IAC Forums
Chew the Fat! => Sleight of Hand => Topic started by: blubayou on November 03, 2021, 10:49:21 PM
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,Here is Deal 6 from Nov. 1st DARE session. The winning plan was to play out 10 tricks catching the victim, East baring her diamond K which she then wins, to play into the dummy's J-9 of HEARTS. But must this work?,
Q96
J9xx
JT52 AQ3 3
2 A63 ATxxxx
T987 KJ2
9842 QJT
AK87x
KQ
xxx
K75
The play starts with the heart K-Q wiped out and a diamond shift through the AQ. No choice but to rise in dummy and pull trumps. Another trump where dummy dumps one club leaves 6 cards where dummy and west will both have 3 doubletons:
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J9
Qx
Ax ---
10 x
K J
x QJ
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xx
Kxx
The play we all missed, and I failed to be present to be shown is to unguard the diamond queen on the final trump. We were never intending to WIN the diamond queen, but to throw East in with it anyway! (unless East ditches all of his, to keep QJT of clubs ). Now all that is left is to take her 2 minor cards away arriving at trick ten which leaves East the known heart 10-x and the presumed diamond king and give her the diamond.
Drat. Foiled again- declarer cannot be beaten. But SOMEDAY i will catch AngelBlue in a mistake.
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It's an interesting hand. E had opened 1H on his or her (or I guess their) 11 count and stiff spade. Very reasonable and anyway it was stipulated by the problem. This does two things. It allows declarer to place all of the high cards, and it prompts the lead of the stiff heart and subsequent ruff. W is getting one spade trick even without a ruff and is not getting tow sped tricks as long as declarer hops up with the diamond A when Wleads the T at T3.
And yes, as you note, the plan then is to come down to the heart J9 and the diamond Q, and for the lead at T11 to be on the board. If after 7 tricks declare plays two rounds of clubs and then the last trump, then he has no entry to the board so E tosses a heart under the trump, saving the diamond KJ.
On a diamond lead at T1, the hand goes down, losing one spade, one heart and two diamonds. Without the opening 1H call by E, possibly W might choose a D lead. He knows he is getting a spade, or at least he is pretty confident of this when holding JTxx, so he might well decide not to seek a ruff when the T987 in diamonds looks like a nice safe lead.
In playing these Dare hands I try hard not to think "Oh, this is a Dare hand, so of course I have to do something unusual". I would rather that they did not have announced themes. A hand is a hand. But that's just me. I need to think about the hand rather than think about what the hand is illustrating.
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After posting, I said to my self "That was a little bit of WORK'" and in fact I did butcher it in the dare event. But it's duck soup when you do arrive at the coupe de gras position. How easier to just look at our plan from the other end of the telescope?!--"How nice if we can play out ten tricks leaving dummy with !H J9, !D Q, and be able to lead that Q at that point." I will be looking forward to analyzing what looks like a strip-squeeze this way around in the future.