[broze]

Following on from Gordon's hand, here is another problem from the Young Chelsea's last night at it's current premises.

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Play problems to follow.

[Fluffy]

I don't think I have anything else to say, partner made an informed decision and I will respect it.

[inquiry]

At these colors and with a singleton club, you need to make the most the most descriptive bid you could make IN ANTICIPATION of further competition from them.

You seem well equipped with 3♦ since you play that as GAME FORCING (since 2NT was a limit raise or better, many play bids below game as exploring game opportunity). Since your 3♦ was game force, presumably you were setting your defense/seeking help deciding what to do over the opponents potential save (and, perhaps, making a slam try too). If you feel like you need to do more over 5♣. then your 3♦ was not descriptive enough. But with your agreement, 3♦ was very descriptive and to pull 5♣X with this hand is an insult to your partner (imho).

Now if 3♦ was only forcing to 3♠ and inviting 4♠ in some manner differently than pass over 3♣ (which would have been forcing) you may have more problems, as you would then have undisclosed values. You might, in that situation, wanted to consider what a 4♦ bid might have meant. Or you might have wanted to cue-bid 4♣ to show your extra values and club shortness. But here, you seem to have made a wonderfully descriptive bid.

3♦= "extra values" (game force) check
3♦ = diamond values, check
and the opponents 5♣ bid conveys the idea that your are short in clubs (check)

So pass is 100% clear to me.

[broze]

+1 Ben. Agree with all of this. However, at the time I felt that we weren't getting rich off 5♣x and that I hadn't advertised my singleton club, so I went against that common maxim and bid on.

Dummy is pretty disappointing but probably to be expected; N leads the 4♣.

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Plan the play in 5♠.

[nige1]

broze, on 2013-July-20, 12:15, said:

+1 Ben. Agree with all of this. However, at the time I felt that we weren't getting rich off 5♣x and that I hadn't advertised my singleton club, so I went against that common maxim and bid on.
Dummy is pretty disappointing but probably to be expected; N leads the 4♣.
Plan the play.

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IMO, over 5♣X: Pass = 10, 5♦ = 9, 5♠ = 8.
My guess at the winning line In 5♠: ruff the second ♣, start drawing trumps, with ♠K.

• If ♠ are 2-2, then continue ♥A, and eliminate defenders' ♦, ruffing if necessary. Exit in ♥ hoping for a blocked ♥ position or a defensive error.
• If ♠ are 3-1, then you need 4 ♦ tricks before the ♥ end-play: On the auction, you might guess to finesse ♦T but it's quite close.

[Fluffy]

I put ♣K from dummy, I will assume clubs are 6-4 unless ♣3 shows and tells me they lie another way, and my best chance for making this is to find south with a singleton heart honor, but that would require a missplay from him who can exit it at trick 2 to avoid the endplay. So it depends on his skill. Still 1 honor singleton looks more likely than 2 doubleton.

To summarize, since I assume clubs are 6-4, and I want south to hold singleton heart, after drawing trumps I will play him for as many diamonds as necesary:

-if he has 3 spades I play diamonds from the top for 3-3, (3136)
-if he has 2 spades, I will play the 4 rounds of diamonds and lead a heart ducking.
-If he holds a singleton spade, I am pretty much toasted, 1237 is the best I can hope now I think, since even if ♦Jx is in north I don't have the comunication to cash it without using ♥A, if ♦Jx is in north then obviously hope that he is 1246.

[gszes]

What would be the weakest bid over 3c?? 3s pass??
without this information it is not easy to interpret 3d\
accurately. BUT

4c
Is a unmistakeable splinter and this will allow p to much
more easily evaluate their hand. Once you make the 4c
bid it is an easy matter to pass 5c x since you have told
p everything about your hand.

[broze]

gszes, on 2013-July-20, 20:14, said:

What would be the weakest bid over 3c?? 3s pass??
without this information it is not easy to interpret 3d\
accurately.

