[FrancesHinden]

The Tollemache cup is the English/Welsh county teams-of-8 champsionship. The final (8 teams all play all) was this weekend and London won yet again. Just beacuse they've got the strongest team (including 2/3 of England's Bermuda Bowl team) there seems to be some theory that they should be the best county....
We (Surrey) had hopes this year when we were in the lead 4/7 of the way through having beaten London but it all went wrong on Sunday.

Here's a good play problem from our match against London. At our table you are playing Gold/Townsend. It's mildly relevant that they open fairly sound, and also play quite traditional weak twos (via a multi).

Scoring: IMP

P 1NT P 2C
P 2D P 2S
P 3D P 3NT
P 4S all pass

---

1NT = 15-17
2C = 5-card stayman
2D = no 5 card major
2S = nat, INV or stronger
3D = max with 4 spades
3NT = choice of games

LHO leads the Ace of hearts quite quickly, RHO plays the Jack, in principle standard attitude with the Jack promising the 10.
LHO continues with a low heart, RHO plays the 10.

Play the play.
(if/when you play either a spade to the King or a spade to the Queen it will hold the trick)

[jdeegan]

How about club to the king followed by the heart queen pitching a diamond. If that lives, try a small diamond toward the A10, and ............??? play the ace followed by the ace and queen of clubs. I am hoping neither of the round suits is worse than 5-3, a fair chance as the opps were silent. If the clubs live, I will exit with the diamond ten and hope for the best.

Me plan is to take two hearts, one diamond, three clubs, four spades. It may depend on the location of the spade 10.

[mikeh]

It seems probable that LHO holds Axxxxx of ♥, and was hoping, since I had suggested 3N as a contract, to find his partner with a ♥ ruff.

I am going to need a ♦ honour onside or an endplay on RHO. They could have defeated the endplay scenario by leading a small ♦ or (more likely) by switching at trick 2, if RHO held KQ(x). So I am not going to worry about that. Besides, if trump are 3-2, I can always prevail, once they play a second ♥ (assuming that LHO is not going to win the second ♠ and give partner a ♥ruff)

I cannot afford 2 trump losers, and the hand is simple if the ♦ suit behaves for 1 loser and the trump are 3-2, unless RHO gets to overruff dummy.

I very much doubt that LHO has the ♠A on the auction and play to date.

So I am going to try to cater to RHO holding A10xx of trump and one ♦ card: a holding consistent with the defence.

I win trick 2 and spurn the chance to jilt my good ♥ on the ♣ suit: I don't think West has a trump entry with which to give his partner a ruff.

I lead the ♠Q, and, if it holds, cross to the ♣K and lead a ♠ to the J. If RHO wins, then unless I have badly misread the situation, I arrange to double-hook the ♦ while cashing my 2nd ♥ winner only once trump are gone, and I have the tenace in trump to handle all my communication problems.

I plan (if trump are indeed 4-1 on my right) to win 3 trump tricks, 2 ♥, 2♦, and 3♣.

[FrancesHinden]

Don't be shy.

On reflection afterwards I think the winning line is findable, but I went off at the table along with many other people round the room. So you can't do worse than I did.

p.s. both the answers so far have gone off.

Mike, I understand your line (and it's similar but actually slightly better to the way I played it). It needs diamond honours split i.e. goes off with both diamonds onside.

But if LHO has x Axxxxx Qxx xxx isn't there a fair chance they'd have opened a weak two? Or do we think the lack of heart pips would have put them off in spite of the singleton spade?

What about the other reason not to have opened a weak two, having 4 spades on the side?

[temp3600]

- edited -

I would also guard against East having ATxx in trumps. I think it's important to preserve the CK as long as we can in order to do so. So I would play the SQ, followed by the SJ.
Take these two possible West hands : 1. x Axxxxx KQx xxx and 2. x Axxxxx Hxx xxx. If you use up the CK early - say after two rounds of hearts, SQ and club to the K - you reach this position (the diamond KQ are missing) :

---

If West started with hand 1, you now need to play a small spade to the J. If he started with hand 2, you need to finesse in diamonds. Keeping the CK completely removes the need to guess.

Back to the full picture, West's defense is strange if trumps are 4-1. If he has 4 trumps he can't possibly hope his partner is ruffing, and attacking such a heart suit is likely to blow a trick. And, if he is singleton, he knows his partner has 4 trumps ; why make him ruff ?

- /edited -

[Free]

This looks like a control game. I'd start with ♣K, followed by ♠ to the Q (this holds right?). Now I'll draw 2 more ♣s discarding 2 ♦s and play ♦A. Now a ♣ ruff (small) followed by a ♥ discarding a ♦. If this still holds, I'll exit a ♦ and let the trumps come. If the plan fails on my way, I will have a lot of thinking to do to change my plan

[FrancesHinden]

Oh well, I feel better about going off now, anyway....
It all seems to come down to what would have stopped LHO opening a weak 2.

