[Ilfuego333]

https://tinyurl.com/y378s24s

Unlucky diamond break, good contract though.

[AL78]

It looks like there is a trump coup on double dummy, but I'd have to play it out with cards to check whether or not West can thwart it through careful discarding.

[Cyberyeti]

AL78, on 2020-August-07, 07:01, said:

It looks like there is a trump coup on double dummy, but I'd have to play it out with cards to check whether or not West can thwart it through careful discarding.

The problem is that to play the trump coup, you need to pick EW's distribution from early on, if you accomplish that you can simply run 9♦. Most lines ruin the trump coup before you know you need it.

[FelicityR]

Cyberyeti, on 2020-August-07, 08:24, said:

The problem is that to play the trump coup, you need to pick EW's distribution from early on, if you accomplish that you can simply run 9♦. Most lines ruin the trump coup before you know you need it.

Yes, that is how I see it, too. It actually can be made if West alerts you to the presumed 4-1 break by doubling - not a wise move. Hope this is right. If you play carefully and end up with this position, West is helpless when you lead the ♠8 from dummy, with only one trick for West in the ♦ suit.

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[johnu]

Unless the opponents show you their cards, there is no way to make except by immediately finessing against the ♦10. On any normal play of 2 rounds of diamonds playing the queen or jack on the 2nd round, you don't have the entries for a trump coup.

You need 4 entries to dummy on normal play. Twice to ruff spades to reduce your trumps to the same as West, once with diamond ace to lead diamonds, and once to execute the trump coup. You only have 3.

[AL78]

johnu, on 2020-August-07, 18:38, said:

Unless the opponents show you their cards, there is no way to make except by immediately finessing against the ♦10. On any normal play of 2 rounds of diamonds playing the queen or jack on the 2nd round, you don't have the entries for a trump coup.

You need 4 entries to dummy on normal play. Twice to ruff spades to reduce your trumps to the same as West, once with diamond ace to lead diamonds, and once to execute the trump coup. You only have 3.

Hence why I said double dummy. I wondered at first if it was like one of those bridge playing monks of St Titus hands where declarer thinks "The contract would be easy on a 3-2 break but what to do about a 4-1 break", and there is a way of setting up a trump coup if West turns up to have four diamonds whilst not risking the contract if diamonds are 3-2.

[Cyberyeti]

AL78, on 2020-August-08, 02:06, said:

Hence why I said double dummy. I wondered at first if it was like one of those bridge playing monks of St Titus hands where declarer thinks "The contract would be easy on a 3-2 break but what to do about a 4-1 break", and there is a way of setting up a trump coup if West turns up to have four diamonds whilst not risking the contract if diamonds are 3-2.

It can be done if you draw the right inferences and read the spades as 2-5 when the J drops.

K♣
A♠
♦ to A
K♠ you were going to pitch a club on this, but when the J appears particularly if you got what looked like a true count signal from E you now pitch a high heart
♠ ruffed (I'm presuming W pitches a heart, a club pitch changes this slightly but doesn't stop it as he now follows to 3 hearts allowing you to pitch your third club)
Cash the other high heart and play a heart to dummy
ruff a spade
club to the ace and now Q♥ fixes W, if he ruffs you overruff and ruff your club, if he discards, you pitch your club and a spade (to which you know E is following) allows you to beat his card.

You could equally have cashed the ♣A earlier and ruffed your 3rd club to get back to dummy

[nige1]

Cyberyeti 'The problem is that to play the trump coup, you need to pick EW's distribution from early on, if you accomplish that you can simply run 9♦'.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
CyberYeti's line is duck soup to self-kibitzers
♣A, ♦A. run ♦9, claim

---

[Cyberyeti]

nige1, on 2020-August-08, 03:15, said:

Cyberyeti 'The problem is that to play the trump coup, you need to pick EW's distribution from early on, if you accomplish that you can simply run 9♦'.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
CyberYeti's line is Duck soup to self-kibitzers
♣A, ♦A. run ♦9, claim

---

Not exactly, you are reassessing when you think spades are 2-5 when the J drops. You're not changing line till that point, but if EW are the kind of defenders who give accurate count signals, you're most of the way there.

