[dburn]

Scoring: Rubber

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North, Zia, opens 1♦, you bid 1♥, he bids 1NT (12-14). Having noticed that he does this with a four-card spade suit, you (not playing checkback, which is disallowed at rubber bridge) bid 2♠ (forcing for one round). He bids 4♥ (the man ain't got no culture), and the lead is ♣Q to the ace, king (RHO is Robert Sheehan, LHO is not quite so distinguished a performer) and you play a card of your choice.

Avoid being shouted at.

[pooltuna]

dburn, on Dec 16 2009, 07:08 PM, said:

Dealer: North Vul: None Scoring: Rubber

♠ K6 ♥ QJ10 ♦ QJ973 ♣ A54 ♠ A872 ♥ AK54 ♦ 2 ♣ 10732

North, Zia, opens 1♦, you bid 1♥, he bids 1NT (12-14). Having noticed that he does this with a four-card spade suit, you (not playing checkback, which is disallowed at rubber bridge) bid 2♠ (forcing for one round). He bids 4♥ (the man ain't got no culture), and the lead is ♣Q to the ace, king (RHO is Robert Sheehan, LHO is not quite so distinguished a performer) and you play a card of your choice.

Avoid being shouted at.

seems simple enough I play the 3♣

[lamford]

The card I think is definitely wrong is the 10. Surely South's choice of club would make a good basis for a poll?

[dburn]

Well, you can play the three or the two or the seven or (if you like) the ten. That isn't actually the problem, which is to avoid being shouted at from trick two onwards. Apologies for lack of clarity.

[lamford]

And I was just buying time. I would have ducked the opening lead, playing West for something like Qxx xxx HTx QJ9x, when ducking is essential. Now I can win the second club in dummy and lead a top diamond. Say East wins and plays a trump - as good as any; then I can win in dummy, ruff a diamond high, cross to the king of spades and ruff another diamond high. Now I cross to a top heart and I am home.

However, if I win with the ace of clubs and try the same tack, East can win the first diamond, put his partner in with the jack of clubs, having carefully unblocked the king on the first round, and West can play another club on which East pitches a diamond and a fourth club tapping the dummy.

So is the answer that I can no longer avoid being shouted at?

[maggieb]

I would have ducked the club at trick 1, but now I would play a spade to my ace and a diamond towards dummy, playing for Hxx of diamonds on the left and 3-3 hearts (and for clubs to be blocked).

[TimG]

I would definitely have raised NT and let Zia play the hand.

[Jlall]

TimG, on Dec 16 2009, 09:07 PM, said:

I would definitely have raised NT and let Zia play the hand.

If you just bid 2N then at rubber bridge they might X 3N a lot on the auction if stuff doesn't break/lie well. But your hearts are pretty good so that lessens the likelihood of it since LHOs double would ask for a heart lead.

Still, something to be said for just bidding 3N.

[gnasher]

I'm going to start working on my defence to the shouting. Why did he insist on playing five-card majors in a game where you're not allowed either negative doubles or Checkback?

[mcphee]

Looks like after winning C ace, S to ace and D from hand. This gives me a shot to set up D. Especially if this player is anxious to give sheenan a C ruff.

[lamford]

I don't think this works unless West has something like Txx of diamonds. If West has ♦ Hxx or ♦ HTx; he will duck and then East wins and returns a club. Even with hearts 3-3 now you fail, as West will play three more rounds of clubs, and there is no winning line. If East has AKxx of diamonds this defence does not work, as declarer can either cross-ruff the hand, or score both his small trumps. However, I can see no benefit in not ducking the initial club, unless East has a singleton king of course.

[mcphee]

You do not have enough tricks unless you can bring in D unless you can score all trumps. I doubt your rho will permit that. I see some light if rho holds short C and 3 trumps making LHO 2-3-3-5 rho 5-3-4-1. This layout looks to be a very reasonable hope. Honor 3rd D with LHO I think we have excellent chances.

