Hi
I previously posted board 3 of the second half, my message being that I should have made it.
Board 4 of the first half is a different story. Double dummy I can make my 5
contract (Gib says so and can Gib ever be wrong?) but even DD it takes a bit to see how.
The hands:
AKJ4
842
AQT743
void
Q86 T97532
Q9653 7
KJ85 2
T AQ643
void
AKJT
96
KJ98752
I decided not to rotate the hands since you might want to compare with other tables. N is declared in 5
.
I will get to the bidding later, right now I want to look at double dummy play on the lead of the
7
We need 11 tricks. Where from? Well, five tricks in
, one
ruff, three top
after the ruff, two
tricks, that makes 11. But if we use a trump in dummy ruffing a
, how do we bring in 5 trump tricks?
Oh. A trump coup. Of course
T1 Win on the board
T2 lead a
, cover whatever W plays. Say it goes 6.8,T
T3,4,5
A,K,4, throwing two clubs and ruffing the 4
T6 small
from table, ruffed in hand
T7
to the board.
T8 Another
. We could hope W ruffs and we overruff, but W is not that helpful. So he tosses a
since that's his only other choice. Weruff
We have the first 8 tricks, we need 3 more. Let's look at what is left.
J
8
AQ7
void
T97
Q9
KJ5
AQ
void
JT
KJ9
N is on lead.
T9 lead a
W wins and must lead. The choices are ugly. Presumably he leads a !G. We ruff for the 9th trick. We lead the
. W ruffs (no choice) and is on lead We get the
A and Q for 11 tricks. Note that it doesn't matter whether the
J is the highest remaining
. This is, I guess, a repeating coup.
Thihs appears to work. I think.
If I could find that line at the table I could make a lot of money. Until I was caught peeking. Actually, peeking wouldn't help unless I am given an hour or so to figure how to make use of it.
5
is easier double dummy. Declarer, noting the stiff
T, plans to establish clubs by leading the K and then, when next in hand, the J E gets his AQ, that's it. And I guess 3NT makes, also be establishing clubs. Establishing Ds won't work so well since after they are established you can't get there.
Bidding: I opened 1
, E bid 2
and S bid 3
. Even with 7-4 I probably would have made a negative double as S. It could get interesting after that if W bids 3
. In theory the defense gets 2 red aces, a club ruff and the AKJ of spades for down 2. And maybe S gets an eventual club trick. He can't ruff them all away. I have not thought through just what ha[[ens against a spade contract by E with optimal NS defense.
EW really do not want to play this in spades. or in clubs. NS can actually make something although it's very double dummy to make game. EW can't make anything.
Added: I don't know if I have ever seen this double use of the trump coup before. It depends on spades being 6-3, reasonable on the auction we had, and on W having at least four hearts including the Q, also reasonable on the auction and the lead. But it also depends on diamonds being 4-1 with W holding the K and J. It doesn't depend on the clubs being as distorted as they are. Eg 3-3 clubs, and thus 3-3 hearts will be fine. And we don't care which three spades W has.
It's the
split that is hard to assume. Not impossible though.
Of course when you run the
finesse you should lead the 9 from the board, not the 6, in case E has the stiff 8. I was just doing full DD when running the 9. Probably the 9 will not be covered by the J since W can reason that if E has the T there is no need to cover and if N has the T there is no purpose in covering.
Taking a specific case:
AKJ4
842
AQT743
void
T86 Q97532
Q65 973
KJ85 2
AT3 Q64
void
AKJT
96
KJ98752
We suppose the lead is still the
7 (2nd from spots)
We proceed as before and after 8 tricks we have:
J
8
AQT
void
Q97
Q 9
KJ8
A Q
void
JT
KJ9
Just as before we lead the
from hand and W is in. He can give us our first
trick of this end position by leading a
, we take it and get out with the
, not carding who wins, or W can lead the
A, we ruff, and get out with the
not caring who wins.
So we get all 6 of the
s in our hand, the top 2
s, the top 2
s, and one ruff. 6+2+2+1=11.
It seems to me that the main issue is to bet that E has a stiff
that is not the K or J. That's a tough thing to rely on. But once we decide to play on that assumption, the rest falls into place. I just needed to tell the opponents that I needed to think about the hand for a day or two before playing it.