[cherdano]

First hand in a BBO team match; partner, team mates and opponents are all experts -- are you, too?

Scoring: IMP

---

After opening 1♠ with the South hand, you end up in 6♠, and receive ♣10 as lead. What is your line?

(To those who know/have seen this hand, maybe hold back the solution for a while...)

[mpefritz]

May I suggest placing this in the BIL thread as a "classic" play-this-hand hand?

fritz

[Free]

Yes, it's a VERY nice one for Beginners/Intermediates to learn a certain play technique...

[added by Inquiry - i agree with free. This is a nice problem, but very basic and more appopriate for beginner/intermediate thread, so I moved it here

But keep finding them and posting them... this is a great one. ]

[bearmum]

cherdano, on Sep 20 2004, 08:28 AM, said:

First hand in a BBO team match; partner, team mates and opponents are all experts -- are you, too?

Dealer: South Vul: None Scoring: IMP

♠ AK432 ♥ 32 ♦ KJ2 ♣ AK2 ♠ QJT95 ♥ AQ ♦ AT3 ♣ Q43

After opening 1♠ with the South hand, you end up in 6♠, and receive ♣10 as lead. What is your line?

(To those who know/have seen this hand, maybe hold back the solution for a while...)

Take 1st ♣ (unless clubs break 7/1 ) draw trumps play 2 rounds of ♣ then A ♥ Q♥ ---- whoever wins K♥ has to either give you a ruff and discard OR open the diamonds which should mean no diamond loser

[luke warm]

[cherdano]

So far noone got the solution. I don't think it is a BIL hand.

[EricK]

cherdano, on Sep 20 2004, 12:19 PM, said:

So far noone got the solution. I don't think it is a BIL hand.

I suppose we should cash the ♥A (in case a far-sighted defender wants to unblock the King to avoid a throw-in), then draw trumps, eliminate ♣ ending in dummy and lead a ♥. Now if RHO has ♥K and ♦Q, then he can see the throw in coming, but because he does not know of our ♦T may decide to duck in the hope that partner can win the ♥ and fire a ♦ through from his side. If the ♥Q holds, we can finesse RHO for his presumed ♦Q.

That gives us a free play for the overtrick against expert defenders.

So this hand is suitable for the B/I forum (as it is a pure example of an elimination play), but it is also suitable for Advanced or Interesting hands.

If a beginner partner found the 100% play for the contract, I would certainly say VWDP, and mean it!

Eric

[mpefritz]

Scoring: IMP

---

After opening 1♠ with the South hand, you end up in 6♠, and receive ♣10 as lead. What is your line?


Some thoughts on Cherdano's post (assuming no club ruff at trick 1):

Any time there is a mirror distribution between the dummy and hand, you should think of a strip and throw in as the technique to play the hand. Sometimes it doesn't make sense on a particular hand, but it should go through your mind.

The contract shown could be misplayed for YEARS by beginners. They'd make the hand sometimes, go down sometimes, yet never learn that there is a 100% line.

As you can now see, the ♥Q is as good as the ♥4. It's only purpose is to make the opponents lead, allowing a ruff and sluff OR a diamond where you have a 2-way finesse.

So the technique is to remove safe suits from the opps, in order to make them lead the one you want.

Change the hand a little bit...True beginners/early intermediates should try to answer this one.

Scoring: IMP

---

After opening 1♠ with the South hand, you end up in 6♠, and receive ♣10 as lead. What is your line?


(note: Cherdano: I think the player who answered the question meant to say "play 2 MORE rounds of clubs". If the first club is ruffed, then you must hook in hearts and get a count and guess diamonds.

If you are haggling over 1 IMP or suggesting exact card play order other than "strip the blacks, throw in with heart", then maybe that should be asked. In that case, I agree with EricK for technical merit, but I would draw trump ending on board, low to heart A, cash last clubs ending on board, lead heart from board. I'd be too chicken to possibly lose a sure slam on an unbid 9 card heart suit by cashing the heart A before drawing trump.)

