[Antrax]

---

Having found no ♦ stopper for NT or a club slam, your partner and you end up in a 5♣ contract. West leads the ♦A and continues with the ♦K, but unfortunately his partner gives him count so he doesn't continue a third round, but instead shifts to the ♥6. Plan the play.

[ahydra]

Spoiler

Ruffing out hearts to discard a spade looks the best bet. Ruff the heart in hand, club to Q, ruff a heart, CA if necessary, club to 10 and cash the hearts.

This only works if hearts are 4-4 though. I think you need a squeeze in the majors (one opponent holding long hearts and ♠KQ) to make it if the hearts don't break. But there's no entry for this, so tough luck.

ahydra

[Antrax]

Did you really just bring up a squeeze in the N/B forum?

[BunnyGo]

Did you really not put your answer in a spoiler at least?

[the hog]

His squeeze line cannot work anyway lol

[kayin801]

Spoiler

any time hearts are 4-4 we can make, but by switching to a heart we have the additional chance that hearts are Hxx with W and HHxxx with E (H = Q, J, or 10). Of course, if W has all middle hearts (???) we are home by playing low since E can't beat it.

I would duck the first heart and force E to cover. Now we draw trumps ending in dummy, making sure we retain the club 10 for a later entry. Cash the AK of hearts; if a heart honor drops from W after the 3rd round, we need to decide whether to play for 4-4 hearts or a ruffing finesse.

On a more advanced note, with HHxx of hearts and the spade K a switch to a low heart looks like an okay shot, since otherwise declarer may have no choice but to play for 4-4 hearts. Now when you're forced to drop an honor on the 3rd round of hearts, declarer has to make this guess. On the other hand, switching to a heart from Hxx is silly if you know the suit can't come in if declarer is void (and if declarer has a stiff, it's always making). Sometimes people play for you to have messed up though. And W might not be able to read the black suit position anyway so they might just decide a heart switch is safest.

[ahydra]

BunnyGo, on 2012-March-28, 04:59, said:

Did you really not put your answer in a spoiler at least?

Now done. And (to the hog) I did mention that the squeeze doesn't work.

I didn't spot the

Spoiler

ruffing finesse

though - nice one kayin801.

ahydra

[jillybean]

This thread does not belong in the N/B forum.

[billw55]

jillybean, on 2012-March-28, 09:14, said:

This thread does not belong in the N/B forum.

I'm on the fence about that. Establishing a long suit with ruffs is a fairly basic tactic, perhaps suitable for novices as learning material.

Agree though, that all the discussion beyond "ruff two hearts in hand" belongs in intermediate. The whole point of establishing this forum was to make true B/Ns comfortable posting B/N level questions. Intermediate/advanced analysis may intimidate them back to mere lurking.

[Phil]

jillybean, on 2012-March-28, 09:14, said:

This thread does not belong in the N/B forum.

I agree. Try teaching restricted choice to a class of new(er) players.

[Trumpace]

Agree with JillyBean. This seems a bit too advanced for beginner/novice players.

[the hog]

ahydra, on 2012-March-28, 08:05, said:

Now done. And (to the hog) I did mention that the squeeze doesn't work.

I didn't spot the

Spoiler

ruffing finesse

though - nice one kayin801.

ahydra

So why even bring it up?

[kayin801]

billw55, on 2012-March-28, 12:23, said:

I'm on the fence about that. Establishing a long suit with ruffs is a fairly basic tactic, perhaps suitable for novices as learning material.

Agree though, that all the discussion beyond "ruff two hearts in hand" belongs in intermediate. The whole point of establishing this forum was to make true B/Ns comfortable posting B/N level questions. Intermediate/advanced analysis may intimidate them back to mere lurking.

Agree that this isn't B/N when you're taking more complicated situations into account. But I don't think it's right to just ignore that the good heart suit sets up other possibilities. Not to nitpick too much, but if the point that OP really wanted to get across was "we can set up a 3rd spade pitch on hearts with a discard if hearts are 4-4 and that's the only chance to make the hand" then perhaps they should have chosen worse heart spots so that it wasn't even a possibility to pick off the opponent's honors. FWIW I think it's a fairly interesting situation on the I/A level with the hand as written.

Sorry if I hijacked the thread with my post though

[Antrax]

Indeed, that was the point I was trying to make. Many players at my club made only 10 tricks in clubs by trying the no-win finesse in spades. I was planning to show how:
a) We have 10 tricks on top
b) The 11th must come from hearts
so c) "test" hearts, and what I had in mind (mostly because it worked at the table) is try and develop a long-suit trick when hearts are 4-4. The ruffing finesses and squeeze chances were not on my mind, though the "official" solution I had in mind also involves "and pay attention whether you see J and Q drop".

In all honesty, I'm not sure whether the problem itself is flawed or whether strong players posting complex answers to it is the problem.

[dwar0123]

We are all still trying to learn what content is appropriate for the new forum and I think this post comes fairly close.

The added chances of the ruffing finesse were to much and thus I agree that making the spots worse would have been a good idea. I might have even added another ♥ to dummy just to make it an almost lock that it would work rather then requiring an unlikely split. That way when the reader see's it, they can post their response with a fair amount of certainty.

[Antrax]

You're right. Probably either replacing the spade J with the Q or adding a heart would've improved the problem - I gave the hand as it was, without considering how I might distill the principle.
Thanks for the suggestions.

[ahydra]

the hog, on 2012-March-28, 18:09, said:

So why even bring it up?

I mentioned it to give readers some idea of my thought processes:

No other way to establish spade tricks => need a squeeze or endplay.
The latter is ruled out because we need all the remaining tricks, so it's a squeeze.
Find the squeeze suits - must be H and S because we have no D.
Check it works - construct the end position, and spot it doesn't due to lack of entries.

This should give the aspiring player an idea of what kinds of things to consider when planning a declarer play line, though I agree that squeezes are more of an intermediate-level topic.

ahydra