[deanrover6]

This one was pretty tricky.

North just bid 6d, but he wanted a way to find out if bidding a grand slam was better. Suggestions?

---

West leads the 9♣.

i) Plan the play.
ii) You play the ♣Jack, North covers and you ruff in hand. Plan?
iii) How do your answers change if we are in 7♦?
iv) How do you answers change sans North's double?

[Fluffy]

I put ♣J from dummy and ruff, next win ♦A, I supose the are 3-0.

Cash clubs discarding spades next allowing west to ruff the 4th, if he ruffs the third I am toasted unless he fails to see the need of a heart return.

If west ruffs 4th club, we have already got rid of 3 spades, so win the return (lets say a heart tapping dummy), ♠A, ♠ ruff, trump to dummy, spade ruff, and last spade should be good (otherwise LHO would had led his stiff).

Now I think of it, this line can be improved starting with ♣AKJ, guarding against west being 3-2 in the minors, it would however fail if east had 1-2 in the minors, so it depends on opponent's style of leads.

[PhilKing]

The club lead is a minor surprise. I am somewhat concerned that West is 0535 or similar. East's double is for take out in my book, and I expect East to have the majors, so why has West not led a spade?. This is one of those situations where I need to know how good the opposition are, since I would expect a decent West to lead aggressively here if he had a high honour in either major.

Anyway, I am going to draw three trumps ending in hand and lead a spade. If West shows out, I will insert the ten and take it from there. I'm still OK in a lot of scenarios, but I may have played it off if West has a top heart honour. I'm OK when East has all the major honours (he gets squeezed in due course), when clubs break or when West has a spade honour.

I've thought of another line - lead a spade at trick two. If West blows, I think I'm going to stumble into a suicide entry-shifting squeeze at trick ten. (I've been replaying Adventures in Card Play in Jack 5 quite a lot recently.)

Trick 1 - ruff
2 - ♠, playing ace when West blows
3 - ♦A
4-6 - top ♣, throwing ♠
7 - ruff a ♣ when West has five
8 - ♥ ruff
9 - ♠ ruff

When West overruffs, he has to play a trump to stop the crossruff, and East gets trashed.

[ArtK78]

PhilKing, on 2013-July-30, 06:30, said:

The club lead is a minor surprise. I am somewhat concerned that West is 0535 or similar. East's double is for take out in my book, and I expect East to have the majors, so why has West not led a spade?

Huh?

North leapt to slam and East doubled. I would think that means East has 2 tricks against 6♦. In fact, there are some Lightner implications, but that is not clear when there is a leap to slam in a non-competitive auction. Now, you can see that East does not have 2 tricks, but I would never interpret the double as takeout.

[PhilKing]

ArtK78, on 2013-July-30, 06:47, said:

Huh?

North leapt to slam and East doubled. I would think that means East has 2 tricks against 6♦. In fact, there are some Lightner implications, but that is not clear when there is a leap to slam in a non-competitive auction. Now, you can see that East does not have 2 tricks, but I would never interpret the double as takeout.

Yes, of course. Doubling to show two tricks is really useful.

Now if you wanted to play it as Lightner, you would have had a case.

[cloa513]

ArtK78, on 2013-July-30, 06:47, said:

Huh?

North leapt to slam and East doubled. I would think that means East has 2 tricks against 6♦. In fact, there are some Lightner implications, but that is not clear when there is a leap to slam in a non-competitive auction. Now, you can see that East does not have 2 tricks, but I would never interpret the double as takeout.

East has 5 spades and 5 hearts and 3 clubs- his partner is off with the fairies thinking the contract will be down. East probably interpreted North's bid as a purely speculative bid so much for being an expert.

[Cyberyeti]

PhilKing, on 2013-July-30, 06:30, said:

The club lead is a minor surprise. I am somewhat concerned that West is 0535 or similar. East's double is for take out in my book, and I expect East to have the majors, so why has West not led a spade?. This is one of those situations where I need to know how good the opposition are, since I would expect a decent West to lead aggressively here if he had a high honour in either major.

I'd have asked about the X, is it impossible that it's Lightner with A♥ and a spade void ? and the opening leader has picked his xxxxx instead of KQxxx thinking that's the one that's more likely to be critical to lead if partner's ruffing it.

[PhilKing]

Cyberyeti, on 2013-July-30, 07:07, said:

I'd have asked about the X, is it impossible that it's Lightner with A♥ and a spade void ? and the opening leader has picked his xxxxx instead of KQxxx thinking that's the one that's more likely to be critical to lead if partner's ruffing it.

Agreed. I'm not even playing to trick one (the ♣T is not automatic) without asking a few questions as to whether East is a two trick muppet, a Lightner afficianado, or a good two-way values player.

