bedtime mar2...I am here but can't replicate just now how i messed this "DARE" hand up.. only remember that I myself started diamonds too early , and at the last moment one opp gave the other a 
-ruff with the final trump that i was eager to draw 
hi; the shank of the evening march 4th, here...and I have just been wandering the iac forum areas i seldom click on. Noticed one very elegant post from summer 2018 [ie: JUST! before my time] by BillHiggins, in the IAC-Tourneys department. Please one of you long-timers tell me about him, if possible. He was to literate to have just swooped in and left us with no hoofprints to follow.
I remember the name Bill Higgibs and I am trying to recall whether I have laid against him in person or on BBO. At any rate, my recollections, vague as they are, match your impression of him as a someonewe we would like to see more of.
As to Bill's post, I wish O would have seen it earlier, I have some thoughts and an interchange could have been useful.
bill's full post is at
http://iac.pigpen.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=254.0, I will quote a part of it.
He says:
"Stay alert! Watch for a dummy holding
A Q 10. If you are declarer and need three entries while holding
K x x, take the finesse first. If you are defending and declarer plays the first round to the Q, be alert to the need to jam the works by rising J on the second round."
Definitely yes about the defense putting up the J to kill and entry. As to taking a first round finesse, I would day maybe so but it has to be clear. IN the case he cites, there was a 4-1 split in his trump suit and he needs three entries to bring in the trumps. But surely you only lead toward the T if you are sure you will need 3 entries.
This brings up something that I see as important: In playing the DARE hands I try very hard not to choose my line of play based on the fact that they are DARE hands. That is, O do not believe in saying (to myself): "Well, the hand is trivial of trumps are 3-2 but since this is a DARE surely they are not 3-2 and therefore I will take the finesse which will be the only way to make the hand of trumps are 4-1 and the J of the entry suit is on my left".
The hand I posted here, not a DARE hand, illustrates this point. I misplayed it. With proper reasoning I would have made it. The right way to play it does not depend on it being a DARE hand since it isn't a DARE hand, I just needed to think it through better. I need spades to be right, they are, so I will lose only two spades. I will surely lose a
, So I must play to lose no
tricks. It requires care but it can be done.
Since the point of my post was yo acknowledge my misplay, perhaps I can give a DARE hand that I payed right. I was not the only one to make it but I was the only one to play it in such a way that it could not be set.
75
62
J975
QT752
K94
AQJ9753
AK
A
You are playing in 4
, opponents passing throughout, The opening lead is the !c 4. The obvious danger is that you will lose three spades and a
and the natural solution is to ruff a
.
But how?
If you lead a small
then Rho can win and lead a
. If the
K is on your left you are pretty much doomed.
So don't lead a small
. Lead the
K. Maybe Lho has the A. Maybe he doesn't but maybe he does. And if he does then you are well on your way to making the contract.
I led the
K, won on my left, he returned a
, attacking my ability to ruff a
. I won and led another
.
I am not quite home yet. As it went. Lho won the second
and now if he leads another
I will lose three
and no
. If he leads anything else, as he did, I win, ruff a
, and lose two
and one
. (Lho started wit !h Kxx) If Lho had ducked the
then Rho wins, but he has not second
to lead. The opponents did what they could but as the cards lie nothing can be done.
The point is that this DARE hand is just like the one that started this thread. The logical line of play can be seen. The hand might make or might not make, both the DARE hand and my originally posted hand require considerable luck, but the way to take advantage of the good lie of the cards is not based on whether it is or is not a DARE hand.