Scoring: IMP

---

I seriously considered playing a spade to the 9 at trick 3. In the end I crossed to hand in clubs and played a spade towards the QJ in dummy, worried about singleton Ace on my left (2 aces and an empty 6 card suit putting many people off a weak two opening), then eventually continued with a low spade towards the K9 probably intending to finesse. When East discarded I was off, as I'd burned the CK too early.

I think mikeh's line is slightly better than mine, but it still doesn't make.

If you decide LHO could be 6-4 in the majors for the non-opening, does a better line come to mind? Queen of spades from the dummy, holding, then a spade off planning to finesse but playing the King when East discards. A club back, say, but now you can win in hand, draw trumps and set diamonds up as you have one spare entry and East is out of hearts.

One declarer made it on a club lead from the other hand, but I don't know exactly how the play went other than it needed two hearts tricks in the end position.

[cherdano]

I have a postponed reply where I concluded that LHO has spade ace, and was possibly trying to force me with 4 trumps

Btw, have I denied four hearts on this sequence?

However, I did not even find a line catering specifically 4=6=1=2, assuming LHO doesn't have a singleton diamond honor. If you play ♠Q, then spade to the king, I think LHO does better when he ducks this. I always ended up with communication problems.

Arend

[FrancesHinden]

cherdano, on Feb 16 2006, 02:57 PM, said:

I have a postponed reply where I concluded that LHO has spade ace, and was possibly trying to force me with 4 trumps

Btw, have I denied four hearts on this sequence?

However, I did not even find a line catering specifically 4=6=1=2, assuming LHO doesn't have a singleton diamond honor. If you play ♠Q, then spade to the king, I think LHO does better when he ducks this. I always ended up with communication problems.

Arend

You have pretty much denied for hearts, but partner could still have them.

I don't know if you can make it when LHO doesn't have a diamond honour (apart from whenever trumps are 3-2 with no trump promotion on the third heart). You may end up with the same problem I had at the table: you can pick up the 4-1 break if you can cash the ace of diamonds and ruff 2 clubs in hand, which needs LHO to be 4614.

[cherdano]

FrancesHinden, on Feb 16 2006, 04:11 PM, said:

You have pretty much denied for hearts, but partner could still have them.

I don't know if you can make it when LHO doesn't have a diamond honour (apart from whenever trumps are 3-2 with no trump promotion on the third heart).  You may end up with the same problem I had at the table: you can pick up the 4-1 break if you can cash the ace of diamonds and ruff 2 clubs in hand, which needs LHO to be 4614.

Well, of course ruffing one club would give enough tricks if you can also cash ♥K (3♠+2♥+1♦+3♣+1 ♣ ruff), but if LHO ducks the second round of trumps, you will (after the ruff) always end up in a position with ♠9 and ♥K in hand, and ♠Qx in dummy. Then if you cash ♥K LHO can force, but if you don't, you have no entry left to hand to cash ♥K.

This is beyond me, but could the second round of hearts (which cannot give partner a ruff) be suspicious, because he didn't play a diamond through?

Arend

[FrancesHinden]

Yes, by "ruffing two clubs" I really meant "LHO following to 4 rounds of clubs".

LHO said that he would have ducked a spade to the king, because otherwise it would have been too suspicious when he didn't play a third heart. He led and continued hearts on the general principle of trying to force the contract off. I was pretty much marked with a diamond honour from the 3NT bid, so he didn't see any hurry to set diamond tricks up.

[mikeh]

Frances, you are being too hard on yourself. It seems impossible to me to cater to both 4-1 trump breaks.

The only clue (I think) that MIGHT have tipped you off was the ♥ continuation, by a fine player, who knew that his partner was not ruffing. You had denied 4♥ and dummy's holding marked his partner with at least 2♥. Thus playing on ♥ was a conservative move unless he expected that pumping you might gain control for his side. It would not gain control if his partner held the long trumps.

OTOH, a ♦ switch might have been very dangerous were he 1=6=3=3 or the like and a ♣ switch was unlikely to gain anything on any holding other than, say J10(x). Furthermore, by playing the second ♥ he might steer you into misreading the trump situation: if he holds a stiff, he knows that you may be worried about a 4-1 split, and so may choose a play that suggests he holds the length: spy v. spy thinking

As against that, there are many, many hands on which a traditional bidder will not open 2♥ on A8xxxx. These are tantalizing hands, because we can see, after the fact, that it was logically POSSIBLE to figure it out. But, and I say this with great respect for your game, I don't think that it was an error to go down on this hand.

[FrancesHinden]

Thank you for your kind words, Mike. I didn't feel that bad about going off, but I thought it was an interesting exercise in guesswork.

In general I only post hands where I think the correct play isn't clear. I tend to keep the "obvious error" hands to myself...