[Free]

cherdano, on Sep 20 2004, 01:19 PM, said:

So far noone got the solution. I don't think it is a BIL hand.

Bearmum found the 100% line if ♣s are no worse than 6-1 split (congratulations). So I don't think you can say noone found the solution. It's IMPS, and then a 100% line to make your contract is much better than to try for that extra trick.

If you would've said it was a MP event, then some people might decide to go for the extra trick and finesse ♥, but in imps it's plain stupid.

Btw, this is the endplay Bearmum created:

Scoring: IMP

---

And one of the opponents has to play a card. If they play ♦ it's in a fork (either KJ or AT), and if they play something else, you can discard a ♦ loser and ruff in the other hand.

So Cherdano, plz tell me how this doesn't work, how this can't be a sollution! And if it's because ♣s were split 7-0, you should've told us that in the beginning imo...

[cherdano]

Congratulations to EricK for finding the solution. (For the record, on RGG only one reader found the solution, and that was no less than Barry Rigal.)

Free said:

Bearmum found the 100% line if ?s are no worse than 6-1 split (congratulations). So I don't think you can say noone found the solution. It's IMPS, and then a 100% line to make your contract is much better than to try for that extra trick.

Read EricK's post again. If you cash the ♥A after drawing trumps, it is still a 100% line, but with a 25% chance for an overtrick (if RHO has ♥K and ♦Q) against expert defenders. Ducking the ♥K is clearly the correct play from RHO's point of view in this case.

EricK said:

If a beginner partner found the 100% play for the contract, I would certainly say VWDP, and mean it!

Indeed!

Arend

[inquiry]

This is just a matter of technique, and not even anything fancy.

Everyone should win the club. Pull trumps, Cash heart ACE, finish clubs in dummy, and lead low heart towards hand. This is just as good/better than cashing the heart early (surely no one has nine hearts KJT9 and didn't bid). But really, no other line really makes a lot of sense.

So while you could cash heart ACE early, even before trumps, to give your worthy opponents something to think about. But what the heck, make it look plainly obviously what is going on will still get the expert defender, and will give the average defender a chance to be "brilliant too". When you pull trump, cash the heart ace, and then three clubs, both defenders will have an accurate count of your hand. You made if very easy for them to do so. East will know you are 5-2-3-3, and if he has heart king and diamond queen, he will see that winning the king is instantly fatal. He is not going to risk to let you make an unmakable slam by popping up with the heart King if your hand is ♠AKxxx ♥AJ ♦8xx ♣Qxx amd give up game and slam bonus for the risk of a simple imp overtrick. So he will duck the heart for sure.

And while bearmum specifically eliminated clubs and then lead heart ACE and then QUEEN (giving up the 25% chance for a clever, but at imps, absolutely required defensive duck of the heart king), at imps, her play is excellent. The problem with it is that it could be a tad bit better, but she demonstrated the required knowledge for handling this type of hand. Mefritz turned it into an excellent lesson hand with the concept of change the heart Queen for the heart 4. This is very useful concept for beginner/intermediates, and also allows your reply to show why the heart queen is 25% better than the heart four here.

One thing I guess we can all agree on (reading, for instance Free's response even after Eric's post), that even when you figure a hand out (elimination the endplay), there may be a little bit more there if you look. But you know what, I am fairly sure free would have played the line of pull trumps, cash heart ace, run clubs, lead heart from dummy... it is just a matter of normal technique.

Ben

[Free]

inquiry, on Sep 20 2004, 03:39 PM, said:

But you know what, I am fairly sure free would have played the line of pull trumps, cash heart ace, run clubs, lead heart from dummy... it is just a matter of normal technique.

Ben

Yes, ofcourse! I always try to take any chance to give opps the opportunity to make a mistake. Yesterday I played a 3NT+3 after a simple falsecard (insinuating another holding in certain suits so opps defended completely wrong), where I could only make 10-11 tricks in normal circumstances It only gained us 1.58 imps, but that's still better than 0.

