[inquiry]

Scoring: IMP


An interesting little standard book play problem that occurred today.

EAST opens 1♣, and you stuggle to a six spade contract that had a somewhat confusing, and best forgotten, auction. After all, the play is the thing.

West leads the ♣8, if you play the nine, East plays the Ten, if you play the jack, east plays the queen, if you play low, so does East. Spades prove to be 3-1 when you play them, east (opener) had the three.

Plan your play.

---

While not "easy" all advanced players will see how to play this hand from trick one. So this is meant as a problem for intermediate and beginners (not sure a beginner will get it, but I am often surprized). So advanced and higher, lets hold off on answering for a while.

[jocdelevat]

my plan is to discard a club on a heart. so i take the club with ace. play a low trump to ace and then a low heart to queen. after this all remaining is cross ruff.

[inquiry]

jocdelevat, on Aug 20 2010, 09:19 PM, said:

my plan is to discard a club on a heart. so i take the club with ace. play a low trump to ace and then a low heart to queen. after this all remaining is cross ruff.

That is a great plan, and it will work if East will just play his heart ace (we do assume it is with East, right? Why?). The problem is if he keeps his heart ace instead of playing it on nothing, you can not set up our heart king up for the discard...

Example, you play small heart to queen which wins. How do you plan to throw a club away on K9 of hearts opposite your small heart. I think heart suit is probably key to the hand but I dont think your proposed line will work.

[0 carbon]

You can assume E has all the 12 points out, in particular, the ♥A and 4♣. So strip him of any exit cards and put him in with the A and let him lead to the board. Ruff 2 ♦ if necessary (if KQ fall, ruff only 1), play a ♥ toward the Q and take it. Then play out all the ♠, discarding 2♣ and 2♥. Lead your last ♥ and E must play ♣ toward dummy.

[0 carbon]

oops, discard 2♣ and only 1♥ - keep the K in dummy so only the A can take it.

[ONEferBRID]

0 carbon, on Aug 20 2010, 11:01 PM, said:

oops, discard 2♣ and only 1♥ - keep the K in dummy so only the A can take it.

I think you got it ..... wd.

It would be nice if East had A x doubleton in ♥,
but then it would mean he had 3 2 4 4 and probably would open 1D instead of 1C.

So his actual holding is probably 3 3 3 4.
But I think that doesn't matter either.

Let's say it is: 2 4 3 4
Your strip play/ squeeze still works coming down to the 3 card ending:

-
K
-
K J


-
5
-
x x

And East can't can't pitch down to a stiff ♣ :
-
A
-
Q T

[vuroth]

Ruff out diamonds. Heart to the queen for transportation has to be ducked, as if east rises with the ace I have my 12.

Once that's done, I just play out my trumps, reducing dummy to K♥ KJ♣. Since east started 3334, he'll be down to Ax♥ and Qx♣. If he discards clubs, I can cross to the K♣ and drop the queen. If he drops the ♥, I play the ♥ and endplay him in ♣s

[quiddity]

It seems like a guess at the end whether east started with 3 clubs or 4. Am I missing something obvious? Why is everyone so sure he started with 4?
If I had to guess, I would think West is more likely to start with 1??2, not 1??1.

[ONEferBRID]

quiddity, on Aug 21 2010, 10:51 AM, said:

It seems like a guess at the end whether east started with 3 clubs or 4.  Am I missing something obvious?  Why is everyone so sure he started with 4?
If I had to guess, I would think West is more likely to start with 1??2, not 1??1.

That's a good point !
I guess the "cbs" folks might open 1C w/longer Diam, say 3 3 4 3.
Then East's last 3 cards could be:
♠ -
♥ A
♦ K
♣ Q

Edit: And Declarer would be "none the wiser" that East had bared down to the stiff cQ ... East realizing that he was going to be end-played if he retained Q x.

[Flameous]

I also don't see a reason why opener couldn't have 3433. Again the squeeze works but we must read the situation correctly.

But opener must have DK, so if it's still up in the three card ending, you know to drop the queen.

[ONEferBRID]

Flameous, on Aug 21 2010, 11:47 AM, said:

I also don't see a reason why opener couldn't have 3433. Again the squeeze works but we must read the situation correctly.

But opener must have DK, so if it's still up in the three card ending, you know to drop the queen.

Declarer will only be fooled if East opened 1C with only 2 cards:

x x x
A J x x
K Q x x
Q x

... highly unlikely for a 1C ( cbs ) open.

[Fluffy]

quiddity, on Aug 21 2010, 03:51 PM, said:

It seems like a guess at the end whether east started with 3 clubs or 4. Am I missing something obvious? Why is everyone so sure he started with 4?
If I had to guess, I would think West is more likely to start with 1??2, not 1??1.

I think its not a guess since if he has 4 he just has to raise with ♥A and give his partner a ruff given that we cannot enter to dummy to play a heart to the queen after drawing trumps. This is only makeable if he has 3433 (or 3244 and we play for the black ace.)

[NickRW]

Fluffy, on Aug 22 2010, 01:06 AM, said:

...This is only makeable if he has 3433...

Don't we have a guess. East could be 3=4=3=3 or 3=3=3=4. At the point we have five cards left:

-
K x
-
K J x


x x
5
-
x x


East could be

-
A J
-
Q T x

or

-
A J x
-
Q T

If East throws the 10 of clubs on the penultimate spade and the Jack of hearts on the last one, I don't see how we're actually going to know whether he has bared the club queen or not. Mind you, East is probably not an intermediate if he throws those two cards! Or have I missed something?

Nick

[quiddity]

Fluffy, on Aug 21 2010, 08:06 PM, said:

I think its not a guess since if he has 4 he just has to raise with ♥A and give his partner a ruff given that we cannot enter to dummy to play a heart to the queen after drawing trumps. This is only makeable if he has 3433 (or 3244 and we play for the black ace.)

We don't have to draw all the trumps, just the singleton trump in West's hand.

[Phil]

I think this is kind of a neat hand. RHO needs all of the honors for the opening bid, but in spite of the spoiler about the trump 3-1, there's sort of a timing problem.

Say we win the club, A♦, ruff ♦. ♠ to hand (we can't play a heart yet - RHO can rise and give LHO a ruff when trumps are 2-2 and clubs are 4-1) and ruff the last diamond (if the ♦ KQ hasn't dropped doubleton which is possible if RHO 3424).

At this point we have the singleton ♠A in dummy, but not to worry. Cash it. If trump are 2-2, heart to hand and play for the end position Ben is shooting for. Here, RHO must be 2344 or 2434.

If trump are 3-1, again, play a heart off the board and then draw the last trump. I think I agree with Nick, that you will need to be able to work out if RHO is 3433 or 3334.

I was playing with some combinations where we knew RHO was 1444, but I don't see how to make it.

[Phil]

quiddity, on Aug 22 2010, 09:59 AM, said:

We don't have to draw all the trumps, just the singleton trump in West's hand.

But you wouldn't know that unless Ben told you