[inquiry]

Scoring: IMP

West North East South

 -     -     -     3♠
 Pass  4NT   Pass  5♣
 Pass  5♦    Pass  5NT
 Pass  6♠    Pass  Pass
 Pass  

---

Trick 1.. ♥T - ♥A - ♥3 - ♥Q
Trick 2.. ♦A - ♦2 - ♦T - ♦8
Trick 3.. ♦K - ♦4 - ♣4 - ♦6

At this point, down one is assured. The club pitch was a clear mistake, but when East won the ♠A, exited a ♦ another clear mistake, and west was squeezed in ♥ and ♣ to make.

Problem was, if south had KQJTxxx of spades and KQJ of hearts, that would be an opening bid. And surely south ahs the JACK from the opening lead, and equally clearly does not have the heart KING. Problem of playing soooo much bridge I guess... the commentators seemed to miss it, one suggesting...

"And poor Cindy, who couldn't guess there was a heart trick to take"

although one correctly tried to pointed out...

"would the lead of the 10 have given her any inference?"

[pclayton]

Ben, I didn't watch this, but surely you mean declarer won the ♥A at T1 and took a ♥ pitch off the ♦K?

[Flame]

pclayton, on Jun 6 2007, 10:57 PM, said:

Ben, I didn't watch this, but surely you mean declarer won the ♥A at T1 and took a ♥ pitch off the ♦K?

I think you are half right he ment wining with the ♥A and pitching a ♣ on the ♦K.

[Flame]

An intresting point here is that declarer was confident the opponenet will believe him (if i did have a H loser i would pitch it wouldnt i ?) and took this chance for only a small add to his chances.

[inquiry]

pclayton, on Jun 6 2007, 10:57 PM, said:

Ben, I didn't watch this, but surely you mean declarer won the ♥A at T1 and took a ♥ pitch off the ♦K?

Fixed.. took heart ACE at trick one, played the queen.. then two quick diamonds and PITCHED A CLUB.....

The commentators keep telling the vugraph operator that she made a mistake and surely a heart was discarded.. .and even after vugraph said a club was discarded the commentors keep insisting that couldn't be right.

[Codo]

I think the play was brilliant, not stupid. After all it really worked extremly well.

So compare the three lines:

1. let the Heart run: Wins if lho has the King, maybe about a 50 % chance against good opps, maybe a 5 % chance against lesser opps.

2. Win the ace, discard a heart, play on trumps. This is quite well below 50%: Stiff QJ of clubs, or singelton Q or J behind AND you guess correctly or a D/C Squeeze.

3. The given play: Play on trumps and try to find the queen of Diamond tripelton, QJ of clubs or a C/D squeeze or a HEart/Minor sqeeze or even a discard of the King of Hearts from an opponent who doesn´t believe that you have a heart left.

These are quite many chances as long as the opps do not insist in Heart. This is the only but big problem: Will anybody return a diamond knowing that I will surly ruff it or a heart which I will ruff too? (At least my opps believe that I will ruff it?)
I would rate a diamond return for well below 50 %, so I would let the heart run against good opps- and never ever find such beautyful play anyway.

[paulg]

This hand is covered in today's daily bulletin (PDF) under the headline "Rueful Rabbit visits the Windy City".

[inquiry]

Codo, on Jun 7 2007, 06:43 AM, said:

These are quite many chances as long as the opps do not insist in Heart. This is the only but big problem: Will anybody return a diamond knowing that I will surly ruff it or a heart which I will ruff too? (At least my opps believe that I will ruff it?)

Well the defender with the SPADE ACE knows that declarer still has the heart jack left... after all, the opening lead was standard ten from KT9.... With KJ declarer would have played low heart from dummy. So the heart suit should be an open book. And finding the stiff Q or J is useless in this case, as you can't pull trumps as when they win the spade ACE, they will (SHOULD) cash the heart.

[Codo]

In the bulletin they called it an error. Well okay fair enough, the jack of Heart and the 4 of clubs are quite easy to mix up.

So seriously this had been a thumb fault, pulling the card next to the jack. ***** happens.