[masonbarge]

A friend emailed me this last month:

IMPs

---

W. leads ♥7. ♥3, ♥10, ♥Q.
You play ♣J, East wins with the ♣K and leads the ♥K which you duck (W. plays ♥5)
You win the ♥2 with your ♥A, West discarding ♦4.

Your play from dummy to trick 4. What do you discard and what's your plan?

---

[PhilKing]

In before the police say this is in the wrong forum ...

But while there is time, I will cash a few spades, and if nothing extaordinary happens (East may be triple squeezed and do something absurd) play ace and another club.

[masonbarge]

PhilKing, on 2015-February-17, 18:42, said:

In before the police say this is in the wrong forum ...

But while there is time, I will cash a few spades, and if nothing extaordinary happens (East may be triple squeezed and do something absurd) play ace and another club.

Oh it's in the right forum.

I appreciate the kindness of your answer and so will be kind enough not to give you a grade.

[Fluffy]

Pitch a club in case East has 1-7-1-4, when you cash ♣A and ♠K and find out you can make when East has ♦10 or ♦J stiff. If he is 0-7-2-4 you can only make if ♦J10 with East.

[MrAce]

Fluffy, on 2015-February-18, 01:33, said:

Pitch a club in case East has 1-7-1-4, when you cash ♣A and ♠K and find out you can make when East has ♦10 or ♦J stiff. If he is 0-7-2-4 you can only make if ♦J10 with East.

That would make 14 hearts in the deck. I doubt Masonbarge will give you any better grade than P.K was given with his response.

[Zelandakh]

masonbarge, on 2015-February-18, 00:02, said:

Oh it's in the right forum.

Is it still the right forum if East passed with ♥KJT982 + ♣K + ♣Q? Can we perhaps check RHO for a pulse before making a plan? This seems like the sort of hand that is popular on forums but would never occur in a real game.

[masonbarge]

Fluffy, on 2015-February-18, 01:33, said:

Pitch a club in case East has 1-7-1-4, when you cash ♣A and ♠K and find out you can make when East has ♦10 or ♦J stiff. If he is 0-7-2-4 you can only make if ♦J10 with East.

Spoiler

Not optimal but points for at least answering and not snarking!

Why did you pitch the club?

Also, you misstated the # of hearts in the E hand, which I am sure was an oversight, but getting it right might point the way to the best sequence.

[masonbarge]

Zelandakh, on 2015-February-18, 07:08, said:

Is it still the right forum if East passed with ♥KJT982 + ♣K + ♣Q? Can we perhaps check RHO for a pulse before making a plan? This seems like the sort of hand that is popular on forums but would never occur in a real game.

Thank you for helping to improve the problem. If your answer is that you take a second club finesse based on the bidding, however, your play is less than optimal.

[Zelandakh]

masonbarge, on 2015-February-18, 09:18, said:

Thank you for helping to improve the problem. If your answer is that you take a second club finesse based on the bidding, however, your play is less than optimal.

My point is that we are cold whatever we do in practise. This is only a problem at all in a forum. As to the level of the problem, I doubt very much that either of us is qualified to judge that let alone to be giving grades out to the genuine experts that post here.

[johnu]

Zelandakh, on 2015-February-18, 07:08, said:

Is it still the right forum if East passed with ♥KJT982 + ♣K + ♣Q? Can we perhaps check RHO for a pulse before making a plan? This seems like the sort of hand that is popular on forums but would never occur in a real game.

Did OP edit the original problem? What pass by East are you talking about?

[Free]

johnu, on 2015-February-18, 14:25, said:

Did OP edit the original problem?

Yep, to meet expert standards

[masonbarge]

Free, on 2015-February-18, 14:39, said:

Yep, to meet expert standards

A true expert will not rely on an inference from the bidding if there is a line of play that will win without having to rely on the inference.

I changed it because, as usual, there have now been eight or nine posts about the problem, only one of which even attempted to give an answer. It is a lot safer and easier to criticize than perform.

[Fluffy]

masonbarge, on 2015-February-18, 14:52, said:

A true expert will not rely on an inference from the bidding if there is a line of play that will win without having to rely on the inference.

I changed it because, as usual, there have now been eight or nine posts about the problem, only one of which even attempted to give an answer. It is a lot safer and easier to criticize than perform.

A true expert doesn't give up on overtricks to cater for impossible lie outs. But anyway my avice is to just ignore any comment regarding skill of the hand.

[PhilKing]

People answered the problem as set - how silly of us. With the overcall, Fluffy is right, though he probably meant 2614 given West followed to the second heart.

Pitch a club form dummy and play a club to the ace. If West blows, cash two spades - if East follows to those, cash the diamond ace hopefully dropping a singleton honour with East. now after a diamond to the nine we can catch West in the ending.

If East has one spade we need him to have JT tight in diamonds. And if East blows on the diamond ace we can play a diamond up and claim on the 33 spade break.

[gszes]

Bringing in the club suit for 3 winners seems to be the only realistic LOP so
our best bet (after winning the heart Q) is to play a club to the ace and try to
clear the suit. This lop works whenever lho began with Hx(xx) or when rho began with KQ.

If perchance lho shows out on the 2nd club rise with the ace and lead a low dia to the ace
and low to the Q where we are mainly hoping for JT in rho hand so we can squeeze 3 dia tricks
since it looks impossible for spades to split at that point (3d 3s 1c 2h)

[masonbarge]

masonbarge, on 2015-February-17, 18:33, said:

A friend emailed me this last month:

IMPs

---

W. leads ♥7. ♥3, ♥10, ♥Q.
You play ♣J, East wins with the ♣K and leads the ♥K which you duck (W. plays ♥5)
You win the ♥2 with your ♥A, West discarding ♦4.

Your play from dummy to trick 4. What do you discard and what's your plan?

---

It's got to be right to discard the ♣9. You wouldn't finesse clubs into RHO in any case. You don't want to find him with double KQ. So win the heart, discard the club, and play a club to the Ace. My basic plan if nothing happens is to lead to the ♠A and then ♦J.

But what if West shows out on the diamond lead? Diamond to the A, and if E shows out - spades are 3-3!

East is going to play the ♦J. So then you play ♠A and ♠K and if he follows, you end up throwing West in to lead away from his ♦K.

[Zelandakh]

So you give an identical but less complete answer to PK but maintain the "kindness" not to "give a grade". Seems like an ideal way to introduce yourself to a new forum community.

[rhm]

If the layout is something like this:

---

You can indeed make the contract only by discarding the ♣9!

Then cash the ♣A and run the ♦9 to West ♦T.
West will have to return a spade or diamond whereupon you will cash the diamond ace and throw West in with the fourth spade to lead into ♦Q8.

You make 3 spades, 2 hearts 3 diamonds and one club.
All very clever and very brilliant.
Unfortunately nobody tells you where the diamond king nor the remaining club honor are.
The diamond king is certainly more likely with the long diamond holding.

Exchange the diamond king with the diamond jack in the above diagram.

---

Now you need to win the second heart(!), play ace of diamond, diamond towards the queen.
If West takes his diamond king he will later be end-played with the fourth spade to lead into dummy's diamond holding.
If West ducks the second diamond you cash your spades ending in hand and throw East in with your heart to give you two club tricks at the end.

So the right play seems to depend what assumptions you gonna make about the layout in the minors

Rainer Herrmann

[Zelandakh]

I think you are spoiling the expert lesson Rainer.