You could equally ruff a low spade first then cross back to ♣ A and ram the K thru W, if he ruffs there is no further issue, if he pitches, that is likely to pinpoint his trump holding.

[msjennifer]

Sir,
With a normal unsuspecting play it can not be possible to reduce the position to a two card ending with the lead in dummy.However.the line ,and a reasonable thoughtful one at that, by Cyberyeti certainly deserves consideration.Thanks

[Cyberyeti]

msjennifer, on 2020-August-08, 12:47, said:

Sir,
With a normal unsuspecting play it can not be possible to reduce the position to a two card ending with the lead in dummy.However.the line ,and a reasonable thoughtful one at that, by Cyberyeti certainly deserves consideration.Thanks

The point is you don't need a 2 card ending, coming down to QJ8 with the lead in dummy and the hand in front having K107 is sufficient

[johnu]

Cyberyeti, on 2020-August-08, 03:24, said:

Not exactly, you are reassessing when you think spades are 2-5 when the J drops. You're not changing line till that point, but if EW are the kind of defenders who give accurate count signals, you're most of the way there.

You could equally ruff a low spade first then cross back to ♣ A and ram the K thru W, if he ruffs there is no further issue, if he pitches, that is likely to pinpoint his trump holding.

A very fine rationalization for a very non percentage play based on seeing all 4 hands BTW, Pavlicek's Suit Break Calculator shows a 3-2 split as 66% with spades 5-2.

[Cyberyeti]

johnu, on 2020-August-08, 14:03, said:

A very fine rationalization for a very non percentage play based on seeing all 4 hands BTW, Pavlicek's Suit Break Calculator shows a 3-2 split as 66% with spades 5-2.

I was assuming you also knew he had an even number of clubs, probably 4 so you have to guess 5422 or 5431 and you don't actually have to guess until you've seen a heart card from each, so if they play true count signals ...

[johnu]

Cyberyeti, on 2020-August-08, 14:16, said:

I was assuming you also knew he had an even number of clubs, probably 4 so you have to guess 5422 or 5431 and you don't actually have to guess until you've seen a heart card from each, so if they play true count signals ...

More excellent rationalizations based on seeing all 4 hands. Still, even if you could depend on your assumptions 100%, the Suit Break Calculator says a 3-2 break is still ~64%.

[johnu]

Cyberyeti, on 2020-August-08, 03:24, said:

Not exactly, you are reassessing when you think spades are 2-5 when the J drops. You're not changing line till that point, but if EW are the kind of defenders who give accurate count signals, you're most of the way there.

You could equally ruff a low spade first then cross back to ♣ A and ram the K thru W, if he ruffs there is no further issue, if he pitches, that is likely to pinpoint his trump holding.

There are lots of spade splits where West could play ♠J on the 2nd round.

On the actual hand, West will have seen declarer show out on the 2nd round of spades. Why would West ruff the 3rd round ♠K? Declarer could have played the ♠K on the 2nd round of spades and pitched but instead ruffs the 2nd round and then tries to cash ♠K on the 3rd round to pitch what??? Maybe a (very) bad player would ruff but maybe they wouldn't. Are you really going to embark on a trump coup based on that? I guess so based on your previous comments.

[Ilfuego333]

testing the movie, could have done better in the play:)

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[Cyberyeti]

johnu, on 2020-August-08, 15:44, said:

There are lots of spade splits where West could play ♠J on the 2nd round.

On the actual hand, West will have seen declarer show out on the 2nd round of spades. Why would West ruff the 3rd round ♠K? Declarer could have played the ♠K on the 2nd round of spades and pitched but instead ruffs the 2nd round and then tries to cash ♠K on the 3rd round to pitch what??? Maybe a (very) bad player would ruff but maybe they wouldn't. Are you really going to embark on a trump coup based on that? I guess so based on your previous comments.

Players ruff with seemingly useless trumps all the time, if he has only one trump, he will ruff with it (particularly given that it will be the 8 or 10), people always do, it's a question of divining whether he has 2 or 3 more when he discards.