[Walddk]

Scoring: IMP

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Team game. You open 1♠, double to your left, partner redoubles and RHO bids 2♣. Eventually, you end up in 4♠.

West leads a small-ish club to the jack and queen, and you ruff. At trick 2 you correctly lead a low spade from hand, and LHO wins his king (East following with the 8). West continues with a club, you try the king, but East produces the ace. You must ruff again.

1. How do you envisage the EW hands?

2. How do you proceed from here?

This is meant to be for beginners/intermediates, so if your skill level is higher, please use hidden text.

Roland

[Aberlour10]

edit: ups mistake by reading & thinking

[cnszsun]

Spoiler

trumps have to be 3-2 because i can't handle 4-1 break; ♦ need to be 2-2, otherwise defence will get a ♦ ruff.
I can't play 2nd trump, otherwise i will lose out of control. So my line is:
play a ♥ to K, they win and return 3rd ♣, ruff in hand, play one or two round ♦ to force out ♦Ace. Because there is still a trump left in dummy, i'm safe now.

[sceptic]

WEST

SPADES HEARTS DIAMONDS CLUBS

kx Axxx Axxx xxx

EAST

SPADES HEARTS DIAMONDS CLUBS

xxx xxx void AQxxxxx

This is sort of how I see the hands,

I think you need to concentrate on controling the trumps as they may have a ruff somewehere especially when they take one of the aces to find it, we have a void, why should opps not have a singleton at least

[Walddk]

sceptic, on Aug 30 2006, 08:25 AM, said:

WEST

SPADES    HEARTS    DIAMONDS  CLUBS

kx            Axxx        Axxx          xxx

EAST

SPADES    HEARTS    DIAMONDS  CLUBS

xxx          xxx              void        AQxxxxx

This is sort of how I see the hands,

I think you need to concentrate on controling the trumps as they may have a ruff somewehere especially when they take one of the aces to find it, we have a void, why should opps not have a singleton at least

I don't think that this is the layout, Wayne. If East really has AQxxxxx in clubs, he would surely have bid more than 2♣ over the redouble. That is not a strong bid. It just shows many clubs opposite what could by 3 (sometimes even 2 if West decided to double on a 2-4-5-2 or 2-5-4-2 shape).

So with 6+ clubs headed by AQ, East should bid at least 3♣. It makes it a little more difficult for the opponents if you take the 2-level away from them.

Roland

[Walddk]

This seems to be difficult for many readers, so let me give a little help. Assume that trumps are 3-2 or 2-3, because they must be in order for you to have a chance.

As a consequence, you can pull the outstanding trumps if you want to, but do you? Is there a danger looming?

Roland

[FrancesHinden]

As everyone's keeping quiet....

Spoiler

Before we get to 10 tricks, the opponents can have led clubs 4 times. We can't take all 4 club ruffs in hand or someone will have more trumps than us, and we won't be able to enjoy the diamonds. So we need to leave a trump on table to take care of the fourth club, and cannot afford to draw trumps.

That means we need diamonds 2-2 (or LHO to have singleton DA with the ace of hearts), as well as spades 3-2, making LHO probably 2425 and RHO 3325 which is more or less consistent with the auction. Personally, I'd bid 3C over the redouble on xxx xxx xx AQxxx but this is related to how shape suitable you like to keep your take-out doubles.

There is one baby trap left. At some point we have to knock out the ace of hearts. We need to be careful to keep one of the QJ of hearts in hand rather than play them. Otherwise, the play will go queen of hearts (ducked), jack of hearts taken, club ruffed in hand; diamond ducked, diamond taken, club ruffed on the dummy. Oops... now we can't get back to hand to draw trumps. Alternatively, if the first heart is ducked we can just switch to playing on diamonds as we only need 1 heart trick (5 spades + 4 diamonds + 1 heart = 10).

p.s. I'm not totally certain the spade out of hand at trick 2 was correct. We can discuss this later, if you like...

[AdiBichea]

Hi,
I am Adi (adibichea) BIL member, hope to resolve this problem.

1.

W hand, aprox. distribution .. the points are correct
♠Kx
♥Axxx
♦Axx
♣xxxx
11HCP, that shows DBL

E hand, aprox distribution and points
♠xxx
♥xxx
♦x
♣AQxxxx
6HCP, showd in 3rd round. If E have 7♣'s with 6HCP, i am sure he bid 3♣ or even more.

2. after 3rd round, i play a small ♠ to J to test if ♠distribution is 2-3 or 3-2. if distribution is 4-1 or 1-4 i have no chance to make the contract. And i can't make the contract if ♣ is 5-5 even if trump are 3-2.
Supose trump stay 3-2 or 2-3, and ♣ 4-6, or whateva, but not 5-5
After i win with J♠, i play a small ♦ to K to promote my ♦, now only losers is 1♠, 1♦ and 1♥. I don't play trump from my hand. exception: ruff.

If W win with A♦ and play another ♣ (final club) I ruff it, and now play the ♦ to QJ of dummy hand (or finesse if E have void in ♦) ... and play diamond's to force E or W to ruff(final opposite trump). If E ruff the ♦, he play ♣ .. now ruff club and play another ♦ or ♥. and now the contract is done.

I am thinking correctly?

Regards, AdiBichea .. and intermediate player.