[inquiry]

Another straight forward hand that should not be a problem for most participants in the BBO forums, explaining why I posted it in this section. Once again, people managed to win between 7 and 13 tricks on this hand, with the most common number being 11 and 12 tricks. Here let's just focus on winning 12 tricks for certain.

As for the bidding. I am not fond of North's 3♥ cue-bid, I would have preferred double, but it did simplify the auction. 5NT was not an invite to 6NT, it was meant as pick a strain (presumably between the minors). Note, 6♦ would have been very easy to make by ruffing a heart in north (5♦, 3♣, 2♠, 1♥, 1♥-ruff for 12). The problem now becomes how to get a 12th trick in notrump.

In answering the quiz, a couple of the terms could apply. Feel free to vote for more than one, but if you do, please provide your answer in the form of a spoiler which explains how each does (or might) apply to the 100% line assuming hearts are as advertised (six with West, four with East). This is meant as a lesson hand to demonstrate items players might think about at trick one, so such discussion of why you would consider each such play would be helpful.

As before, intermediate and above players please provide your answers hidden in spoilers. If you don't know how to create a spoiler, see play 006 in this forum for instructions.

---

[gszes]

Spoiler

we are trying for 5 dia 4 clu 2spa 1hea for our 12 tricks
we also have an interesting card the heart J which is an
effective threat card against lho's heart Q in case we have
to set up a squeeze.

The best way to start is to run our 5 diamond tricks (pitching
a spade from dummy on the last diamond).


so trick 1 win the heart A
trick 2 dia
trick 3 dia
trick 4 dia
trick 5 dia
trick 6 dia
trick 7 club K (or Q) if either opp shows out the hand is over since
we can finesse their p for the missing J and we are playing
for 13 tricks.

Lho needs to retain 2 hearts*

the opps hands are reduced to the following

lho
1-4 spades
2 hearts
0-3 clubs

rho
1-5 spades
0-2 heart
0-3 clubs

now the neat part
trick 8 spade to the A
trick 9 spade to the K if the Q has fallen we have
12 tricks and are playing for 13 so assume the Q did not fall
if lho followed to both spades their 4 card position has to be

lho
0-2 spades
2 hearts
0-2 clubs

rho
0-2 spades
0-2 heart
0-3 clubs

note that it is impossible for lho to have all of the missing
clubs so we play the club A and (if necessary) finesse rho for the
club J for 12 tricks

If lho did NOT follow to both spades their 4 card end position must be
either
2 hearts
2 clubs

or
1 heart
3 clubs

rho has become irrelevant
trick 10 we play the club Q and (if necessary ie rho shows out)
trick 11 finesse lho for club J
trick 12 cash top club
trick 13 give up spade

*go back to trick 7 and note that if lho has reduced their hand to
the stiff heart K
trick 8 we throw them in with the heart J and the forced black suit
return gives us our 12th trick

Im tired and if this qualifies as a beginner hand I am going to start
taking up tiddly winks.

discovery was needed since the run of the diamonds might have yielded some very
strong clues as to how to play the hand--if lho followed to all 4 diamonds
that meant it immediately became impossible for lho to hold 4 clubs for example
and the squeeze or end play are both needed choices depending on how the opps
choose to defend the hand and even a finesse might be needed.

BTW if later in the hand you opt to throw in LHO at trick 8 because you are sure
they have reduced to the stiff heart Q and rho wins the trick and sets you get the
heck out of that game as fast as possible because lho sensed a triple squeeze and
made a desperation lead to make sure their p held top heart(s).

[billw55]

I think Ben's excellent threads deserve more replies, so I'll give it a shot.

Spoiler

I think there is a 100% line.

I have 11 cashing tricks so I need one more. A fourth club is the obvious candidate. This is trivial if the suit breaks 3-2, so I will think about bad breaks. West's opening bid suggests that east is more likely to have long clubs, so I will cater to this. But first I will run the diamonds, pitching a spade from dummy, and watch the discards; maybe something good will happen. Next I play ♣KA. If west shows out, I hook east for the 12th trick. If west still has ♣Jx, I cash ♠AK. If west unguards a round suit, I cash out. If not, he is left with ♣Jx ♥Q - now I throw him in with the heart, forcing him to lead a club into my Q8. Making 6.

