[hanp]

How do you play the following hand, either in 6H or in 7H?

5
QJ108
AQJ42
AQ5

A9764
AK63
8
K72

South open 1S, north bids 2D (GF) and you soon find yourself in either 6H or 7H. LHO leads the spade king, RHO playing the 8. Plan the play.

[hanp]

I forgot to mention, it's IMPs, don't worry about overtricks.

[JLOGIC]

Man I wrote a really long post and my browser crashed, probably better I was confusing myself.

Basically I was deciding in 6 which way to cross ruff is better:

1) Try to cash 3 clubs, and then take 7 heart tricks (meaning we have to survive ruffing one spade in dummy, and one diamond low in our hand).

2) Try to cash 2 clubs and take 8 heart tricks, which means surviving 2 diamond ruffs in our hand.

Unfortunately we cannot combine these 2 lines. If we try line 1 and the 3rd club gets ruffed, a trump back breaks up our chance at 8 tricks. If we try line 2 and we get overruffed on the third diamond, a trump back breaks up our chance at even 7 heart tricks.

Line 1 is straight forward and has the advantage that if the third club gets ruffed, we are still very much in the game if we pick up diamonds. However, 5-2 clubs in either place is not that unlikely.

Line 2 is good because if RHO has the short diamonds we're ok, and if we happen to drop the Kx of diamonds we can just pull trumps/claim. Based on the lead it seems like LHO has long spades most likely (or KQJ third), and is more likely than usual to have short diamonds.

Line 2 gets complicated, if we do get overruffed we have the chance of making still if LHO has a doubleton trump and we are able to ruffing finesse diamonds, and then cash a diamond. We also have the shot of RHO having 97 of hearts. If LHO has 5 spades this is not that unlikely, 5224 one time!

However in order to play for that, we have to start ruffing our 2 diamonds before cashing clubs. EG, DA, D ruff, club to dummy, diamond ruff overruff, trump back. We win the ace, cash our 2 clubs, ruffing hook the diamond, ruff a spade to dummy, cash our diamond and trump.

This means we are at risk of RHO pitching a doubleton black suit when he has a doubleton diamond. Fortunately RHO having 2 diamonds and clubs is basically impossible unless LHO has led from KQ doubleton of spades. RHO pitching his doubleton SPADE is both more likely and more problematic as we will now get overruffed when we try to ruff a spade.

But that means RHO has a lot of round suits and probably no line was going to work.

Line 2 feels better to me, but I really have no idea and wouldn't be surprised to learn that line 1 was better because of LHO being likely to have long spades. If we had AK7x of hearts this hand would be so much more clearcut!

If anyone is still with me, that was just the beginning, because the most intuitive line to me was a non cross ruff line!

The most intuitive non cross ruff line is to play a diamond to the queen at trick 2. The problem here is that they can return a spade and tap the dummy. Now if we cash 2 hearts and trumps are 3-2, we can play a club to our hand, ruff a spade, ruff a diamond, pull trump, and claim.

However if trumps are 4-1 that line won't work. But, we have some hope of cashing 3 clubs and 2 diamonds and having them live (requiring 4-3 in both minors basically).

If the diamond hook won in this scenario we would have 2 diamond tricks in which would make us basically cold.

If they don't tap the dummy and instead play a trump back we can just ruff a diamond high, club to dummy, ruff a diamond high, pull the trumps.

So the intuitive non cross ruff line looks very solid, a hook or a 3-2 break or 4-3 in both minors on 4-1 trumps, but the cross ruff line also seems very solid basically requiring LHO to have 2 diamonds and not Kx for us to go down ( a little less than this because of possible 6-1 breaks and RHO having 2425 or whatever, but a little more since we can make on 5224 with LHO, or 97 of hearts on our right).

I'm not sure so I will go with my intuition; diamond to the queen.

[JLOGIC]

Han, you are sure if we are in 7 they also lead the spade king and not a trump or is that only against 6? TBH I would read a lot into getting the SK lead vs 7 since it is such a strange lead.

BTW my above analysis omitted 5-0 hearts and some 6-1 spades etc etc basically because it was too complicated to include everything and those are only minor things imo.

[gnasher]

Line 4:

Ruff a diamond low, cross to a club, and ruff a diamond high. If all follow, cross in trumps, ruff another diamond high, and claim 13 or 12 (12 if I have a trump loser or the second clubs gets ruffed; otherwise 13).

If LHO shows out on the third diamond, we'll need trumps 3-2 - draw trumps and give up a diamond.

[JLOGIC]

gnasher, on Aug 31 2010, 02:47 AM, said:

Line 4:

Ruff a diamond low, cross to a club, and ruff a diamond high. If all follow, cross in trumps, ruff another diamond high, and claim 13 or 12 (12 if I have a trump loser or the second clubs gets ruffed; otherwise 13).

If LHO shows out on the third diamond, we'll need trumps 3-2 - draw trumps and give up a diamond.

hah very good, totally missed it

[rhm]

gnasher, on Aug 31 2010, 02:47 AM, said:

Line 4:

Ruff a diamond low, cross to a club, and ruff a diamond high.  If all follow, cross in trumps, ruff another diamond high, and claim 13 or 12 (12 if I have a trump loser or the second clubs gets ruffed; otherwise 13).

If LHO shows out on the third diamond, we'll need trumps 3-2 - draw trumps and give up a diamond.

I think this line is right, because chances that 3 rounds of ♣ stand up are no better than three rounds of ♦. However, in ♦ you have chances when RHO is short (switch to a complete cross ruff) or when the ♦ king comes down. Also the ♠8 at trick one is suspicious and this line avoids an early ♠ over-ruff.
It is slightly better to cross in ♣ instead of trumps to avoid that somebody discards from a doubleton ♣ on the fourth round of ♦.
If you are in a grand and LHO shows out on the third ♦ your best chance still seems to be to play for a cross ruff. This will of course work only among others if RHO has the 9 and 7 of ♥

Rainer Herrmann

[hanp]

I was in 6 so I don't know what the lead would be against 7S. I think gnasher's line is probably best in both slams, though the hand is quite complicated.

Spades were 6-1, hearts were 4-1 (RHO having 4) and king-fourth of diamonds was onside.

[gwnn]

did you win imps?

[hanp]

No, lost lots of them on this hand.

[Phil]

JLOGIC, on Aug 31 2010, 01:50 AM, said:

TBH I would read a lot into getting the SK lead vs 7 since it is such a strange lead.

This was my thought as I was considering the line in 7, however if LHO wanted to be really evil he'd lead the ♠Q from KQJTxx.

FWIW, Andy's line came to me too, although I have no idea why considering its 4AM and I shouldn't be solving tough problems at this hour.

[JLOGIC]

Phil, on Aug 31 2010, 06:07 AM, said:

FWIW, Andy's line came to me too, although I have no idea why considering its 4AM and I shouldn't be solving tough problems at this hour.

amen, because it's fun

[pooltuna]

play for both minors to split 43 and crossruff is the straight forward line