[Phil]

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It's matchpoints. LHO leads the spade 6. RHO plays the 3(udca) under dummy's K.

Opponents are good but not world beaters. What's a possible path to 11 tricks?

Note: south was dealer, not west. I will correct later.

[CSGibson]

I take 4 rounds of diamonds & see what gets discarded before doing anything else - maybe one discards a club from 4. My plan involves a spade up at some point, a club duck, and maybe some sort of rounded suit squeeze on righty if lefty has come under some pressure - its not well thought out at this point.

[Phil]

CSGibson, on 2012-August-12, 10:02, said:

I take 4 rounds of diamonds & see what gets discarded before doing anything else - maybe one discards a club from 4. My plan involves a spade up at some point, a club duck, and maybe some sort of rounded suit squeeze on righty if lefty has come under some pressure - its not well thought out at this point.

On the four diamonds, RHO will pitch an easy heart and then slow spade. LHO will pitch the lowest outstanding spade.

[rhm]

Phil, on 2012-August-12, 10:26, said:

On the four diamonds, RHO will pitch an easy heart and then slow spade. LHO will pitch the lowest outstanding spade.

Against good opponents your chances are almost non existent. LHO would need the remaining spades and 5 cards in clubs or maybe more likely a doubleton heart and all the club honors. LHO could be 5=2=3=3.
Against lesser opponents you can hope that LHO does not unblock in clubs.
After 4 rounds of diamonds play a heart to the ace and unless LHO show out a spade from hand.
Assuming this wins and RHO shows out.
Cash the club king, the heart king and the club ace and try to throw LHO in with a third cub.

Rainer Herrmann

[Phil]

rhm, on 2012-August-13, 04:05, said:

Against good opponents your chances are almost non existent. LHO would need the remaining spades and 5 cards in clubs or maybe more likely a doubleton heart and all the club honors. LHO could be 5=2=3=3.
Against lesser opponents you can hope that LHO does not unblock in clubs.
After 4 rounds of diamonds play a heart to the ace and unless LHO show out a spade from hand.
Assuming this wins and RHO shows out.
Cash the club king, the heart king and the club ace and try to throw LHO in with a third cub.

Rainer Herrmann

LHO likely competes over 1N with these hands.

Note in the text, I said "average" opponents. At the table, I just played on straightforward lines - cashed a few diamonds, and a spade up. LHO ducked. I ducked a club, but nothing materialized.

I think I prefer this line better: Duck a club right away. There's two ways good defense will beat me, and their first chance is to play hearts now, but say they return a minor. Win it in dummy, and play a spade honor (?!).

Its easy for LHO to duck the spade if I lead low toward the honors as I did at my table. I think its considerably tougher to duck the spade honor if its led from dummy. LHO might just win and clear out my last stopper, if he's just playing on general principles and not thinking about the totality of the hand.

If LHO wins and clears spades, all I need is for RHO to hold the 4th club. ATT, RHO held xx QTxxx xx QTxx.

[phil_20686]

There is an alternative line, if you think lho has 44 in the blacks, you can throw him in with the fourth round of clubs if he ducks the spade.

[Phil]

phil_20686, on 2012-August-13, 09:36, said:

There is an alternative line, if you think lho has 44 in the blacks, you can throw him in with the fourth round of clubs if he ducks the spade.

Yes, this is a creative way to make 10 tricks.

[phil_20686]

Phil, on 2012-August-13, 09:40, said:

Yes, this is a creative way to make 10 tricks.

lol. So it is.

[CSGibson]

Phil, on 2012-August-13, 08:38, said:

If LHO wins and clears spades, all I need is for RHO to hold the 4th club. ATT, RHO held xx QTxxx xx QTxx.

Seems there should be a double squeeze present if you rectify the count, first ducking a club, then losing the spade, assuming they don't attack the double entry position in hearts (not a safe assumption, necessarily).

[Phil]

CSGibson, on 2012-August-13, 13:36, said:

Seems there should be a double squeeze present if you rectify the count, first ducking a club, then losing the spade, assuming they don't attack the double entry position in hearts (not a safe assumption, necessarily).

That's the point -I need to LOSE the spade before different squeezes ripen.

[gszes]

With 9 tricks preordained and ten tricks if we get 4 dia
and an inability to rectify the cound for any compound
squeeze (unless the opps help us that is) we need some
imagination to come up with 11. My idea is to play
rho for 55(or more) in hearts and clubs (assuming rho 0-2 dia)).
Now for the fun part how to rectify the count for this squeeze.
trick 2 lead a LOW spade from dummy and if the opps fail
to return a heart immediately try claiming 11 if rho is 55 as
hoped----------------that means there is no sense to trying for
this squeeze if rho has shows up with more than 3 cards
in dia and spades during the play.

here is the position we are hoping for down the road
(we have played one more spade and pitched a heart (assuming
that is ducked in an attempt to keep us from rectifying the count)
on our last dia rho must reduce to 6 cards with our hands as shown

Q
Kxx
void
Kx



void
Ax
void
Axxx

what is rho going to hold onto??
opps have won only 1 trick so far (the low spade) if rho reduces to 33
all we have to do is play club club and another club giving up a club
trick and having the heart A as the entry for our 11th trick.

if rho reduces to 2h and 4 clubs (which we will discover when we play the top
2 clubs and there are still 2 clubs out) then the little heart becomes our 11th trick.

IS THERE ANY RISK? YES

if rho managed to discard in such a way that their last 6 cards are 4 hearts and 2 clubs
when we play club club and club(if there is only 1 club left) lho will win the last club (ackk)
and cash the 3 spade winners for DOWN. While such an occurrence is possible (rho will not have
started with more than 6 hearts and remained quiet in the bidding) the odds of such
accurate discarding so early in the hand would be nothing short of (genius/insanity)
so IMO take the risk and go for it at MP.