[sfi]

First the hand:

---

Not a good game, but the play is the point.

This isn't really that difficult a hand, but a couple of expert players didn't recognise what was going on and I haven't ever noticed the key theme before. I'm curious if I've just been missing a crucial part of declarer play all these years.

West leads the C5 and the first trick goes 5-2-T-A. You play two rounds of trump and everyone follows. Now what, and what do you need to make the hand?

More general thoughts in a bit.

[MrAce]

I think W led his stiff unless they lead 4th, even then leading small QJxx through strong opener is not usual. Dangerous lay out is when E holds ♥ A + a ♦ honor. When E holds those we are safe anyway.

Play ♥Q, assume E wins and plays another ♣ then we discard ♦ loser on ♥K, if he plays diamonds then we don't give any club. I think we need clubs to be 4-1 to make this but I will take a look at it again when back from work.

EDIT: Nevermind about the 4-1 ♣ I think we can make even if W led from Qxx ♣. as long as we play ♥Q I can't see how they can cash their 4 tricks without losing tempo. This is more about "how defense can take 4 tricks" If declarer asks that question to himself he should find the play imo.

[sfi]

You're right. My partner had a blind spot and led a diamond. Now the defence can set up and cash a club in addition to their red suit tricks. If you lead a heart you may actually be cold, but you're certainly very close to 100%.

The reason I find this hand interesting is that it reminds me of a concept from chess - that of the forced move (apologies to anyone that actually plays chess, since I may have the name wrong). If you play the heart, the defence are forced to cash their diamonds immediately or lose one of them. But this sets up the discards you need for your clubs.

This hand isn't quite the same as a simple issue of tempo, since when you play a heart you're not setting up a winner to discard your fourth loser. It's related, but there seems to be a separate general principle that you should make the play that constrains the opponents' actions.

Does anyone have other examples along the same lines?

[Phil]

Its just an odd variation of a Morton's Fork. Not that difficult (or expertish) if you think about it.

[Vampyr]

Phil, on 2015-February-04, 23:18, said:

Its just an odd variation of a Morton's Fork. Not that difficult (or expertish) if you think about it.

Yes I thought it was a Morton's Fork too, but was afraid to post in this forum and get it wrong! Anyway Lamford has a couple of nice Morton's Forks that he might like to share with us.

[PhantomSac]

Even if you don't think about it the theme is "set up a trick"

[helene_t]

Thanks sfi, this was a nice problem. It took me a long time to solve it because I thought for long about lots of irrelevant issues. First reading the lead, concluding that there is always a club loser, even an endplay won't help. Then counting entries for the defenders; trying to find a way to keep the defender with the cashing club off lead, realising that with both diamond honours west would have preferred that lead over hxx of clubs. It seems only to matter if west's only entry is AH so we need to remove that entry now. So maybe at the table I would have made the right play for the wrong reason.

[WellSpyder]

I find it interesting that helene describes my thought processes on this hand almost exactly. (I did then notice that the defence would be in a bind if I set up the heart trick, but my reason for thinking about a heart at all was to try to knock out what might be the only entry to the danger hand.) I wonder whether there is a relatively normal order in which bridge players' brains process a problem, or whether most people run through the possible clues/themes in their own way.

[rhm]

sfi, on 2015-February-04, 19:18, said:

First the hand:

---

Not a good game, but the play is the point.

According to Cherdano this disqualifies it for the expert forum (not my opinion)

Quote

This isn't really that difficult a hand, but a couple of expert players didn't recognise what was going on and I haven't ever noticed the key theme before. I'm curious if I've just been missing a crucial part of declarer play all these years.

West leads the C5 and the first trick goes 5-2-T-A. You play two rounds of trump and everyone follows. Now what, and what do you need to make the hand?

More general thoughts in a bit.

My thoughts:

Bridge is a game where pattern recognition is important.
However, the "key themes" are almost endless.
Instead of trying to remember and recognize them all in time (not in the post mortem) it is better to use techniques like playing out the hand in your head always looking out what devious opponents can do.

Here you start with 4 losers, a club and three in the red suits.
Theoretically you can attack and establish 2 diamond tricks for club discards but obviously the defense will likely establish their club trick first.
No good, we need an alternative.
What about playing hearts? Suddenly not so easy to see what the defense can do to get their "four" tricks.

The key theme may be uncommon, but the above technique is not and is in the arsenal of any true expert.

Rainer Herrmann