[Zelandakh]

♠J+K, ♥A, ♦9, ♠Q, ♦T, ♦A, ♠9 seems like a more natural (and safer) start. Now you can even afford to ruff in if West underleads the ♣A and still make 11 if trumps break. Against that, running the ♣K (before or after the double finesse in ♦) is the only way of legitimately making 11 on the actual layout and if you wait until after the second diamond finesse and a trump, many Easts would have opened with ♣A, so now running it is relatively safe. (ie ♠J+K, ♦9, ♠Q, ♦T, ♥A, ♣K and West gets endplayed into providing an entry to hand). As the format is IMPs, the safer line that does not care about ♣A is probably to be preferred.

[nige1]

Pilowsky "After playing Bridge for a few months, and learned what a transfer was. I quickly realised that preempts and NT bids were simply two sides of the same coin, blanched precariously on the law of total tricks. Every few days a hand comes along to remind me that I still have a lot to learn. I call the interval between these hands "really annoying". Hopefully, it's getting shorter. I set myself a limit of a few hours to crack it and then I pass it over the experts.Here's the latest one.Suddenly, after deciding that the hand that it held was not good enough for a weak 2 in ♠, my partner the ever excitable North robot suddenly upgraded his hand and made a Texas transfer leaving me in an apparently makeable 4♠ contract.I tried more than 15 times the best I can do is 4♠-1, usually -2.Every time I play it West leads the ♣6. fwiw - not much I know, if North had opened a weak 2♠ and South had applied the dreaded rule of 17, it passes."
++++++++++++++++++++
A normal start: ruff ♣lead in dummy, finesse ♠T (East might have had a doubleton ♠ honour or both of them). Win East's ♣ return with ♣K. When you cash ♠A, you discover the bad trump break. You can still recover by taking Cyberyeti's advice but it's a bit double-dummy: You must shorten North's trumps. As PilowskY writes "Schlechte Verteilung, Trümpfe verkürzen". You cross to ♥K and lead a ♦ won by West's ♦K. West' returns a top ♣ (best) which North must ruff, while West discards a ♦ (best). Now you cross to ♦Q, and lead ♣A. West discards a ♥ (best).

---

In this fascinating and unusual 4 card ending, South's ♣ lead allows declarer to succeed, by making 2 trump tricks, en passant.

---

Pilowsky "And then, just when you think it's safe to go back into the water... This time it only took me 15 minutes (and 5 tries) to work it out. I open 1NT and North bids 2♣ "Stayman" - I don't have a five-card major so I cluelessly bid 3NT and collect 12.04 IMP's. It's just as well I don't understand how to play bridge, or know who Smolen is, because all of the people except one who ended in 4♥ missed it. Except for one person. We have 60 minutes to play 12 boards so I'm rating this hand as intermediate. I was only able to work it out thanks to the excellent help from this thread (ty Cyberyeti) and the double-dummy. I was completely unaware that partner would not transfer with a five-card major so I just jumped to 3NT: my usual practice in robot tourneys. The others were in 4♥ with West leading the ♠10. fwiw this is what the Traveller looked like.4♥= 1, 4♥-1 9, 4♥-2 11, 4♥-3 2"
++++++++++++++++++++
A line like Zelandakh's seems sensible. Cover ♠T and win ♠K. Run ♦9 ... IMO, Pilowsky is right that making the contract fairly safely is usually the best strategy at IMPS.

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This post has been edited by nige1: 2020-September-11, 03:50

[Cyberyeti]

Zelandakh, on 2020-September-10, 08:39, said:

♠J+K, ♥A, ♦9, ♠Q, ♦T, ♦A, ♠9 seems like a more natural (and safer) start. Now you can even afford to ruff in if West underleads the ♣A and still make 11 if trumps break. Against that, running the ♣K (before or after the double finesse in ♦) is the only way of legitimately making 11 on the actual layout and if you wait until after the second diamond finesse and a trump, many Easts would have opened with ♣A, so now running it is relatively safe. (ie ♠J+K, ♦9, ♠Q, ♦T, ♥A, ♣K and West gets endplayed into providing an entry to hand). As the format is IMPs, the safer line that does not care about ♣A is probably to be preferred.