I guess I would call this a potential finesse, followed by a strip squeeze and endplay. So I marked all three in the poll. Not sure this is really B/N material, but maybe I missed something simpler.

[shyams]

It's an excellent thread. So here's my attempt:

Win the ♥A, then cash ♦Q and play low to ♦A.
A. East shows out on the second ♦:

Spoiler

West started with 6-3 in reds. Cash the ♠K next and if West follows, only East can hold a 4-card club. Simple!

B. Both opponents follow to the two rounds of ♦ or West shows out on the second ♦:

Spoiler

It is safe to play ♣K followed by ♣A. If West shows out, we have no problem.
If East shows out, we play the remaining ♦s and discard a ♠ from dummy. West's final 5 cards will be ♠xx ♥Q ♦-- ♣Jx.
We cash two rounds of ♠ ending in hand. And exit with the ♥J to force West to lead away from his ♣Jx.

I wonder -- if ♦ split 2-2 and (two tricks later) West reveals a 4-card club, what is best?

Spoiler

Would a West be genius/crazy enough to lead the ♥King from Kxxxxx? After all, his partner bid ♥ at the 5-level!
If West has 6♥+4♣+2♦, he can only hold 1 spade card. We are conveniently in dummy at this stage. Would I risk running the ♠J from dummy? It's not 100% but ...
No, I go for the "normal" and play as in B. above

[nige1]

Spoiler

Thanks Inquiry. ♥A. ♣KA. Now...
- If LHO shows out, then finesse RHO for ♣J.
- If RHO shows out, then ♦AKQJ6, ♠AK. If LHO has kept two or more clubs, then ♥J.

---

[EricK]

Spoiler

If I take 5 rounds of Diamonds and 2 rounds of Spades, won't I know if LHO must or can't have 4 Clubs? Then I can just play the Clubs in the appropriate fashion. or have I missed something?]

[Fluffy]

shyams, on 2014-May-16, 16:08, said:

It's an excellent thread. So here's my attempt:

Win the ♥A, then cash ♦Q and play low to ♦A.
A. East shows out on the second ♦:

Spoiler

West started with 6-3 in reds. Cash the ♠K next and if West follows, only East can hold a 4-card club. Simple!

B. Both opponents follow to the two rounds of ♦ or West shows out on the second ♦:

Spoiler

It is safe to play ♣K followed by ♣A. If West shows out, we have no problem.
If East shows out, we play the remaining ♦s and discard a ♠ from dummy. West's final 5 cards will be ♠xx ♥Q ♦-- ♣Jx.
We cash two rounds of ♠ ending in hand. And exit with the ♥J to force West to lead away from his ♣Jx.

I wonder -- if ♦ split 2-2 and (two tricks later) West reveals a 4-card club, what is best?

Spoiler

Would a West be genius/crazy enough to lead the ♥King from Kxxxxx? After all, his partner bid ♥ at the 5-level!
If West has 6♥+4♣+2♦, he can only hold 1 spade card. We are conveniently in dummy at this stage. Would I risk running the ♠J from dummy? It's not 100% but ...
No, I go for the "normal" and play as in B. above

Spoiler

If west has 2+ diamonds your original line works, just count his spades and you will know the club lie out.

[inquiry]

I am glad that there has finally been some interest in this hand. When I stumbled across it in BBO hand records, I thought it an interesting hand to show some thought processes. We will start off with the wrong though process, some people won the heart and fairly quickly took the spade finesse. When that lost, there was an avalanche of hearts cashed. Let's just say that play was very wrong, but could have worked I guess (matter of fact, depending upon who has the spade queen, one way the finesse could be taken has to work). From the poll answers, the many people correctly saw the solution, marked the poll and moved on.

What I was envisioning as talking points for this hand is hidden below, but from the answers above and the variability in the poll answers, you can see that there are many ways possible classifications for this hand. The actual hand and one variation is shown below.

