USA2

[kenberg]

oops oops and oops. I originally posted the wrong link, I will leave it be and also post the right one!

Thw wrong one:
http://tinyurl.com/ldbflpl


The right one:
http://tinyurl.com/mn2nt8k


My comment that was directed at what I now call "the right one""
Maybe Moss should have got this right, maybe not, but it's of interest to see that the forced ruff at trick 2 made it more difficult for him.  As mentioned, time is tight for the next several days so I'll leave it at that.

As to "the wrong one":   See "Challenging hand". I cleaned up the exposition there a bit.

[OliverC]

Not sure what you're getting at here, Ken. This link is for Katz/Nickell vs Platnick/Diamond, and there's zero chance of anyone being forced to ruff anything at trick 2 since nobody has a singleton  .


I think Declarer should always come to 10 tricks fairly comfortably here. Nickell's line looks fairly obvious: If EW don't attack trumps, Declarer comes to 3 red-suit ruffs in Dummy and all EW can ever come to are a Heart and the two sharp Aces. If EW do attack trumps, Declarer simply draws trumps and runs the Clubs for their 10 tricks. Difficult to see any defence that really gives Declarer a problem here, or how a competent Declarer can go wrong, but maybe the contract was different at Moss's table.

[kenberg]

Oh my. I somehow posted the wrong link Haste makes waste, etc. And I have edited this a bit, hopefully making it clearer.

Here is the one that I had in mind.

http://tinyurl.com/mn2nt8k

E declares in 6H. Yes, the long hearts are in dummy. The opening lead is  club.

The defense starts with two rounds of clubs, even though the singleton club is in the dummy. Moss ruffs and after a fair amount of thought decides to establish dummy's diamonds.
The good news is that he succeeds. The bad news is that as he brings down the diamond Q, establishing dummy's diamonds, he is in his hand.


After 8 tricks:

Dummy now holds
Hearts: AJ7
Diamonds: T9

In his hand he has
Spades: AK9
Hearts: Q
Clubs:4

The opponents still hold all of their hearts (four of them).

Moss plays the heart Q, bringing down the 5 on his left and the T on his right.  As a side note, Restricted Choice does not really apply here. The heart ten not only could be from T9, it also could be from T2.

So Moss must decide. If clubs started 2-2 Moss can now ruff a black card to the board with the J, draw the remaining trumps with the A, cash the diamonds.  That's what he tried, down 1 since Greco, South, had both the remaining hearts. What he had to do was to cash he AK of spades, throwing his established diamonds.

Of course either could have been right, but the interesting feature is that after establishing his diamonds the winning play is to throw them away under the AK of spades!


Hampson took a bit of time at T2. One of the commentators figured he would lead a heart. If so, declarer can establish the diamonds: Win in hand, diamond to A, ruff a D in hand, spade back to the board, ruff another D. Assuming N pitches a spade on this D, declarer has to hope he started with three. But given that, he ruffs a spade back to the board, ruffs a D, establishing the D winners in dummy, and leads a club. This should work if Ds are 3-3,  and if N has only two diamonds providing he has three spades.       The forced  early club ruff makes this tougher. Very, very clever! Early on a commentator said that any reasonable line would work. maybe so, but the Hampson defense offered a chance to go wrong.

Remark: Of course these hands are hard. They are hands from the USBC and the players there had trouble with them. the point here is definitely not to explain to far better players what I think they should have done. Rather the is to stretch the mind. I first read about squeezes long ago in a chapter in Goren. As I recall, my reaction is "who cares?".  Wrong, I now think. For just abut anyone, there a ways to extend our ability to think about hands. Everyone gets it wrong sometimes, but the fun is in discovering what would have worked and then in deciding whether that line was simply luck or maybe should have been thought of.

[OliverC]

Tough hand, as you say, Ken. The discard of the 8!S by Hampson under the Jack of Diamonds and the false card of the J on the 2nd round of the suit was a brilliant deception and doubtless convinced Moss that North was 3226 to start with. It would certainly have deceived me had I been playing East.


The only thing that might give me pause for thought was wondering whether North would risk a 3 overcall with so many losers and no real shape. If North had a singleton heart and was perhaps hoping Partner might have fewer Spades than they actually had, they'd perhaps be more likely to come in with 3 against Opps already in a game-forcing auction.


Even so, I'd still likely have fallen for Hampson's deception, putting him with 109.


Super hand. I think it's utterly clear that Hampson was pretty much playing this double-dummy after trick 1 (East's hand was pretty much an open book, after all) and so was able to predict how Moss would likely play the hand, and in turn forsaw the end position early on. All credit to him, IMHO.