[rhm]

Phil, on 2015-July-07, 09:41, said:

Maybe I'm having a blind spot this morning, but I see nothing wrong with:

1. Duck the spade
2. Win the spade.
3-4. ♣A-Q
5. Presumably a club exit.
6. ♥K...

This seems to work fine on the actual layout, as well as ♥Ax(x) with RHO.

When we duck the first spade, the danger suit here isn't spades, its a diamond shift from LHO which threatens to set up 1♠ + 2♥ + 1♦ + 1♣. LHO could have the ♣K but its not likely he has the ♥A. As long as we drive out the ♥A/♣K before the ♥J I think we are OK.

Keeping the spade tenace is an illusion. Helgemo makes if he ducks (I think).

On the actual layout this is true.
Let's check on different layouts:

1. Duck the spade
2. Win the spade.
3-4. ♣A-Q

Assume West has a low singleton club and East ducks.
How do you continue?

If you continue clubs, East cashes his two club winners and plays ♥A, small heart from ♥Ax.
Nige's layout above:

---

If you instead switch to a high heart at trick five East wins and returns a low heart.
(Assume East has 2♠=3♥=4♦=4♣ with West holding the ♥J)

The point is not the spade tenace.
The point is that spades are very likely 5-2, in particular if clubs do not break.
In many layouts you can not afford to loose a spade trick.
The defense might get 1 spade, 2 hearts and 2 club tricks.

Rainer Herrmann

[Phil]

mikeh, on 2015-July-07, 10:29, said:

consider your line when East has either

1. Qx Axx KJxx K10xx or Qx Ax KJxxx K10xx

RHO simply ducks the club Q if you tackle clubs by laying down the A and the Q. If you now switch to the heart K, he wins and leads a heart back. If you lead a low heart, LHO wins the J and leads a diamond. In either case, you lose 2 hearts, one diamond, one club and that spade you ducked....and of course if you lose 2 clubs, you are going to need the heart J to be doubleton.

I think you are cold on either layout if you win the 1st spade and play a low heart.

I think you are right about my line (ducking the spade) leads to demise, however the ♣Q (instead of the Ace) is an interesting continuation.

On your line with these layouts, LHO hops J and plays a diamond.

Ducking the diamond is pretty hopeless but if you win...

and hook a club, exit heart, win spade, you have 4 black suit tricks, 3 hearts and one diamond. You cannot set up clubs without losing 2♣, 2♥, 1♦ so this fails.

With RHO being 2=2=5=4, it gets interesting. I suppose you can cash the 2nd spade and put RHO in with a heart who only has only diamonds left.

When RHO is 2=3=4=4, you have to guess between that (duck a club RHO has to give you an entry or a free club hook) and 2=3=5=3 (simply knock out the club).


However, winning the spade and playing a low heart leads to the 9 fails against a pretty mundane layout when RHO holds Qx AJx KJxxx xxx and similar hands.

[mikeh]

Phil, on 2015-July-07, 11:51, said:

I think you are right about my line (ducking the spade) leads to demise, however the ♣Q (instead of the Ace) is an interesting continuation.

On your line with these layouts, LHO hops J and plays a diamond.

Ducking the diamond is pretty hopeless but if you win...

and hook a club, exit heart, win spade, you have 4 black suit tricks, 3 hearts and one diamond. You cannot set up clubs without losing 2♣, 2♥, 1♦ so this fails.

we pop the diamond Ace, hook the club, drive out the heart, win the spade, cash the hearts. We have played 2 spades, 5 hearts, 1 club and 1 diamond, thus have reduced to a 4 card end game in which we hold AJ9x in clubs with Q10 of diamonds in dummy and xx in clubs. RHO has either stiff diamond K and K10x in clubs or KJ in diamonds and Kx in clubs or KJx in diamonds and stiff club K. The opps have won 2 heart tricks and nothing else.

We exit the club J. RHO has no answer no matter what his holding is, since we only need 2 more tricks.

As for the losing layout, this requires specifically that East hold precisely 11 hcp, which isn't impossible but is surely against the odds.

[MrAce]

mikeh, on 2015-July-07, 08:08, said:

Btw, in a recent thread there was a discussion about how fantunes 'must' be cheating because one of them made a winning but stupid play on defence. The argument was that the player was too good to have played so badly. Funny how we tend to assume that bad plays that work must be from cheating, yet tend to forget that even the best can make blunders, as happened here.

Please don't do that. Nobody said he must be cheating.
And do not forget, a famous Italian pair got banned for cheating, just by one hand and not playing the % play in slam. What complained was in BW the lack of recording. If one worldclass player makes weird play (weird for his peers, not random players)and almost always ends up winning there is a smoke (I am not saying Fantunes is doing that). I don't know if they have a history of that, but some people implied they they may.

I think Helgemo played for 4-3 ♠, continuation of his play indicates that. (board 21)

http://www.bridgebas...ch.php?id=39905

[nige1]

Although a kibitzer might have no problem with this kind of contract, IMO, in practice, it's hard to play and to defend. For example, if declarer wins ♠A and leads a small ♥, LHO can create a chance of defeating a good declarer, by ducking with say
♠J x x x x ♥ J x x ♦ x x x ♣ x x.
At Bridge, the border between blunder and brilliancy is blurred

[MrAce]

Whether ducking the first spade or not and which suit to play after that (clubs or hearts) is interesting. I already said which suit and which card I will play after winning the ♠ at T1 or T2

First let's assume that we won first ♠. Here is an interesting ending that may become an issue.


T2- ♥ to 9 won by E with A
T3-Spade continuation is won in hand.
T4-Cashed ♥K, but this time we saw everyone following it !

So we knock down club K and East exits with clubs. We cash remaining clubs and come to last 4 cards ending. We lost 2 tricks, and need 3 tricks to make.

♠9
♥QT8
--
--

We saw W had originally 2 clubs. We saw W discarded exactly 2♦ and a ♠ on last 3 clubs. How are we planning to continue? We have a dilemma now. If you think W holds ♠Jx and ♥Jx you need to play ♠ and endplay him. But if he holds ♠Jx ♥J ♦x you need to cash ♥Q. If we totally take out the slim possibility that E is Rueful Rabbit or a genius and took the first ♥ with A from AJx(x), I think we should play W to originally started with Jxxx. And pay him off if he knew to duck first ♥ from Jxx.

Phil, on 2015-July-07, 11:51, said:

I think you are right about my line (ducking the spade) leads to demise,

Ducking the first spade is interesting if you continue small ♥ to the 9 afterwards. Seems like only losing deals are when W holds the J and E has 3 or 4 hearts to the ace, which gives him a safe exit with hearts. But this line will succeed if the ♣K is off which makes E to hold AJ ♥ mandatory for his opening.