[lamford]

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Lead 4♥
This was a crucial match in the English Premier League, a few minutes ago, and I thought this hand would be duck soup for Tony Forrester, South.

Trumps are 2-2. How do you play?

[Winstonm]

I don’t see the advantage in going against the simplistic line of leading toward the spade king and if that fails playing for a club miracle. The lack of the club 9 argues against the end play of pitching a spade ruffing the last diamond and exiting with the spade king. A squeeze as far as I can determine relies on one hand - presumably west - holding club length and the spade ace .

I am going to play it simple and straight up.

[lamford]

 Winstonm, on 2021-October-17, 11:01, said:

I don’t see the advantage in going against the simplistic line of leading toward the spade king and if that fails playing for a club miracle. The lack of the club 9 argues against the end play of pitching a spade ruffing the last diamond and exiting with the spade king. A squeeze as far as I can determine relies on one hand - presumably west - holding club length and the spade ace .

I am going to play it simple and straight up.

OK that line is a bit above 50%. You will need the ace of spades onside or a favourable club position. Stiff honour with West will do; or QJ dub with East. Forrester cashed the ace and king of clubs, ruffed the diamond loser, and exited with the KS. That works if the ace of spades is with the doubleton club, or again if the clubs had come in. I now think one can do a bit better than this ...

[Winstonm]

 lamford, on 2021-October-17, 11:06, said:

OK that line is a bit above 50%. You will need the ace of spades onside or a favourable club position. Stiff honour with West will do; or QJ dub with East. Forrester cashed the ace and king of clubs, ruffed the diamond loser, and exited with the KS. That works if the ace of spades is with the doubleton club, or again if the clubs had come in. I now think one can do a bit better than this ...

I considered that line but didn’t think it much better than a straightforward endplay though it does combine chances.

[nige1]

lamford 'Lead 4♥. This was a crucial match in the English Premier League, a few minutes ago, and I thought this hand would be duck soup for Tony Forrester, South. I am still trying to work out what he was playing for as he went off, although it can be made. Trumps are 2-2. How do you play?
++++++++++++++++++++
WinstonM seems to be on the right track Draw trumps and lead a ♠ towards ♠K.
This gives declarer a 50% chance of the contract If West has ♠A, then as Winston says, declarer has to guess a lucky ♣ position.
A third option seems to be 2 rounds of ♥, discard a ♠ on a ♦, ruff the 4th ♦, and exit in spades, hoping to endplay an opponent in ♣s. WinstonM's line seems best

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[Winstonm]

The most esoteric ending would be to find this: (next shows the play-by-play)

Spoiler

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But the problem here would be in correctly reading the situation at the end.

[nige1]

 Winstonm, on 2021-October-17, 13:22, said:

The most esoteric ending would be to find this: (next shows the play-by-play)

Spoiler

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But the problem here would be in correctly reading the situation at the end.

The third option (described a previosu post), caters for this layout with a self-kibitzing declarer. .

[johnu]

 nige1, on 2021-October-17, 12:58, said:

WinstonM seems to be on the right track Draw trumps and lead a ♠ towards ♠K.
This gives declarer a 50% chance of the contract If West has ♠A, then as Winston says, declarer has to guess a lucky ♣ position.

Can't hurt to play a couple rounds of diamonds to see if there is ♦J109 in one hand in which case you can pitch 2 spades.

[nige1]

 johnu, on 2021-October-17, 14:23, said:

Can't hurt to play a couple rounds of diamonds to see if there is ♦J109 in one hand in which case you can pitch 2 spades.

Excellent point
Furthermore, If West is dealt ♦JT9x, but without ♠A, then he can cunningly follow with ♦ honours on the first 2 rounds, tempting declarer to discard a ♠ on his 3rd top ♦

This post has been edited by nige1: 2021-October-18, 05:43

[Winstonm]

 nige1, on 2021-October-17, 14:44, said:

Excellent point

Yep. I overlooked it

[HardVector]

Win in dummy, lead a spade. If the ace is onside you should be good. If it's off, win the return and pull trump. Play for a minor suit squeeze from there. The details of that depend upon what they returned.

[smerriman]

 HardVector, on 2021-October-17, 18:01, said:

Win in dummy, lead a spade. If the ace is onside you should be good. If it's off, win the return and pull trump. Play for a minor suit squeeze from there. The details of that depend upon what they returned.

There is no minor suit squeeze, as the opponents can safely throw diamonds - an extra diamond winner doesn't help you at all.

[lamford]

OK. I think that the best line is to throw a club on the top diamond and ruff a diamond. You now discover that East began with four diamonds (and two trumps). Now you run trumps and reach the ending with Kxx of clubs and a spade opposite AT of clubs and Kx of spades. You now play a spade from dummy. If East started with three clubs and the ace of spades he will have been squeezed so the ace of spades pops up. West is favourite to have three clubs, so when East follows low you should duck, playing for West to have been squeezed down to the bare ace of spades. You make it when West has three clubs and the ace of spades and when East does. It might also be quite hard as well for East to play the queen or jack of spades from AQ or AJ in the four-card ending. It shouldn't be ... but ...