Spoiler

Well this is the original hand. As noted several times, you have 11 sure tricks (5♦+3♣+2♠+1[he\). There are ways to get a 12th. The spade finesse mentioned above (boo). An even split of the club suit (any 3-2 split) or a 4-1 split with a singleton jack.

One thing about the club suit is after you take two top winners, if clubs are not 3-2 (or 2-3), you will know who has the other two clubs. And if you cash your clubs in the "correct" manner, you will be position to take a 100% certain finesse. So the math says if West is long in hearts he is less likely to be long in clubs than East. For the mathematically inclined, West is likely to have four cubs 7.2% of the time, East about 20.2% (you can pick up any 5-0, or 3-2 split). You do a little better than these numbers suggest if you guess wrong, because 20% of the time someone has 4 he will not have the jack (it will be singleton).

But because of these odds, with nothing left to do you would take the "statistical" play of cashing the [cl[King the [cl]Ace. 92.8% of the time that would work. And without much thought, that is what most people did on this hand, either before or after running some or all the diamonds.

However, there is another play (the top position in the poll) known as a discovery play. Here, you "know" west has six hearts (condition of the problem), so you can cash two diamonds to discover he had exactly two diamonds. /next you can cash two spades. If he follows to both spades, you will know 6+2+2 = 10 of his cards. With 10 known cards he CAN NOT hold four clubs. So the cub play of ♣King then ♣Ace will tell you if you need to take the marked finesse against East. If West shows out on the second round of spades, as here, he know his full distribution. He had exactly two diamonds, he had only one spade and six hearts. So he must hold 4 clubs. So you will cash the ♣King and Queen, then the marked club finesse through West. This discovery play, when West showed up with two diamonds is 100% line

Another line of thought would be what if West showed up with only one diamond? Cashing two spades would not help. If West had only one spade, then he would have five clubs so cashing the ♣K would tell the story. IF he followed twice to two rounds of spades, he could be (for instance) 2=6=1=4 and you would "need" to cash the ♣KQ to set up the marked finesse through west for the ♣Jack. Or he could be anything up to 5=6=1=1 or 6=6=1=0. There is no way to work it out clearly. So here you would fall back to the concept of a "hoped for" endplay should West have four clubs. The solution is to cash the ♣KA and should West have four clubs, you run your diamonds and top spades (ending in south). West has to keep two clubs and the hoped for ♥Queen as his last three cards in this ending...

---

When you lead the ♥J, west wins but has to lead away from the ♣Jx giving you the last two tricks. It will not help West to discard the ♥Q or a club on your winners, but he will try the ♥Queen in case his partner has the ♥Jack.

If you overcomplicate the hand, you might very well see from trick one that if West has four clubs and the heart queen, you can "safely" cash club KING-ACE and pick up the four clubs with East and if that fails, strip endplay west as in this last example. But that might lose if WEST lead the ♥K from Kxxxxx. So the safest play is two diamonds, and if West has at least two diamonds, make the discovery play in spades.

Anyway, I thought it a nice hand that shows several lines of thought that people could run through. Why not hook spades, how best to handle club suit in isolation based on the bidding, the concept of the "discovery play" that works here, and what if you can't get a full picture with the discovery play (the strip endplay fall back).

---

[EricK]

If West turns up with 1♦, then do we even need to risk his having made the inspired lead from Kxxxxx? If you run all 5♦, then in order to give you any problems, West must discard 4 ♥ (if he discards a ♠, you will get sufficient count on ♣ after cashing ♠AK; If he discards a ♣ you will know what to do after cashing ♣K). East, can't discard a ♣ either, and if he discards a ♠, then you will also know what to do after cashing ♠AK (either East follows to both, meaning only West could have 4♣, or he shows out and you have a complete count of the hand), so to give you a problem, he must come down to a singleton ♥ as well. Now you can throw either player in with a ♥.