[wclass___]

mcphee, on Dec 18 2009, 08:30 AM, said:

You do not have enough tricks unless you can bring in D unless you can score all trumps. I doubt your rho will permit that. I see some light if rho holds short C and 3 trumps making LHO 2-3-3-5 rho 5-3-4-1. This layout looks to be a very reasonable hope. Honor 3rd D with LHO I think we have excellent chances.

Agree

[gnasher]

wclass___, on Dec 18 2009, 06:54 PM, said:

mcphee, on Dec 18 2009, 08:30 AM, said:

You do not have enough tricks unless you can bring in D unless you can score all trumps. I doubt your rho will permit that. I see some light if rho holds short C and 3 trumps making LHO 2-3-3-5  rho 5-3-4-1. This layout looks to be a very reasonable hope. Honor 3rd D with LHO I think we have excellent chances.

Agree

If we play this line, how do we make Zia shout at us? We could be very careless and allow ♠K to get ruffed, but I doubt if that's the reason the hand was posted here.

[wclass___]

gnasher, on Dec 18 2009, 01:26 PM, said:

wclass___, on Dec 18 2009, 06:54 PM, said:

mcphee, on Dec 18 2009, 08:30 AM, said:

You do not have enough tricks unless you can bring in D unless you can score all trumps. I doubt your rho will permit that. I see some light if rho holds short C and 3 trumps making LHO 2-3-3-5  rho 5-3-4-1. This layout looks to be a very reasonable hope. Honor 3rd D with LHO I think we have excellent chances.

Agree

If we play this line, how do we make Zia shout at us? We could be very careless and allow ♠K to get ruffed, but I doubt if that's the reason the hand was posted here.

What line? I don't see any line in that quote. I agreed that we should play for a layout he is giving.

[gnasher]

If you read mcphee's earlier post, you will find that he plans to:
- Win ♣A
- Cross to ♠A
- Lead a diamond
- Either score all his trumps (which requires a non-trump return), or set up diamonds (playing for LHO to hold ♦Hxx with hearts 3-3)

That's the line I referred to.

[lamford]

dburn, on Dec 16 2009, 07:08 PM, said:

Avoid being shouted at.

I've got it; we turn up our hearing aid to maximum.

[mcphee]

I do not know what happens next as we are not sure who wins the trick. However if the hand is as I hope, also other chances, and LHO wins the trick he might cash his C establishing the 10. If RHO wins and has no C he pops down a trump or a S next and we go about our plan to work on D.

[gnasher]

mcphee, on Dec 19 2009, 03:15 PM, said:

I do not know what happens next as we are not sure who wins the trick. However if the hand is as I hope, also other chances, and LHO wins the trick he might cash his C establishing the 10. If RHO wins and has no C he pops down a trump or a S next and we go about our plan to work on D.

Sorry, I thought you'd worked out a complete plan. This plan, to be precise:

- If RHO wins and plays a trump: win in dummy, ruff a diamond high, spade to dummy, ruff a diamond high, trump to dummy.
- If LHO wins and plays a trump: win in dummy, take a ruffing finesse in diamonds, then either cash ♠K and crossruff or set up diamonds similarly to above.
- If somebody wins and plays a spade, follow the same plan, but using the extra trump entry instead of ♠K.

I don't know who LHO was, but it's possible to be less distinguished than Sheehan and still not be completely hopeless. I think it's optimistic to hope that he'll cash ♣J (or that he'll win the diamond from Hxx, for that matter).

Lamford said:

If West has ♦ Hxx or ♦ HTx; he will duck and then East wins and returns a club. Even with hearts 3-3 now you fail, as West will play three more rounds of clubs, and there is no winning line.

If West turns out to be 3334, aren't we still OK? If East wins the diamond and they play three more rounds of clubs, I ruff, ruff a diamond, play a spade to dummy, ruff a diamond, and cross-ruff high.

[lamford]

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