This came from the usbc finals


http://tinyurl.com/ldbflpl



Clearly 5C and 3NT would both fail on a heart lead. Not surprisingly, the result in the other room was a club part score. The 4S contract here takes a bit of luck. But spades are 3-3 and the diamond Ace is onside, so maybe it comes in. It did. I can imagine Brian Platnick having a sleepless night or two trying to see if he should have found the winning defense.

I am not crazy, I don't think Brian will be seeking my advice. I want to see if one line of thought strikes anyone as plausible:
If declarer has five spades, this might well be hopeless so give him a strong four card holding such as he has. This means partner has three spades. This could be useful in keeping declarer from making use of his clubs since partner could ruff the third round. That's providing we keep declarer from drawing trump. It's a bit tricky, but it seems we can do this. As Gib says, we switch to a D, the J or  the 9, at trick 2. But there is still some serious thinking to be done. I think I see it.

Bridge is an interesting game. 4S is a pretty bad contract when just looking at the NS cards. But it's the only game contract with a shot, and it came in.

Comment: Judging from the lack of participation in the sleight of hand forum I gather I am about the only nut that finds such things interesting. But I do. Oliver, I thought it a really good idea. 

Curls suggests below that I continue posting, and probably I will, but I really think that if all this forum generates is a bunch of posts by me then we are passing up an opportunity. I am a strong believer in conversation.

  The hand below came up in the round of 16 in the USBC. All tema play the same hands so this was played 8 times with a variety of results.   In many ways it's an everyday hand, so I thought people might like to imagine how it might go when playing in IAC with their favorite partner.

I imagine E and S pass, but how about W? Some bid 1S, some not. Some waited and came in artificially after N bid 1NT followed by two passes. This had the effect of making E the declarer in 2S. At some tables there were 3 passes, a bid of 1NT, and 3 more passes.   

At one table W bid a third seat 1S, N bid 1NT, and E, apparently thinking his partner actually had something, doubled 1NT and then led a spade.  N won, dropped the singleton K of hearts, went to the board and finessed the spade to establish 8 tricks in 1NTX. But he then got greedy and took the D finesse so he ended up with only 7 tricks. Still a good result of course .

There were various comments on the vugraph show at the various tables. It's amusing that NS have a heart fit and EW have a club fit, but it was never played in either hearts or clubs.    I don't think EW would do well in clubs. NS might do ok in hearts, as long as they stay out of 4. At the table I watched they broke even: 1NT +90 for NS at one table, 2S off 1, +100 for NS at the other. Yes, NS can take the first 7 tricks against 2S, but they didn't.
At another table, N played 1NT, E led a diamond at trick 1, N was (for the moment) grateful  to be on the board, and ran a heart losing to the stiff K.

There have been many great hands, of course. It was interesting here to see the variety of approaches on the same hand.

	E deals, EW vul
	AKT AT92 AJ43 74
QJ862 8643 2 AQ5		75 K KT865 KT862
	943  QJ75 Q97 J63

Hi all,

I am often cautious, and of course this has good points and bad.

Last night I joined Oliver's presentation of defense against Pecision. Sonya provided a link to an audio site. I clicked on it and I thought I had opened it but I did not get any audio. Anyway, I was looking at it today and thinking of installing whatever it is that has to be installed. This is where the caution comes on.

See
https://www.enigmasoftware.com/myradioaccesstoolbar-removal/
and
https://www.pcrisk.com/removal-guides/9248-myradioaccess-toolbar


Since I never got the audio going I am not sure if there was an audio part to the presentation or not. I am uncertain just what to do, I generally go with caution on web things. I know I miss out sometimes, but otoh I have never been hacked. On occasion I have had some slightly weird things go on, but not so severe that I couldn't cope.

Anyway, I am asking what the experience of others has been with this site.

Or maybe I somehow I ended up at some weird site all on my own? This can happen.

 Live and learn! I did some carriage returns in the url links, and it made a mess of the hands. I had not noticed this, but now I think I have it right.

I will edit this more later.

I thought there were several points of interest. Mostly I will look at the play. In my opinion, far too much time is spent looking at bidding, too little looking at play.

You are in 3NT, bidding not shown.


http://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?sn= &s=SAHQT3DAK82CAK865&nn=&n=SQJ765H854DQJC972&d=n&v=b&b=7&



This could be a challenge.

Now with the bidding:

http://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?sn=&s=SAHQT3DAK82CAK865&nn=&n=SQJ765H854DQJC972&d=n&v=b&b=7&a=PP1CP1SP2NP3SP3NPPP&


After 1C-1S I would have reversed into diamonds. But the final contract will probably still be 3NT.


Now with the opening lead
Heart 2,4,7,T

Claim. Ok, not quite. But assume the hearts were dealt as 4-3. This is indicated by the lead of the 2. Also. if the lead were from AKJ92 then W might have bid 1H over 1C on the first round of bidding. Anyway, people get dealt 4 card suits more often than 5 card suits. All in all, it is reasonable to expect hearts were dealt 4-3. So assume neither opponent started with five hearts.  Now we can establish nine tricks:
The play:
Heart to the T on the lead
Ace of spades
Small diamond to board
Queen of spades

You have now established 9 tricks: 2 spades, 1 heart, 4 diamonds, 2 clubs. 2+1+4+2=9.
They have taken 1 spade and unless the hearts were originally 5-2 they can take only three more hearts.


