[Patapon]

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You are playing 6♠ on a ♠ lead.
Spades are 3-2 but when you play ♦, LHO discards.

[kenrexford]

One fun option:

I could simply pull two rounds of trumps, ending in hand. I then send a diamond toward dummy and find out the bad news.

If LHO has the last trump and uses it, I play a small diamond. Now I have 12 tricks when I can ruff the other diamond. If he pitches, I try K-A in clubs, and then another diamond. If LHO pitches again, I play a heart to hand and another diamond. If LHO pitches again, I play RHO for the third spade.

[655321]

If we started with 3 rounds of spades, then a diamond at trick 4:
Play the last 2 trumps.
East has to keep 4 diamonds in the 7 card ending (else you duck a diamond), and probably he keeps more than one heart.
Now play ♣K and ♣A, forcing a heart pitch, then cash the ♥A, and duck a diamond.

[MarkDean]

After three rounds of spades, I would play king of clubs, ace of clubs, and ruff a club. If RHO pitches a diamond, give one up and claim. If not, play ace of hearts, and ruff a heart. Now play a small diamond off the board and endplay RHO. This only fails if RHO has two or fewer hearts, which we likely would have heard about in the bidding.

[kenrexford]

655321, on Apr 23 2009, 06:21 PM, said:

If we started with 3 rounds of spades, then a diamond at trick 4:
Play the last 2 trumps.
East has to keep 4 diamonds in the 7 card ending (else you duck a diamond), and probably he keeps more than one heart.
Now play ♣K and ♣A, forcing a heart pitch, then cash the ♥A, and duck a diamond.

Oh sure -- come up with the right line and not just a fun one. Typical.

Actually, he can beat you by holding three clubs and four diamonds. On the heart, he ditches a diamond. You could counter by guessing that and playing the heart first, of course, if you worked it out.

[Patapon]

MarkDean, on Apr 23 2009, 11:25 PM, said:

After three rounds of spades, I would play king of clubs, ace of clubs, and ruff a club. If RHO pitches a diamond, give one up and claim. If not, play ace of hearts, and ruff a heart. Now play a small diamond off the board and endplay RHO. This only fails if RHO has two or fewer hearts, which we likely would have heard about in the bidding.

When you ruff a heart he discards a Diamond and you are down if he was dealt with 4 cards in Club.

There is a way to make it always, with no guess.

[Fluffy]

I can see an ending where I play 4th club from dummy and discard a diamond from hand, but don't know how to reach it knowing RHO has that club.

[MarkDean]

OK, think I got it. Play a fourth spade. Then play three rounds of clubs, ruffing the last one. If RHO has pitched a diamond, duck a diamond, and he can only return a red suit. If he has pitched a heart, play a heart to the ace, and he is down to just diamonds, and you can end play him. If he has followed to clubs, play a heart to the ace. If he follows, he is diamond tight, endplay him. If he pitches a club, diamond tight, end play him. If he pitches a diamond, he has the thirteenth club, so throw him in with it.

[Fluffy]

I think you got it Mark.

[benlessard]

at imp proper technique is to win in hand and play diamond at trick 2.

Very common safety play.

having pull 3 trumps and play D you have to strip the right suit. For that you have to keep control of the 2 side suit as much as possible that why you have to play trumps before ruffing a club or a H. Having enough entries to hand you would just have to strip clubs and succeed unless East would have 2155 shape.

In that case since you have a club endplay vs east but youll need some guessing anyway and its unlikely youll play him for the 13 th clubs.

In similar postion East proper defense is to discard from his short suit.

If on the 3 rd spades RHO discard a H and on the 4th spades he discard a H. You play AH and H ruff and its over. If he discards clubs you strip clubs. If he discard 1 of each you strip clubs.

[miguelm]

If you play Diams. from hand it doesn't work unless LHO ruffs, if he never ruffs your problem doesn't go away.

Anyway, and according to what was written in the initial post, I am assuming I have already cashed 3 trumps and the Diam. Ace.
If this is the case, the only way to make is to find RHO with 5 Diams and 4+ Clubs.
After ruffing the 3rd club in dummy, run 4th trump, if he discard a Diam. I am home, if not either my 4th club becomes good or I will end-play him in Clubs.... or something along those lines

The Heart Ace is kept as the entry to access the good Club, if that turns out to be the case.

Edit: run 4 trumps was wrong, I meant the 4th trump ofc

[benlessard]

Quote

If you play Diams. from hand it doesn't work unless LHO ruffs, if he never ruffs your problem doesn't go away.

