[lamford]

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Matchpoints. Opening Lead ♣A

This was another tough play problem from Thursday afternoon at Brighton not solved by a couple of internationals. South was a bit pushy with his 2NT rebid, and North raised to game. West led the ace of clubs, on which East played the six, normal count, and switched to the queen of hearts. Plan the play. Strangely, Deep Finesse states that West can beat the contract with an initial low spade lead to East's king and South's ace, but this is clearly not the case, and is the second bug I have found in the last few weeks with Deep Finesse. After South forces out the spade guards, it says, "the defence can succeed by winning the next four tricks", which is not true!

It analyses the hand otherwise quite correctly, and the ending is quite pretty, and can, I think, be found.

[gszes]

not seeing the ew hands i must guess here may i assume west holds both the spade Q and T? If not then whenever east wins their spade honor will not a club switch allow doe 2s and 3C? but i digress?

Ducking a heart does no good once I decide lho is hugely likely to hold heart/club length since I have to pitch before west. Trick 2 win the heart in hand and cross to the dia A and lead a spade toward the J hoping against hope lho has to win the trick. Assuming lho continues their assault on hearts win the A in dummy and play another spade to the ace followed by 4 dia tricks. this is the ending I am hoping for.

xx
x
void
void

void
void
void
QTx

We now exit dummy with the heart throwing lho in and "confidently" await our 9th tick IF lho began with Hx QJT9 xxx AKJx. If lho started with only 3 hearts (QJT) we need to hope they started with 5 clubs.

Is this a good plan? soso at best BUT it gives us our 8 tricks we began (assuming dia run) the hand with and gives us a real shot at 9 if lho started with a couple of very possilbe distributions given the play.

Since this LOP is neither very pretty nor very imaginative I fear it will not work but that is how I would play the hand and I would get the heck out of this game asap if lho switched to the heart Q from something like Qxx or even QJsmall into our known 4 card suit since such a switch could all too easily lose an otherwise sure heart trick.

[lamford]

gszes, on 2015-August-24, 16:50, said:

this is the ending I am hoping for.

xx
x
void
void

void
void
void
QTx

We now exit dummy with the heart throwing lho in and "confidently" await our 9th tick IF lho began with Hx QJT9 xxx AKJx. If lho started with only 3 hearts (QJT) we need to hope they started with 5 clubs.

I don't think any of this works as West can pitch one of his clubs in the ending and keep three winners. I don't think you can afford to play spades prematurely.

[tommyst]

It seems as you might be able to make if W holds AKJ of c and QJxx of h. Take A of h and run the diamond tricks. West has to keep three h and KJ of c which gives him only one s. Take s A and play h...

[lamford]

tommyst, on 2015-August-25, 02:37, said:

It seems as you might be able to make if W holds AKJ of c and QJxx of h. Take A of h and run the diamond tricks. West has to keep three h and KJ of c which gives him only one s. Take s A and play h...

I considered that at the time, but I think South gets squeezed first.

[tommyst]

South keeps A-Kxx-Q10, play h to K and go from there depending on how W discarded

[lamford]

tommyst, on 2015-August-25, 06:55, said:

South keeps A-Kxx-Q10, play h to K and go from there depending on how W discarded

Yes, this is a winning ending, and you can make on the actual hand where West does not have the jack of clubs. West has Qxx QJT9 Jx AKxx. It is a lot tougher if West did not start with the ace of clubs, but the defence cannot hold the ending even on an initial queen of hearts lead.

I played a spade to the jack at trick two, which did not work on the actual layout. However it succeeds when East has the ♠KQ if he does not split, or, if he does, you drive out the spade honours and they cannot or don't get at their five tricks. It might not be clear for East to continue hearts rather than revert to clubs.