I'm not sure about this, spade 9 gets ruffed low, diamond ruffed high, spade ruffed high, down 1 with trumps breaking and the club ace onside unless I've missed something. Essentially swap ♥J and a small diamond from the actual layout.

[msjennifer]

Sir,
On the table and seeing the dummy only, one can count two Club,2Heart,1diamond and the spade Ace as the top tricks. So in all total SIX. One does not know the positions of HQ and DK.One can easily develop FOUR more in Spade suit if one finds a doubleton honour with East.That will be the Normal play not knowing the cards as they are.There is no hurry to take a heart discard at trick 1 (why assume that the finesse is not working right now?).You can take heart discard later also.Normal play would be ruff the club lead and finesse ♠10.wIn any thing and cash the ♠ACE to learn the bad news.And now is the time to develop the en passant/TRUMP COUP ending.Take it from there.With due respect I,personally ,feel the solution of discarding a heart at trick one etc APPEARS double dummyish.
P.S.--Intermediates who are not expected to develop this ending will do so AUTOMATICALLY ( of course they will cash all outside winners AUTOMATICALLY) And NO I did not know nige 1 solution as I never noticed that there is a second page also.
THANKS.

[msjennifer]

Cyberyeti, on 2020-September-09, 08:51, said:

K&R gives the south hand as 18.2, I thought it was heavy for 1N and certainly is worth 4♠ opposite a classical weak 2. I would also open 1♣ rather than a 15-17 NT, but then I wouldn't be able to, as the N hand is rule of 19 with a void, so I'd have opened that 1♠ although many wouldn't.

Sir,
Pardon me but I ,personally ,totally dislike ,if not hate, the K AND R METHOD .Hoever opening 2♠ in the 1st seat on the given hand is too aggressive ,if not silly, with the very valuable KJx of hearts which are too good a value for a ♥ contract may be even a 4/3 Moysian.

[Cyberyeti]

msjennifer, on 2020-September-10, 11:30, said:

Sir,
Pardon me but I ,personally ,totally dislike ,if not hate, the K AND R METHOD .Hoever opening 2♠ in the 1st seat on the given hand is too aggressive ,if not silly, with the very valuable KJx of hearts which are too good a value for a ♥ contract may be even a 4/3 Moysian.

I tend to use K&R as a sense check when I already think a hand is worth more/less than its HCP. I also would not open 2♠ as I said, but not for that reason (I could have 4 hearts the way I play), but with 6-4 and 9HCP and no reason to downgrade, this is a minimum 1♠ opener for us. 2♠ denies that much for us.

[Huibertus]

The thing with these "apperently can make" contracts it that the way you have to play it to actually make it, in a lot of cases isn't the right play.

The 4♠, yes you can make it if you make six tricks in the side suit and for trumps by shortening dummy. And that will only work if ♦ Q is an entry. So you have to play towards it some time during play. And you have to do it before you have played a second round of trumps and know of the 4-1 split, so would be asuming 4-1 right from the start.

However, ♦ K in east, and not getting over ruffed with a small trump while shortening dummy is surely less then 50%.

The play I would take is a double finess in ♦ and play ♠ to be 3-2, losing a diamond and 2 ♠, let ♦ Q run trick 2, take the return from E in dummy, play A,T of trumps and use ♥ Ace for a diamond to the T. That would succeed a bit over 50% of the time. Not sure about the exact percentages but my feeling is the difference is about 8%. Bad luck, on this hand it fails, but the play is superior.

[dsLawsd]

For Board 5 it is not a 2♠ bid because with KJx of hearts and a void there are multiple potential places to play it and you are preempting yourself.

1NT cannot be faulted, but at IMPs 1♣may be better to start for much the same reason as you can "smell" a potential misfit plus the possible slam in the unusual case. At any game I visualize the possible problems in transportation. In 4 ♥ I would duck a trump to East and see what happens...

