[Mkgnao]

Last Saturday night, representatives of the BBO forums (Mkgnao & nullve and barmar & tbreur) faced the Cayne team (Anna Gulevich & Andrey Gromov and Jay Barron & Jimmy Cayne) during their weekly match. Please take a seat, and see whether you'd perform better than the players at the table.

Problems:

1.

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Your lead?

2.

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Your play? (3rd/5th leads, UDCA, switches undiscussed)

3.

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Your bid?

4.

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Your play?

5.

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Your bid?

6.

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Your bid?

7.

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Your line? Lead: ♥4 (2nd/4th). Note: North is declarer!

8.

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9.

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If you were brave enough to bid 3NT at the 5th problem, are you able to justify your bid with a line to make your game?

[eagles123]

1 - I lead a heart, seems a fair shot that partner will have a void and be able to ruff.

2 - I can see in hindsight that K is right, but no way I would have got this right at the table.

3 - 4s in a flash, we're vul at imp lol

4 - i would play a small club

5 - think bidding here is really undisciplined, PASS

6 - Pass - maybe i should be more aggressive in these situations

8 - nasty, I guess to try 3H


i'll leave the play ones for now!!

[ahydra]

Definitely bid 4S on 3 and pass on 5. On 6 I pass too, we don't really have a good option (perhaps with a little bit more we could X, if that would be understood as showing 4 hearts). On 8 I like eagles' 3H as that denies 5S and asks for a stop again, which is what we want to do. Do we then raise 3NT to 4NT? I guess it's probably just a bit short given the misfit.

On 9 I'll duck the first heart, what happens? If they continue another one I'll run the DQ. I want 1S (by leading them from dummy at some point - W has at most a singleton so we should be able to score the Q), 2H, 3D, 2C and one other trick from somewhere. We probably need W to have a spade void and cut East out of the play after we sort out the diamonds, but my suspicion is he has a singleton. I think this shows why we should pass - partner gave us a pretty good dummy and we're still miles from 9 tricks.

ahydra

[nige1]

1. Your lead?

Thank you MKGNAO
I've renumbered the boards as 1-9.
IMO: ♠Q or ♠3

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2. Your play? (3rd/5th leads, UDCA, switches undiscussed)

After much thought: cover dummy's ♠9, to avoid a coup ,
(Easier to see as a problem).

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3. Your bid?

IMO, 4♠ you have fewer than 5 losers
but 4♣ is a bit pushy opposite a passed hand.

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At the table I'm afraid I would have returned a ♥
not a ♦.
4. Your play?

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5. Your bid?

IMO, Pass (Partner is a passed hand).

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6. Your bid?

IMO, Pass
but double is OK too.

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7. Your line? Lead: ♥4 (2nd/4th). Note: North is declarer!

I would win ♥A and lead ♠J, hoping to make 2 x ♠, 1 X ♥, 1 X ♣, 5 or 6 ♦s,
and another trick in a round-suit.

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8. Your bid?

I rank bids in the order: 3♣, 3♦, 2N,

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9, If you were brave enough to bid 3NT at the 5th problem, are you able to justify your bid with a line to make your game?

My guess is duck the ♥Q, win the continuation and finesse ♦T,
Hoping to make 1 X ♠, 2 x ♥, 3 X ♦, 2 X ♣ and
a 9th trick in a black suit.
I guess It might be better to win the opening lead.

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[cherdano]

On 9 (hate the 3N bid but it gave us such a nice play problem!), what is the gain from ducking a heart?

On 7, what signal did RHO give at trick one?

[gszes]

ONLY NINE sheesh when I play them I usually have 17+ problems (ok back to work):
1. !SQ just in case it allows me to retain the lead and make a devastating switch (towhoknowswhere) and someday we might even snuff out the stiff J. Our x of 3s should clue p in to our length so that will help continuation errors.
2. Win the ACE and !HK (what the heck 2 honor empty leads in a row maybe I need to take up a new sport) anyway not giving anything away if opener has the !AQ and it gives us a chance to retain the lead if p needs a club ruff.
3. 4S the vul game beckons and the hand might play quite well even if spades dont break well with our clubs putting tremendous pressure on lho. (now if only responder has some spade spots:).
4. DIA J what the heck is declarer doing? Can breaking up a potential squeeze be worth this play? I am the freaking rueful rabbit it seems obvious declarer does not want a dia play so I shall go for it (sigh).
5. 3 NT at least I will have a solid idea on how to play the hand with the deck split slightly in our favor and LHO ripe for many squeeze positions.
6. Pass. This does not seem to be the type of situation where I want to risk the match by doing something. A X of 3h earlier would make this pass a ton easier but it is not an easy x.
7. Small spade toward the K. If I get this trick I have 9 if diamonds run. Even if they take it I am not set yet. If the K holds the trick I probably just lead a low dia and play for 22 break unless an honor pops from East. I will then finesse West for the other dia honor.
8. 3C. This hand seems to have improved dramatically since partner seems to be short in hearts and I have garbage. I will never be able to explain why I did not bid 1h to begin with anyway so there is no sense trying to play 3N when slam may be the right stuff. This bid goes opener as much room as possible to come up with their next bid and hopefully we can go from there.
9. We need to make LHO suffer as much as possible. I am thinking duck the heart and win the 2nd round. Play a spade toward the J and force RHO to decide early in the hand how many spades they wish to cash and how much they wish to squeeze their partner.
We need a spade trick for 9 in pretty much every scenario anyway so why not try and get it early?

[barmar]

gszes, on 2018-January-31, 19:36, said:

ONLY NINE sheesh when I play them I usually have 17+ problems (ok back to work):

For some reason this match was only 16 boards, not the usual 20-24.