Pass is mildly encouraging to bid game. 3S is the weakest bid. 4C is a cue bid in support of spades, but not necessarily a splinter for us - could be the ace. Not sure if this set of agreements are best. 3D as I said is natural - game forcing.

[broze]

Just a bump to give a few more people a chance to have a look at the play problem before I post the full hand - imho this is a really interesting one.

[mikeh]

Assuming they woodenly play a second club, ruff and play trump.

If 2-2, then win 2nd round in dummy and lead a heart to the Ace, counting on it being more difficult in real life to play the K from Kx or KJ as S. We hope for 2=2=3=6, so then play 3 diamonds and exit the heart.

If spades are 3-1, N long, then play S for one of 1=2=4=6 or 1=4=2=6: in the last case it is N we hope to endplay. However, now we have a diamond problem.

If we decide S has 4 diamonds, we need N to hold Jx! We can't pick up Jxxx in S, and we can't pull trump, ruff a diamond and benefit from the heart endplay.

If we decide S has 2 diamonds, we need N to hold Jxxx.

In both cases, it is right to play a spade to hand, drawing the last trump, and a diamond to the 10. This allows us, if it wins, to pick up the diamonds without ruffing, and the person with long diamonds has, on this assumption, the stiff heart K and we throw him in with it. Note by the way that we are ok on this line if the doubleton heart is the QJ, KQ, KJ or any Kx.

Btw, I had analyzed playing for a stiff heart honour, but not only is that very improbable compared to Kx KQ KJ, it makes the shapes around the table problematic, and we have to commit to stripping diamonds before exiting a heart, and that is just too iffy.

I also thought about whether we could catch S asleep at the switch with KJxx in hearts, leading a second heart from dummy, but to arrive at that position would require basically showing him our hand, not to mention that he might work out that with AQx in hearts, we might have hooked the Q earlier!

[inquiry]

I think others have gotten this play right. Not a great chance to make. You need to workout their distribution. Start with 4-6 in clubs. IF you are not playing necessarily for a misplay, figure out diamonds. If South had 3♠, 3♦ and the presumed 6♣. play him for a stiff heart honor. If he had 2♠-3♦-6♣, play him for KQ of hearts or similar. IF he had something odd like 2♠. 1♦, 6♣, then he has four hearts and you are going to try to endplay his partner who must have a pair of heart honors. Someone got an idea of the percent chance of this game with the assumption clubs are 4=6 and South has the ♣Ace? Mid teens I would think.

[wank]

Fluffy, on 2013-July-20, 15:44, said:

I put ♣K from dummy, I will assume clubs are 6-4 unless ♣3 shows and tells me they lie another way, and my best chance for making this is to find south with a singleton heart honor, but that would require a missplay from him who can exit it at trick 2 to avoid the endplay. So it depends on his skill. Still 1 honor singleton looks more likely than 2 doubleton.

you can prevent south unblocking his stiff heart by retaining the club king. he wins t1, then if he clears the hearts, you stick him in later with a loser on loser play.

[wank]

oops x2

[rmnka447]

I would pass over the double. 3 ♦ puts us in a game force, so we are in a forcing pass situation when the opponent's sacrifice. To supercede responder's decision to DBL, which essentially says don't bid on, I'd need to have some extreme distribution/playing strength. With 3 1/2 QTs, I sit.

[broze]

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Thanks for the analysis. I ruffed the ♣ continuation and played the ♥A immediately hoping to catch RHO not knowing enough about the hand and sleeping with Kx or a legitimate line where he had KQ, KJ or QJ and I could strip diamonds.

You need to guess the single king on the actual hand but as Wank said best is to retain the K♣ in dummy - a play which did not occur to me for a second.

[Fluffy]

Not only you need that, you also need to carefully time the play in the pointed, 2 spades, then 2 diamonds, notice ♦J, cash ♦10 while north pitches, draw last trump in hand and cash 4th diamond before the endplay.