A great set of hands for discussion!

[nige1]

I realise that complex double-dummy play is of limited interest. So, rather than write a tedious detailed new post, I've made a small edit to my previous post in this topic, to include a beautiful variation on the suggested line, that I'd somehow overlooked. It culminates in a rare and pretty 4-card ending,

[Cyberyeti]

nige1, on 2020-September-11, 03:36, said:

I realise that complex double-dummy play is of limited interest. So, rather than write a tedious detailed new post, I've made a small edit to my previous post in this topic, to include a beautiful variation on the suggested line, that I'd somehow overlooked. It culminates in a rare and pretty 4-card ending,

The reason I went double dummy on Pilowsky's boards was that he said things like "apparently makeable" which suggested he didn't see how it was done.

Only one of the 3 boards do I think the line might be found at the table and I obviously didn't make that clear enough.

[pilowsky]

Cyberyeti, on 2020-September-11, 04:11, said:

The reason I went double dummy on Pilowsky's boards was that he said things like "apparently makeable" which suggested he didn't see how it was done.

Only one of the 3 boards do I think the line might be found at the table and I obviously didn't make that clear enough.

He didn't: Pilowsky is new to the game. He only makes these posts when he can't figure it out - or if he thinks it's pretty funny. His Mother also thought he was trying.

[pilowsky]

My propensity for bidding 1NT on anything that looks promising between 14 and 18 against GIB seems to pay dividends in the long run, but as you have noticed, my card play hasn't caught up yet.
This one also caught me out - another makeable 4♥ that I missed and only just worked out. I think it relies on a good knowledge of suit combinations. and card memory.

---

At least I figured this one out myself - finally!
And just to show that there is some justice in the world, someone else did bid and made it in a slightly different way! This board came immediately before the Bots went nuts and gave me 10 IMP's.
Here it is.

[nige1]

Pilowsky "At least I figured this one out myself - finally! My propensity for bidding 1NT on anything that looks promising between 14 and 18 against GIB seems to pay dividends in the long run, but as you have noticed, my card play hasn't caught up yet. This one also caught me out - another makeable 4♥ that I missed and only just worked out. I think it relies on a good knowledge of suit combinations. and card memory. And just to show that there is some justice in the world, someone else did bid and made it in a slightly different way! This board came immediately before the Bots went nuts and gave me 10 IMP's.".
+++++++++++++++++++
Pilowski's problems, in this topic, don't require double-dummy play -- against normal defence. Sensible planning -- Yes. Some good views -- Perhaps. And, OK, to dot all the i's and to cross all the t's -- Gib can be useful, -- but not essential. On this last hand, after cashing the ♥A., declarer must guess to play a small trump rather than an honour, so that he can ruff high, when LHO leads a 3rd ♣. The successful declarer drove out ♥K with an honour but survived when LHO failed to continue ♣s

---

[Cyberyeti]

And he should go one off, why didn't W return his club promoting the ♥10 instead of returning the diamond at the end ? Probably because of the psyche of 1N so the bot didn't think you could have 6.

[nige1]

Cyberyeti, on 2020-September-11, 09:42, said:

And he should go one off, why didn't W return his club promoting the ♥10 instead of returning the diamond at the end ? Probably because of the psyche of 1N so the bot didn't think you could have 6.

CyberYeti is quite right, as usual. He replied while I was editing my reply.

[Cyberyeti]

nige1, on 2020-September-11, 09:59, said:

CyberYeti is quite right, as usual. He replied while I was editing my reply.

The cool thing about it is that you can't return the club when in with the spade, you have to wait. I think if you return the club initially, declarer will ruff high and try to fell the ♥K, while if you wait, the trump promotion just works and it's less obvious to lead a low one. That said, the main case where leading the high heart works (K10 or K9 left in the E hand) is defeated by a club when in with the spade, so maybe you should play to drop the K by leading a low one.