West's holding included the AKJ2 of hearts. Leading the 2 would be right if East held Qx, but perhaps on the bidding it is more likely that the Q is with South (as it was).

Suppose W starts with the heart K and gets a discouraging card from E. A shift to the spade T  will set this, or it might. The plan is to get to East's spade K and have a heart come through.

There are two ways declarer  might survive after the heart K is led. W will switch, but might switch a diamond instead of a spade. Or, if he plays the spade Ten at trick 2 declarer could cover and hope East errs by playing the K.  Let's assume the latter. So:
King of hearts at T1
Spade TJKA at T2.
Are we home yet? No, not really.  We now have 2+0+4+2=8 tricks in plain sight. We need another. This can only come from clubs. So we want to duck a club. But if E wins the club, a heart through will give the defenders one club and four hearts for down one.

A little bit of avoidance play is needed.
 
Go to the board with a diamond and lead a club, If E plays the 3 or 4, play the 8. If instead E plays the   Q, J or T, go up, return to the board with the other diamond, and lead another club. As the cards lie, this works out.

Let's look at all four hands.


http://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?sn= &s=SAHQT3DAK82CAK865&wn=&w=ST983HAKJ2D764CJ4&nn=&n=SQJ765H854DQJC972&en=&e=SK42H976DT953CQT3&d=n&v=b&b=7&a=PP1CP1SP2NP3SP3NPPP&

As you can see, to beat 3NT we have to get E in with a spade.
Heart K
Spade T, E playing signaling encouragement but not covering the Q/J if played.
I would say this is a pretty tough defense to find.
Which is not to say that, looking just at the NS hands you want to be in 3NT.


The bidding. If I were playing NS with my clone it would begin
1C-1S
2D-2H

The 2D call shows five clubs and four diamonds, and a big hand.
The 2H is a sort of Lebensohl bid, potentially showing a weak hand.

After this, S has more than s/he has yet shown. A 2NT call can now be passed. This is a matter of judgment. I suspect I would bid 3NT, based n the extra strength and on the ten of hearts. They can beat this, but it is not what I would call obvious and so this might come in.

Summary:

After the lead of the small heart, the hand can be made, and the winning line is, I think, pretty clear.

The hand can be defeated, but the defense is not obvious.

If W starts with the heart K and then either plays a diamond or if it goes spade TJKA, then the hand can be made by ducking a club, but care must be taken to make sure the club iis ducked to W.



Some points where agreement is needed:

If W at trick 1 is to lead a high heart, I believe the broad consensus is that the lead of the A would ask E to drop the Q if s/he has it and to show count otherwise, while the lead of the K asks E to encourage with a high honor (but not to drop it). I believe some people reverse these agreements.

After the reverse sequence 1C-1S-2D, most play the 1C-1S-2D-2H call as artificial, indicating a hand the is usually not interested in pursuing game and that 1C-1S-2D-2S is forcing,  shows a fifth spade, and might or might not have extra values.
 
 

I am really happy to see this forum. I have long thought it would be useful to have a place where we can discuss problems that arise.  Frequently we are unsure of what partner intends.

Yleexotee has recently written up a spreadsheet on suggested default agreements. His choices are not always the choices I would make, but nonetheless I can happily play them with the benefit that everyone is on the same page. 
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jO2sp_kWS5DJRveNIEZ0HNprxDUyzTcNgsd1ex-A-9U/edit#gid=864562715
I really advocate looking through this. Of course everyone can play what they want, but often neither partner is quite sure what they are playing.
 
I will give two examples from recent play.

Here is something that came up in Hoki's tourney today (April 5).

The deal is on my left, I hold

JT98
KQ
A762
Q82

We are vul, if it matters.

The bidding begins
Pass 1S  Pass ?
Ok, this is worth a limit raise to 3S.
BUT
Perhaps partner will take 1S-3S as Bergen?
I solved the problem by borrowing a point or so and bidding a Jacoby 2NT.
All was well, 4S making.

This happens often.

Here is a hand from the other day:
This time I am in third seat, everyone vul.

AKQ843
54
JT
A74

 P     P    1S    P
3D   P     ?

Ok, we have agreed to play Bergen. But by a passed hand? Well, what else could 3D be? But reverse Bergen or straight Bergen? Well, I should have a good shot at 4S no matter which, so I bid it. Making 5.

There was some friendly discussion after this one. Partner, yleexotee, had only three spades but just under an opening bid and we had not had enough discussion for him to be sure what I would take as what. So, in much the same way as I did in the first hand above, he took a practical approach.  BillHiggins, a kib, commented that many use Drury. I do so myself, but I know the coyote doesn't.

Comment: Whatever the relative merits of Bergen, or Drury, or neither after a third hand opening, clearly you do not want to be using both Bergen and Reverse Drury. If you do, then after a third hand 1S, the calls of 2C, 2D, 3C, 3D all show spades. That's overkill. So choices have to be made. And it's best if we agree.

The two examples that I gave above worked out fine. But sometimes the confusion is insurmountable.

So I am thanking Joe (ylee...) for writing his document and I am  suggesting that people consider using it as as a default when there has been no opportunity for discussion. I'm not fond of Bergen, I like Drury, I am ok with either, but what I really like is to know which one, if either, we are playing. And when. On over a double, for example?

Again I am really glad to see this Forum and I hope we can have many productive discussions.


Enjoy
Ken