Amusement

[kenberg]

Most hands are interesting, some are amusing.

    K983
  A964
  7643
  3


Dealer, on your right, passes, and of course you pass. Things heat up:
1!D  on y=your left, 2 by partner, pass on your right, you pass.
LHO doubles, two more passes.

Red against White, but partner tends to be optimistic with is overcalls.

I chose XX. For rescue. I hope.

Pass on my left, partner bids 2 , double on my right.

Well, that might well be natural. I pass, two more passes,partner will be  playing 2 X.


The  J is led, I put down dummy, I will now crawl around to partners hand. Here is what partner saw:

Dummy:

    K983
  A964
  7643
  3

 Partner:
  J2
  Q2
  KQ52
  AQ754


Could be worse. It gets better.  The J is taken by the A on declarer's right, the 9 comes back, partner puts up the K and sees LHO follow with the T. The opponents tend to fly straight, so this shows the exact shape. The 1 was on a 4=4=3=2 shape, giving her partner 3=3=2=5. It all fits. Moreover, they are playing a 15-17 no trump, so the 1 was on 12-14.  That's quite a bit of info to have after two tricks.

Partner ended up down 1 for an average (!) board.  I have no quarrel with that, but with the right choices it can be made. These right choices do not seem obvious to me.

[OliverC]

Interesting hand, Ken.
I think I'd be playing for something like the following layout after trick 2.

                K983
                A964
                76
                3
10xx                            AQxx
xxx                              KJxx
                                    x
KJxxx                          xx
                J2
                Q2
                K5
                AQ754

The critical card to play for is the 10 with West. There's a zero chance of getting two Club ruffs in, so I'm not going to lose a tempo by even trying for that. My plan is to run the Jack of Spades at trick 3. All East can do is to exit with their last Diamond and I just finesse the 9 against West (If they lead a Club instead, I'm taking  my Ace, ruffing a Club, drawing East's last trump and then finessing the 9 . East is now endplayed to give me my two Spade tricks in Dummy and an easy exit with a Heart). If East does play their last Diamond at trick 4, my plan is to carry on attacking the Spades. Either way I'll eventually come to two Spades, 4 Diamonds, the Ace of Clubs and a Heart, losing just 2 Spades and one trick in each of the other suits.

It doesn't really matter where the Queen of Spades is. The critical card is the 10 so I have to play on the assumption that that is onside. Since West will surely have the K , East is pretty well marked with the K and AQ to go with their Ace of Diamonds. If that is the case, there's no way we can ever prevent East from drawing a 3rd round of trumps, so rather than trying to get two Club ruffs in, concentrate on developing two Spade tricks instead and saving my Club ruff for later in the hand.

That's my two cents worth, anyway.

[kenberg]

Yes. I decided to not include what works partly because it was bedtime, partly because it is interesting. The spade holding on the board has potential. If the  ten is to declarer's left, then the hand can probably be made against almost any lie of the cards. At T3 declarer could lead a small but the J is probably better. It loses to the Q. But now a small spade is led.toward the board and, as you say, it doesn't all that much matter where the A is, as long as the Ten is in the slot. As it happens LHO started with ATx. This means both the heat K and the club K are well placed, and there might even be an overtrick.  But at any rate it makes, and it also makes if LHO started with Txx. Declarer will take two spades, a heart, a club, and 3+1 diamonds (three diamonds in hand plus a ruff). That's 8. 

It's an exciting hand and there was a lot to think about, but on reflection I think playing LHO for the  T makes sense. We know the exact  shape, and we should be able to develop two spades that way.

[OliverC]

. So the King of Clubs is onside? ROFL.


Hardly a problem hand if RHO has Kx, then, because the King of Clubs is coming down whenever I eventually decide to ruff a Club, let alone if I decide to take the Club finesse. On the other hand, if West shows up with the Ace of Spades (another reason for attacking the Spades early, to find out), then it's easy enough to place East with the King of Clubs (or they've hardly got an opening hand).


Just out of interest, how did Declarer manage to go off on that layout at the table? Even losing 3 Spades, a Diamond and a Heart, they should still come to 8 tricks via 1 Spade, 3 Diamonds, 1 Heart, 2 Clubs and a Club ruff

[kenberg]

Timing.

After  J to the A and  9 back to the K and J, he played  A and ruffed a  , dropping the K. He is now on the board, not a great place to be. Probably his best move is to come to his hand in trumps  and lead the  J. W ducks, E wins the Q but leads what? She has only spades and hearts left. A heart lead gives declarer the Q, a spade lead sets up a spade trick. But he came off dummy with a heart instead of a diamond, E rose with the K and led a diamond.  Ok, his heart Q is now good, cashing it strands the A. Maybe he can get there in spades. He cashed the heart Q and led a spade. But now he had better try the A, and he didn't. E took the Q, and led a spade to W's A.     Dummy has a good heart and a good spade, but dummy has no trump and declarer has no hearts or spades. W leads a club, and waits to cash the rest of his clubs. Declarer got no spades, one heart, four diamonds including the ruff  of the club, and the AQ of clubs. Not enough.  I could be wrong on a detail pr two, I did not take notes, but this is essentially what happened.

Timing is a big deal here, as it often is. I think the first thing is to see that the play to the first two tricks establishes the exact distribution of the hands, unless the opponents are fooling around. They usually aren't, and they weren't. A lot follows from that.   We need to establish some  tricks in hearts or spades, and then we need to be able to get there. The club ruff can wait.


I am, as I have said, always more interested in finding my own errors than I am in finding partner's. But the hand is interesting.

 

[OliverC]

Yes Indeed. Timing is everything.


Attacking the Spades at trick 3 (Jack or small, doesn't really matter) is the way to go. Taking the Club ruff early is absolutely wrong, because it uses up that precious extra entry to Dummy. I prefer the Spade Jack at trick 3, because it encourages a cover by West if they have the Queen, but as long as West has the Queen or 10, you're pretty much home and dry. West having A10x is a bonus, because if the first Spade loses to East's Queen, West is pretty much obliged to rise with the Ace on the second Spade or risk losing it entirely when Declarer ruffs the third round of the suit.