[gszes]

EricK, on 2014-May-17, 12:11, said:

If West turns up with 1♦, then do we even need to risk his having made the inspired lead from Kxxxxx? If you run all 5♦, then in order to give you any problems, West must discard 4 ♥ (if he discards a ♠, you will get sufficient count on ♣ after cashing ♠AK; If he discards a ♣ you will know what to do after cashing ♣K). East, can't discard a ♣ either, and if he discards a ♠, then you will also know what to do after cashing ♠AK (either East follows to both, meaning only West could have 4♣, or he shows out and you have a complete count of the hand), so to give you a problem, he must come down to a singleton ♥ as well. Now you can throw either player in with a ♥.

I might have misread this LOP but if you opt to throw the opp with singleton
heart Q in how do you know they do not also have the spade Q?

[EricK]

gszes, on 2014-May-17, 13:01, said:

I might have misread this LOP but if you opt to throw the opp with singleton
heart Q in how do you know they do not also have the spade Q?

If you run 5♦ immediately and they both come down to singleton ♥, then you do the throw-in without touching ♠. If one of them keeps two ♥ and throws a ♠, then you can play ♠AK, but don't need the throw-in as you will have a sufficient count of the hands to play the ♣ correctly.

[inquiry]

EricK, on 2014-May-17, 13:19, said:

If you run 5♦ immediately and they both come down to singleton ♥, then you do the throw-in without touching ♠. If one of them keeps two ♥ and throws a ♠, then you can play ♠AK, but don't need the throw-in as you will have a sufficient count of the hands to play the ♣ correctly.

Nice catch Eric. This is the ending he points out after running five diamonds (discard low spade from dummy.

If both opponents have only one heart left, a heart exit will force them to lead a black suit. If West ever pitched a club, you can cash spades to get accurate count (can he have long clubs). If East keeps two hearts (which might be Qx), you can afford to cash two spades again. IF East follows twice, you know he had three diamonds, four hearts, and at least three spades (he having thrown one earlier). You know therefore that he can not have four clubs. So the discovery play works just fine without risking the strip-squeeze endplay mentioned earlier.

Very nice.

---

[akwoo]

In what world is this a beginner hand?

As far as I'm concerned, a beginner can't count to 13 in more than one way at a time without falling over. In fact, most beginners can't count to 13 except in the trump suit, or perhaps a single long suit when playing notrump.

Also, no beginner I know has ever pulled off a squeeze on purpose, and rarely has one managed to pull off an endplay on purpose.

Here you need to count to 13 in two suits (hearts and clubs) and keep in mind that West has exactly 13 cards to start with. Then you need to keep in mind finesse (in clubs), endplay, and squeeze possibilities all at once.

I don't know anyone close to resembling a beginner who can do this problem at the table.

I teach math at a university. Over the course of a semester, I get a fairly good handle on the abilities of my students in analyzing possibilities, putting together various pieces of information, and logically arriving at a conclusion. I don't think more than 15% of my students could, if they learn bridge and play regularly for the next 10 years, solve this problem at the table.

I think this is a great problem, and I enjoyed figuring it out, and I think it is very educational for the bridge player at the right level. But please don't stick it in the beginner forum. You're just going to scare the beginners. Most beginners simply can't imagine becoming smart enough to figure out this problem, and you can become a fairly good bridge player enjoying success at your club or at local tournaments without being able to figure this out. A hand this hard shows up something like once a round, and you'll get a lot more mileage out of cutting your dumb mistakes from 10 a round to 8, or sharpening your competitive bidding judgement.

[johnu]

akwoo, on 2014-May-19, 00:19, said:

In what world is this a beginner hand?

As far as I'm concerned, a beginner can't count to 13 in more than one way at a time without falling over. In fact, most beginners can't count to 13 except in the trump suit, or perhaps a single long suit when playing notrump.

Also, no beginner I know has ever pulled off a squeeze on purpose, and rarely has one managed to pull off an endplay on purpose.

Here you need to count to 13 in two suits (hearts and clubs) and keep in mind that West has exactly 13 cards to start with. Then you need to keep in mind finesse (in clubs), endplay, and squeeze possibilities all at once.