This hand is laydown, and that extra trick you can gain will only give you 1 extra imp. But it's still one you don't deserve, so I wouldn't cry for the loss of it

[cherdano]

inquiry, on Sep 20 2004, 02:39 PM, said:

This is just a matter of technique, and not even anything fancy.

One thing I guess we can all agree on (reading, for instance Free's response even after Eric's post), that even when you figure a hand out (elimination the endplay), there may be a little bit more there if  you look. But you know what, I am fairly sure free would have played the line of pull trumps, cash heart ace, run clubs, lead heart from dummy... it is just a matter of normal technique.

Well I never claimed it was extraordinarily fancy. And my first reaction after seeing the solution was pretty much the same ("Oh, ok, I probably would have played the same way at the table.").

But I insist that realizing that there is a little more to it than the 100% line before writing this problem off (or moving it to B/I section ) is a very much a sign of good bridge skill. (Note that you not only have to lead the 2nd round of heart from dummy, but realize that you should finesse diamonds against RHO if it holds.)

Free said:

...and that extra trick you can gain will only give you 1 extra imp. But it's still one you don't deserve, so I wouldn't cry for the loss of it

Now this comment doesn't make sense to me. I would agree if ducking the heart king was a mistake by RHO. Which it is clearly not, from what he can know. And BBO team matches are short, so every IMP counts

[inquiry]

cherdano, on Sep 20 2004, 11:53 AM, said:

inquiry, on Sep 20 2004, 02:39 PM, said:

This is just a matter of technique, and not even anything fancy.

One thing I guess we can all agree on (reading, for instance Free's response even after Eric's post), that even when you figure a hand out (elimination the endplay), there may be a little bit more there if  you look. But you know what, I am fairly sure free would have played the line of pull trumps, cash heart ace, run clubs, lead heart from dummy... it is just a matter of normal technique.

Well I never claimed it was extraordinarily fancy. And my first reaction after seeing the solution was pretty much the same ("Oh, ok, I probably would have played the same way at the table.").

But I insist that realizing that there is a little more to it than the 100% line before writing this problem off (or moving it to B/I section ) is a very much a sign of good bridge skill. (Note that you not only have to lead the 2nd round of heart from dummy, but realize that you should finesse diamonds against RHO if it holds.)

Quote

...and that extra trick you can gain will only give you 1 extra imp. But it's still one you don't deserve, so I wouldn't cry for the loss of it

Now this comment doesn't make sense to me. I would agree if ducking the heart king was a mistake by RHO. Which it is clearly not, from what he can know. And BBO team matches are short, so every IMP counts

I want everyone to know the it was "FREE" quoted in the second box by cherdano.

If now to cherdano. If you wanted this to be an "expert" problem, you would have had to have made it MATCHPOINTS, not imps. At matchpoints this becomes a very interesting problem. You have a chance for 13 tricks if the heart hook wins, and if it loses, you can still recover if you find the diamond queen. So there is a legitimate question of is the endplay even correct? There is also the question about will anyone bid 7S where you need the heart hook. If they bid 7S, and the heart hook is off, they will be down one if they guess diamonds right. When the heart hook loses (if you take it), then you might only tie them if you misguess diamonds. Chances of finding both red queens is only 25%, the same chance that leading low toward the stiff heart queen will work, without the risk of going down. So I guess, at MP, I would take this endplay line rather than finessees in both red suits.

At imps, however while the technique is fine and normal, the presnetation as an imp problem will get everyone just worrying about the big picture: Let's not blow this, and let's find the 100% way to assure your contract. They see the answer. Most didn't say the order in which they would play their cards. Amd again, I think the order is more or less automatic, saving exit of low heart from dummy to stiff queen for last.

IF this was on a college exam, as presented, I would give full credit for the elimination/end play, and extra credit for mentioning taking advantage of EAST with heart King and diamond Queen. How much extra credit? About 10%, 5 for leadiing low to the stiff heart queen, and if that wins, five more for playing diamonds right.