[deanrover6]

I think the decision at trick 1 is interesting, what are the potential gains from all three possibilities?

[PhilKing]

deanrover6, on 2013-July-30, 08:51, said:

I think the decision at trick 1 is interesting, what are the potential gains from all three possibilities?

I don't know until I have more information about E/W.

[deanrover6]

E/W have no partnership agreement ("2/1 or SAYC p?" "SAYC" "OK"), in this scenario are you allowed to ask him about his double? I think that's unethical, you're basically asking him to tell you if he has a void or not, no?

[Cyberyeti]

deanrover6, on 2013-July-30, 08:59, said:

E/W have no partnership agreement ("2/1 or SAYC p?" "SAYC" "OK"), in this scenario are you allowed to ask him about his double? I think that's unethical, you're basically asking him to tell you if he has a void or not, no?

Depends on the form of bridge, normally F2F you're allowed to ask his partner, may be different online/with screens, but he only has to tell you what his agreements are, not what he has.

[PhilKing]

deanrover6, on 2013-July-30, 08:59, said:

E/W have no partnership agreement ("2/1 or SAYC p?" "SAYC" "OK"), in this scenario are you allowed to ask him about his double? I think that's unethical, you're basically asking him to tell you if he has a void or not, no?

If E/W have no partnership agreement, there is nothing to ask about. Anyway, if they are playing "SAYC" they are presumably intermediates and may have doubled on a few high cards, as intermediates are apt to do.

[Zelandakh]

By my reckoning, 6 diamonds, 3 clubs and a spade make 10 tricks. If we can get those along with 2 heart ruffs then we are home. So how about ruffing the ♣Q and then ruffing a heart before cashing ♦A? That seems to leave all of our options open.

[sathyab]

PhilKing, on 2013-July-30, 10:17, said:

If E/W have no partnership agreement, there is nothing to ask about. Anyway, if they are playing "SAYC" they are presumably intermediates and may have doubled on a few high cards, as intermediates are apt to do.

Would it be shocking if E-W did not have an agreement about the double ? Have you and your regular partner discussed doubles of uncontested Slam bids with no side suit bidding, when one of them starts with a pre-empt ?

[PhilKing]

sathyab, on 2013-August-19, 15:23, said:

Would it be shocking if E-W did not have an agreement about the double ? Have you and your regular partner discussed doubles of uncontested Slam bids with no side suit bidding, when one of them starts with a pre-empt ?

Yes. Is that so shocking?

Meta-agreement is take-out double up to 7♦ at our first turn to speak. I mean, it's even written on the card. It's even deemed to be the default agreement at the leading rubber bridge club (TGR rule 5 corollary, which applies even over 7♠ in theory, but that is takling it too far).

[sathyab]

PhilKing, on 2013-August-19, 16:10, said:

Yes. Is that so shocking?

Meta-agreement is take-out double up to 7♦ at our first turn to speak. I mean, it's even written on the card. It's even deemed to be the default agreement at the leading rubber bridge club (TGR rule 5 corollary, which applies even over 7♠ in theory, but that is takling it too far).

With your side having so much in black suits, you think it's remotely possible that your opponents could have the above agreement on this hand ? Given that you're missing a fair amount of high cards in the Majors and the ♣Q, I will go out on a limb and venture that opponents doubled because they were looking at a collection of pictures. Wrong on this hand no doubt, but that's no reason to think that the opponents are inferior to play those methods or that those methods are themselves inferior.

[WellSpyder]

PhilKing, on 2013-July-30, 06:30, said:

I think I'm going to stumble into a suicide entry-shifting squeeze at trick ten

Yeah, I'm always doing that!

[PhilKing]

sathyab, on 2013-August-19, 17:03, said:

With your side having so much in black suits, you think it's remotely possible that your opponents could have the above agreement on this hand ? Given that you're missing a fair amount of high cards in the Majors and the ♣Q, I will go out on a limb and venture that opponents doubled because they were looking at a collection of pictures. Wrong on this hand no doubt, but that's no reason to think that the opponents are inferior to play those methods or that those methods are themselves inferior.

Well, if you reread the thread, you were able to ascertain before playing a card that oppo were playing SAYC. So whether superior or not, I agree that you should play East to have doubled for a laugh with a random collection of high cards.

You have correctly deduced that I believe such an agreement is beyond bad, but that is not really relevant. Superficially, savvy opponents could exploit me here, but that is not really the case at all, since a psychic raise would run into a sixth seat battering. Therefore, they can only raise with slam values or huge shape (as a pre-sacrifice), so our "penalty" doubles will naturally have short diamonds and high ambitions.