I don't know anyone close to resembling a beginner who can do this problem at the table.

Great pep talk for the novices and beginners in this forum I see these types of discovery plays where declarer plays off winners to figure who is long or short in a side suit all the time in newspaper columns, and I'm pretty sure that the huge majority of newspaper readers aren't nearly as good as the novices and beginners in this forum (based on several people I know who read those bridge columns but I wouldn't call them bridge players by any stretch of the imagination).

[helene_t]

Echo akwoo. The beginner will maybe take a finesse immediately but hopefully cash his winners and make it If clubs break. The intermediate will test the clubs and if they don't break he will take the spade finesse against east who is more likely to have spade length on the bidding. So this is at least an advanced problem.

[inquiry]

akwoo, on 2014-May-19, 00:19, said:

In what world is this a beginner hand?

As far as I'm concerned, a beginner can't count to 13 in more than one way at a time without falling over. In fact, most beginners can't count to 13 except in the trump suit, or perhaps a single long suit when playing notrump.

Also, no beginner I know has ever pulled off a squeeze on purpose, and rarely has one managed to pull off an endplay on purpose.

The reason it was entitled (subtitle) A lesson hand, is that it was meant as a lesson hand for beginners. IF I had placed a simple discovery play hand in the intermediate forum I would equally have been hammered. It allowed a discussion of the thought process. Why not a spade finesse, why not just randomly take two top clubs, etc. I could have made it more exciting by making it Matchpoints or board a match, perhaps where getting the 13th trick might have been critical, but I think as a lesson hand this one has a lot going for it. I admitted in the initial write up a lot of people took fewer than the desired number of tricks, so from that standpoint, I think I made it clear that beginners would struggle with them.

[Casey1212]

akwoo, on 2014-May-19, 00:19, said:

In what world is this a beginner hand?

In mine. I consider myself to be a beginner though I do work pretty hard at learning the game. I found the hand very interesting and thought about just about everything I needed to to make the contract. But even if I hadn't, it's a great learning hand with a clear description of what the thinking process should be. Part of the problem with learning bridge is figuring out what to consider when you're making your plan and working through the hand. It's overwhelming at times. The solution to this hand is very easy to follow. Sure, it will be awhile before I'll do this well under pressure but a few months ago I didn't even know about most of it and this type of description adds to my knowledge.

I've just found this forum and, if this is the type of gem I'm going to find here, I can't wait to read everything.

Thanks to the OP.

[nige1]

Casey1212 is right. Beginners learn by slightly stretching themselves. If we all got the right answers, Inquiry's problems would be less educationally effective. In a good problem:

• The undelying scenario is of quite frequent occurrence.
• The corect line is pretty but simple.
• The expanation is comprehensible to most beginners (basically, it's an interesting and amusing exercise in safety-play/finessing/counting; and, possibly, elimination/end-play).
• So this deal qualifies as good material for improvers.

[akwoo]

I was going to reply, but instead of taking this further off topic (because I think non-bridge education is relevant) I'll start a thread in the Water Cooler forum.

[billw55]

Casey1212, on 2014-May-19, 09:01, said:

In mine. I consider myself to be a beginner though I do work pretty hard at learning the game. I found the hand very interesting and thought about just about everything I needed to to make the contract. But even if I hadn't, it's a great learning hand with a clear description of what the thinking process should be. Part of the problem with learning bridge is figuring out what to consider when you're making your plan and working through the hand. It's overwhelming at times. The solution to this hand is very easy to follow. Sure, it will be awhile before I'll do this well under pressure but a few months ago I didn't even know about most of it and this type of description adds to my knowledge.

I've just found this forum and, if this is the type of gem I'm going to find here, I can't wait to read everything.

Thanks to the OP.

Agree it is a good problem, well presented and explained.

On the other hand. You seem to be a bright and dedicated learner. With at least a few months of play and study behind you - and clearly advancing during that time - you cannot be reasonably called a beginner any longer, IMO. Perhaps novice, but more likely intermediate.

Keep it up, hope you enjoy it!