As far as moving the thread. Even knowing the solution, even seeing some people have a slight problem thinking "you don't deserve the extra imp" when it is surely there for the taking 25% of the time, this is still a beginner/intermediate problem imho. Now, make it BAM event, expert field (who else plays board-a-match), then give it as an exam question in college, finding the endplay and not mentioning the line to trip up your rho earns no credit, and stating the sequence of plays and why is the only way to get normal credit (no extra credit now).

Finally if you didn't want to make it BAM and you didn't want to make it matchpoints, but you wanted to strecth peoples thinking.. then phase the question a differently. Sort of like, is there anything else here besides the obvious elimination and enplay? "this hand has a very simple solution, but also a more difficult one." Or my favorite prhase would be... South made all 13 tricks and played the hand correctly to win at least 12 tricks versus any distribution. How did that happened? " no doubt you will hear people guess singleton heart king.

Ben

[luke warm]

cherdano, on Sep 20 2004, 02:19 PM, said:

So far noone got the solution. I don't think it is a BIL hand.

this confuses me... i reread the original post, and i still think bearmum deserved my smiley... the line she took is 100% correct (the problem specifically stated this was an imp team match)... sure her line does give up a chance for an imp (or more at matchpoints), but it isn't at all certain that it *would* give up an imp

so give rigal (and others) 100% and give her 99.999999

[mpefritz]

Bearmum gets -.25IMP, which I think was the orignal poster's point on this hand (which originally was posted under interesting bridge hands). Free and I (maybe inappropriately) requested this hand be moved here (but that was addressed very well by Ben above).

The general throw in technique is important, but the technical line that was outlined above is just as important, and could be the difference between winning a team match and losing it.

fritz

now-the technical side ....should the heart ACE be cashed fom hand or should a lead come from the board to the A? should declarer cash a 4th round of trump before leading the heart off the board? Do these things matter?

[Free]

Basicly, I think you shouldn't risk playing ♥A before you drew trumps in an imp match. After you took their trumps, you just play ♥A (from where ever you are), go to dummy (using ♣s) and play a small ♥ to your Q. By now, opps will probably have signalled which suit they want (after a discard in trumps), so they should know how to defend and don't try to get you down one.

If you play ♥A immediatly you'll probably get the same situation except opps might not have signalled what suit they want (still quite rare imo), but you also take that small risk of ♥s being 9-0 (nobody ever calculated this frequency)... Is it safe? Yes, it's 99.99999999999999999993% safe or so, but 100% is still better.

I don't think the timing of playing ♥A makes much difference, but it might be better to play it as soon as possible. If you really NEED that single imp, just go for it

[sceptic]

I would take with A clubs pull trumps play out the clubs, play A hearts and give away the Q hearts (unless I was lucky and opps had singletoon heart) then opps give me lead back in diamons or I get a ruff and sluff

[bearmum]

mpefritz, on Sep 21 2004, 01:35 PM, said:

Bearmum gets -.25IMP, which I think was the orignal poster's point on this hand (which originally was posted under interesting bridge hands).  Free and I (maybe inappropriately) requested this hand be moved here (but that was addressed very well by Ben above).

The general throw in technique is important, but the technical line that was outlined above is just as important, and could be the difference between winning a team match and losing it.

fritz

now-the technical side ....should the heart ACE be cashed fom hand or should a lead come from the board to the A?  should declarer cash a 4th round of trump  before leading the heart off the board?  Do these things matter?

OK Now I have read ALL the replies I realise that it wasn't originally posted as a BI question ( which I thought it was and replied as such )

Surely IF the opps are good enough to DUCK the Q♥ then I still make 6 --having stripped the hand and attempted the throwin--(and if I were smart enough to read their discards I might even take the D hook the right way and make 7!!

I do agree 1IMP might make a difference in a team match BUT as the original question specified IMPS not teams then at IMPS one doesn't jeapordise the contract for an overtrick does one?

But thatns for all the expert answers -- I found them really instructive

[luke warm]

mpefritz, on Sep 21 2004, 02:35 AM, said:

Bearmum gets -.25IMP ~~snip~~

fine, italy wins by .75 imp