[Fluffy]

you can play the hand here: http://www.bridgegod....php?probid=267

---

IMPs, 2/1

♥K lead

Spoiler

If you duck RHO shows odd number, LHO switches to ♣10 won by ♣A and another heart comes back

[mikeh]

desperate times indeed, assuming LHO has KQ10x.

I read the spoiler, since to analyze the play without knowing what happened at trick 2 seemed silly.

I'm actually not even going to try to make the contract.

I think that against accurate defence, assuming that at trick 3 my heart 9 was covered by the 10, I can't make the contract. If LHO holds the diamond A, he clears hearts and eventually wins the diamond to cash the 5th defensive trick.

So assume RHO holds the Ace. If he has 3 or more, then he ducks the first diamond. I can't squeeze him.

Say LHO cleared hearts, and I come to my hand in spades to lead a diamond, ducked. I run my spades. Even if rho is the only one guarding the minors, he just stiffs his diamond: I have no club spots so can't endplay him.

I can make if RHO has the stiff diamond Ace, but I am going down 2 when he doesn't, assuming they cleared hearts. I never get a diamond trick and eventually lose a 2nd club for -2. The imp odds make it silly to play for an extremely low percentage make. -2 costs 2 imps while making 3 gains 10. The odds against RHO having the stiff diamond A are a lot higher than 5-1.

I suspect I have missed something. My excuse is that it is early here, and I haven't had any coffee so far

Edit: sorry, Gonzalo, but I think this was a bad problem: I went to your website hoping to see I had missed something. I really think that it is bad bridge to make this contract.

[Fluffy]

I think it is not the best problem either, but it is not flawed I think.

Go here: http://www.bridgegod...id=267&review=1

Click on show scores, and then on StevenG. See how he played the board, and tell me what mistake you think he made. He never had a risk of 2 down I think.

[mikeh]

Fluffy, on 2014-June-03, 10:46, said:

I think it is not the best problem either, but it is not flawed I think.

Go here: http://www.bridgegod...id=267&review=1

Click on show scores, and then on StevenG. See how he played the board, and tell me what mistake you think he made. He never had a risk of 2 down I think.

Anyone can make this against appalling defence, as happened for Steve. What idiot pitches a club as West? He was playing S for Ax in diamonds and holding the overtricks...which means that he played S for at least 18 hcp, and almost certainly 19, since with AJxxx or better in clubs, partner might well have returned a club at trick 3.

And he did risk down 2 if he was defending against a semi-competent defender.

He reduces to the end position of void void xx Jx opposite void void KQxx void. He has lost 2 hearts and a club.

He plays a diamond to the K, and knows he cannot make it.

If the diamond is stiff, then back comes a club and he has to lose another trick.

So can he duck the diamond, catering to the stiff Ace at no risk?

Not if RHO has Ax xx in the minors. Either opp wins the diamond cheaply and clears clubs.

I really appreciate the hard work you put into these problems. It is far easier to find flaws from the outside than from the inside and I mean no criticism of your efforts but this problem is flawed and Steve's solution is dependent on gross misdefence.

[Fluffy]

The idiot that pitches a club as west would be me I guess, I program the bots, and I have to look at every possibility very quickly to see what he will do on every situation, so I don't waste as much time as an expert would at the table, I decide in fractions of a second normally as there are too many possibilities to account for and investing a couple of hours per deal is enough. To be honest I pitched a club to make it look like clubs are 5-3 so diamonds are 4-1, or at least they look like 4-1 so it is not weird to play for the stiff ace.

Do you agree that the only chance to make it is to find stiff ace behind or did you find another realistic chance?

I was concerned that the gain from the rare +400 might not be worth the frequent -100, but I specified IMPs nobody vul for that reason, perhaps I should had modified the real hand and make it a slam hand. Or maybe make it rubber bridge with both sides vulnerable where there is a big gain from winning your contract.

I also had a lot of criticism from Timo on another deal where I advocated combining chances, but deeper look seemed to favour a squeeze, you can't nail them all

[mikeh]

Fluffy, on 2014-June-03, 17:06, said:

The idiot that pitches a club as west would be me I guess, I program the bots, and I have to look at every possibility very quickly to see what he will do on every situation, so I don't waste as much time as an expert would at the table, I decide in fractions of a second normally as there are too many possibilities to account for and investing a couple of hours per deal is enough. To be honest I pitched a club to make it look like clubs are 5-3 so diamonds are 4-1, or at least they look like 4-1 so it is not weird to play for the stiff ace.

Do you agree that the only chance to make it is to find stiff ace behind or did you find another realistic chance?

I was concerned that the gain from the rare +400 might not be worth the frequent -100, but I specified IMPs nobody vul for that reason, perhaps I should had modified the real hand and make it a slam hand. Or maybe make it rubber bridge with both sides vulnerable where there is a big gain from winning your contract.

I also had a lot of criticism from Timo on another deal where I advocated combining chances, but deeper look seemed to favour a squeeze, you can't nail them all

Hey, like I said, I know it is far easier to find flaws in someone else's problem than to create a flawless problem, and I empathize with your construction. I really shouldn't have used 'idiot', since if I had spent a nanosecond thinking about it I would have realized that you had programmed it, and that it was almost certainly the result of haste.

I do agree that I could see no legitimate chance of making other than a stiff Ace. While I now see that there are some layouts on which one doesn't go down 2 when it doesn't apply, I don't see how one can ever know that such a layout exists, and the layouts aren't common.

Assuming that we are paying 2 imps to win 10 half the time, and I think it is more than half the time since I think we fail by 2 tricks a lot, then it is bad bridge to play for the make.

However, if you specified that you knew, with assurance, that you were 6 imps down with this as the last board, then of course one plays for the stiff

[Fluffy]

or a redoubled contract at match points perhaps.

[cherdano]

Do we really have to think so hard to come up with a form of scoring whose payoffs are very close to....total points?

[nige1]

AFAIR, in "Right Through the Pack", a character is laughed out of the club, after he ducks the first trick in a hopeless 7NT, to rectify the count for a squeeze that enables him to make 12 tricks.

The Mikes would be tolerant of failure when graceful acceptance of defeat has a fractionally higher imp-expectation; but few declarers have the time or inclination to consider such subtleties; and most team-mates want declarer to grasp at any straw to make his contract.

[mikeh]

deleted

[Lord Molyb]

nige1, on 2014-June-04, 05:56, said:

AFAIR, in "Right Through the Pack", a character is laughed out of the club, after he ducks the first trick in a hopeless 7NT, to rectify the count for a squeeze that enables him to make 12 tricks.

The Mikes would be tolerant of failure when graceful acceptance of defeat has a fractionally higher imp-expectation; but few declarers have the time or inclination to consider such subtleties; and most team-mates want declarer to grasp at any straw to make his contract.

Because of this post, I am buying the mentioned book.

[Lord Molyb]

this would be a double post

This post has been edited by Lord Molyb: 2014-June-04, 17:25