass) - 1♠ - (pass) - 1NT;
(pass) - 2♦ - (pass) - 3♠;
(pass) - 4♠ - a.p.

[FrancesHinden]

bearmum, on Oct 24 2005, 07:33 AM, said:

but I guess as usual I am missing something ????? and will never get an answer as these boards seem to be only for the regulars to talk to one another

ermmm... there's no need to reply quite in that way...
you have already got an immediate answer giving the auction in detail.

The bit that you missed was in the write-up saying "unopposed auction, starting North"

[FrancesHinden]

I imagine you are talking about putting the ♣Q in on the first round. If so, the answer is that putting the honour in, in that position, is a fairly standard expert* play. But we can't say at trick 2 that will be the point of the hand, because (for example) we don't yet know if the ♠J is an entry to dummy or not, or how many clubs declarer has. If declarer has 3 clubs then putting in the Queen may not be right.

*under the real BBO definition of expert: someone who wins national events

[bearmum]

FrancesHinden, on Oct 25 2005, 01:51 AM, said:

bearmum, on Oct 24 2005, 07:33 AM, said:

but I guess as usual I am missing something ????? and will never get an answer as these boards seem to be only for the regulars to talk to one another  

ermmm... there's no need to reply quite in that way...
you have already got an immediate answer giving the auction in detail.

The bit that you missed was in the write-up saying "unopposed auction, starting North"

OOPS sorry I guess I would have said the auction went " P 1S P ---------------- etc" Forgive me for posting

[cherdano]

Of course Frances is right about the ♣Q play. I need to think a bit more about the hand, but what mad me so amazed about this hand is the traveller:

At all 22 tables this was played in 4♠, almost always from North. 12 got a heart lead as here, and apart from one likely unexperienced declarer, the only defenders setting this were the teams Italy, USA1 and USA2. (Yes I am aware this is highly unscientific, as we don't know the auctions.)

Declarer can always make it double dummy, but I would guess in practice he goes down when on trick 3, he switches to a low club and East puts in the Q.

On Vuegraph, Versace put up the ace and Verhees didn't, but Versace was helped by his partner opening 1♥.

Arend

[Fluffy]

IT is not a required level, you need to know the position and to be concentrated enough to think of it during play. I would take it as expert+.

[Trpltrbl]

Playing the Q is fairly std play, imo.

GBB

[han]

I saw the hand on vugraph, I'm voting world class +++. I don't think the play is too difficult to figure out, but you told me that only three people found the correct defense so the answer seems clear.

[cherdano]

Well first we need to establish that indeed ♣Q is the correct play. (Let's assume declarer ruffs the 2nd heart and leads a small club at trick 3.)

I think it is. If declarer has 3 clubs, it would be wrong for the club suit alone (if declarer guesses right), but in that case declarer can squeeze us in the minors for 3 club tricks anyway. Does dummy have an entry with the ♠J? Possibly, but I think the best chance to beat it is to hope that partner can cover the spades.

My question was not about knowing this 2nd hand high play in general -- most advanced+ players have seen it, and experts will routinely find it at the table. I was asking how difficult it is to find the ♣Q in this specific situation at the table.

Judging from the results, it is indeed world class++ stuff (unless I am misguessing how the declarer play went at most tables).

Arend

P.S.:
For convenience, here is the full hand:

Scoring: IMP

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(Double dummy, declarer can make for example by cashing ♦AK before playing the club, overtaking the ♣Q with the ace, and exiting with ♣J to West. West is endplayed, and can get out once by playing ♥A, but can get endplayed again later. This doesn't look right to me single dummy, however.)

[jdeegan]

I can see only two things to worry about on this hand - whether to continue hearts to tap declarer (seems best since partner can overruff dummy in diamonds if need be) and (as FrancesHinden points out) whether to rise promptly with the club queen on the first lead of the suit.

I needn't be entirely in tempo on the club play since I am faking splitting honors, but I should be trying to decide what to do as early as possible. Declarer is 5-1-4-3 or 5-1-5-2 or 6-1-4-2 (most likely). That leaves pard with 4-5-2-2 or 4-5-1-3 or 3-5-2-3. Next, I have to decide if playing the club queen is something I will do only if I see a reason for it or something I will do unless I can see a reason NOT to do it.

At this point, I'm still in the dark pending locating the position of a few more high cards. To what extent can you say partner's suggestion of holding the club king is for real? What exactly were the spots? Might he be kidding?