But its still proper technique. Sometimes you have a high trump in hand and you could play low D to dummy 3 times, ruff the 4th diamond with a master trumps and ruff the 5 diamond with a low trump. Also sometimes its far from obvious for west to have 3 baby and refrain from ruffing (especially when you have a reason for wanting to go to dummy)

My point is that quite often when you can afford to lose 1 trump because of of possible 4-1 trumps split and you can play the side suit first because if it get ruffed it will be by the long trumps.

[gnasher]

benlessard, on Apr 24 2009, 05:21 PM, said:

Quote

If you play Diams. from hand it doesn't work unless LHO ruffs, if he never ruffs your problem doesn't go away.

But its still proper technique.

Not on this hand, it isn't. If you draw a third round of trumps the contract is cold. By playing diamonds without drawing the last trump you risk going down when LHO has a diamond void and three trumps, and you gain nothing.

Edit: The earlier version of this post was nonsense, so I changed it.

This post has been edited by gnasher: 2009-April-24, 11:48

[benlessard]

If West has 3 trumps and a D void hell ruff a loser and you ll manage to ruff the 5 th diamond. If East has 3 trumps and a diamond void hell ruff a winner but youll be able to finesse in diamonds and ruff the 5th diamonds. Only when the guy has a void and 2 trumps it might cost the contract. Its a frequent theme that you can delay trumps to run a side suit if you can afford a trump losers.


Unless im wrong the position i would like to have is

HIDDEN

Spoiler

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x
KQTx
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----
Ax
xx
x

Wich is exactly what Mark said

[gnasher]

So your "proper technique" of playing a diamond at trick two at best allows you to transpose into the correct line, and at worst costs the contract.

[benlessard]

Youre right,

I didnt notice that the final position is 100%, and I dont really care next time ill get a similar problem you can bet that ill play low D at trick 2. I never have enough time to know that if after trumps broke 3-2 I can deal with a 0-5 break in a 100% way. My method is to try to apply proper technique as much as i can and find the best line possible that put me in a good position if bad breaks appears, looking for the perfect line or spending half an hour per books problems is a good exercice. But in practice and when i read book my goal is to find problems themes quickly and try to find the best possible line in 10-15 mins.

Here perfect approach you would need to spend close to 10 mins to calculate if the problem is 100% if the trumps broke (before you know the 0-5 split) and you would spend another 10 mins to find a line against 4-1 trumps and 4-1 diamonds.

Or would you play diamonds at trick 2 knowing that it almost never cost anything and is a possible way to help you deal with a 5-0 diamonds break ?

[Fluffy]

benlessard, on Apr 26 2009, 03:14 PM, said:

I didnt notice that the final position is 100%

It is stated on the title of the problem

[gnasher]

benlessard, on Apr 26 2009, 04:14 PM, said:

Youre right,

  I didnt notice that the final position is 100%, and I dont really care next time ill get a similar problem you can bet that ill play low D at trick 2. I never have enough time to know that if after trumps broke 3-2 I can deal with a 0-5 break in a 100% way. My method is to try to apply proper technique as much as i can and find the best line possible that put me in a good position if bad breaks appears, looking for the perfect line or spending half an hour per books problems is a good exercice. But in practice and when i read book my goal is to find problems themes quickly and try to find the best possible line in 10-15 mins.

Here perfect approach you would need to spend close to 10 mins to calculate if the problem is 100% if the trumps broke (before you know the 0-5 split) and you would spend another 10 mins to find a line against 4-1 trumps and 4-1 diamonds.

Or would you play diamonds at trick 2 knowing that it almost never cost anything and is a possible way to help you deal with a 5-0 diamonds break ?

I certainly wouldn't claim to have followed "proper technique" if I'd played an inferior line, especially if someone had pointed out the correct play 12 hours earlier. Perhaps "adequate technique" would have been a better description.

On the actual hand, no I wouldn't have worked out at trick one that it was possible to cope with any 5-0 diamond break, given trumps 3-2.

What I would have done, however, is to realise that it's safe to draw two trumps before touching diamonds. If spades are 1=4, there are sufficient entries to lead diamonds towards hand three times, thereby catering for diamonds 4=1. If spades are 3-2, I can lead a diamond from dummy after two rounds of trumps, discover the 5-0 break, and then work out what to do about it. In the meantime, I haven't gone down when LHO is 2x0x.

[benlessard]

K of S, low S to A and low D is better indeed.