And you can always play the king of spades in the ending, so you are no worse off.

[nige1]

 lamford, on 2021-October-18, 06:53, said:

OK. I think that the best line is to throw a club on the top diamond and ruff a diamond. You now discover that East began with four diamonds (and two trumps). Now you run trumps and reach the ending with Kxx of clubs and a spade opposite AT of clubs and Kx of spades. You now play a spade from dummy. If East started with three clubs and the ace of spades he will have been squeezed so the ace of spades pops up. West is favourite to have three clubs, so when East follows low you should duck, playing for West to have been squeezed down to the bare ace of spades. You make it when West has three clubs and the ace of spades and when East does. It might also be quite hard as well for East to play the queen or jack of spades from AQ or AJ in the four-card ending. It shouldn't be ... but ...And you can always play the king of spades in the ending, so you are no worse off.

A good line. Well spotted Paul. Paul also points out that there's no rush to lead a ♠. Paul seems right to play off ♦s first. Especially, from a psychological point of view.

Paul tells us that West has longer ♦s, so is why is he favourite to have longer ♣s, as well? Defenders are experts so WinstonM's idea still seems better. Because ♣T retains a significant role.

[lamford]

 nige1, on 2021-October-18, 08:52, said:

A good line. Well spotted Paul. Paul also points out that there's no rush to lead a ♠. Paul seems right to play off ♦s first. Especially, from a psychological point of view.

Paul tells us that West has longer ♦s, so is why is he favourite to have longer ♣s, as well? Defenders are experts so WinstonM's idea still seems better. Because ♣T retains a significant role.

East had the longer diamonds. West is both favourite to have longer clubs and to have the ace of spades, because he has more black cards. Only one more black card, but if he has the ace of spades, the only chance is that he has three clubs. If East does duck in the four card ending with ♠AQ ♣xx he is doing well. Board 11:

https://www.bridgeba...ch.php?id=72957

[Lovera]

As for the bidding S has superaccepted ♥ indicating the long a ♣. As for the game, Forrester is interested in having ♠ K winning because from ♣ he does not get more than two tricks unless W discards two ♣ and therefore tends to play for that hand by moving from dummy. Properly, the game adopted is an indirect or preliminary two-loser squeeze following the defense play.(Lovera)

[lamford]

 Lovera, on 2021-October-20, 02:45, said:

As for the bidding S has superaccepted ♥ indicating the long a ♣. As for the game, Forrester is interested in having ♠ K winning because from ♣ he does not get more than two tricks unless W discards two ♣ and therefore tends to play for that hand by moving from dummy. Properly, the game adopted is an indirect or preliminary two-loser squeeze following the defense play.(Lovera)

There is an interesting point that when East has five diamonds, you will make it playing the percentage of the strip squeeze on West. Unless West has the ace of spades and only two clubs when you cannot succeed. Forrester's line does succeed in the latter layout. And when East has only three diamonds, you will now play the percentage line of low to the king of spades, slightly odds on.

[Lovera]

 lamford, on 2021-October-20, 07:22, said:

There is an interesting point that when East has five diamonds, you will make it playing the percentage of the strip squeeze on West. Unless West has the ace of spades and only two clubs when you cannot succeed. Forrester's line does succeed in the latter layout. And when East has only three diamonds, you will now play the percentage line of low to the king of spades, slightly odds on.

So I want to say this: 1) the slight odds on is limited to the possibility that E puts the ♠A even if you play for A in W (remaining the goal of small versus small). 2) When in the plane of game (as the only resource) you choose because you see the possibility of actually making the squeeze (and this is my personal certainty) with good probability this plan will be realized most of the times to the satisfaction of both the part that realizes it and the one that proposed it as a gambling problem.

[lamford]

 Lovera, on 2021-October-20, 16:07, said:

So I want to say this: 1) the slight odds on is limited to the possibility that E puts the ♠A even if you play for A in W (remaining the goal of small versus small). 2) When in the plane of game (as the only resource) you choose because you see the possibility of actually making the squeeze (and this is my personal certainty) with good probability this plan will be realized most of the times to the satisfaction of both the part that realizes it and the one that proposed it as a gambling problem.

If East turns out to have five or six diamonds then the strip squeeze will not just be "slight odds on" but by far the best line, and will succeed when West has four clubs and the ace of spades.

[Lovera]

 lamford, on 2021-November-02, 06:57, said:

If East turns out to have five or six diamonds then the strip squeeze will not just be "slight odds on" but by far the best line, and will succeed when West has four clubs and the ace of spades.

This would have made the situation more evident to ♠ and ♣. Forrester played for the final elimination looking for the cut and discard that did not happen. But the situations of impasse (here expasse) are also indicative for an end-of-hand play such as squeeze or the elimination that solves the problem. It was a question of visualizing the final E2 or twin entry (simple squeeze) ending which however required the rectification of the count which could not be carried out and which therefore had to be delayed after the squeeze card had been played for the two losers delayed duck indicated.