[mw64ahw]

Playing 2/1 game invitational

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Could be a tricky one to make.

[pescetom]

 mw64ahw, on 2026-March-12, 03:51, said:

Could be a tricky one to make.

Hence the title...
East leads ♥6, plan your play?

[mike777]

"Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into"


AceH
Small D, don't dither...

[pescetom]

 mike777, on 2026-March-12, 05:12, said:

"Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into"


AceH
Small D, don't dither...

West puts up D9 (East D2) and returns S8 (East will follow)...

[pescetom]

Our auction is likely to be:
1S 2C
2S 3S
4C 4D
4H 4N
6S P

The game plan is less simple.

[Cyberyeti]

Ace of hearts, ruff a heart with the 9, spade to the K, heart ruff high, draw the last trump, diamond

[mw64ahw]

Several possible strategies. My first thought was regarding whether to duck the ♥ and let it run to the 10 or take it with the Ace. The Ace is likely best. I think at the end you need to have run down to the last trump and play to the AJ♣ and take the finesse or not depending on discards.

[pescetom]

mw64ahw, on 2026-March-12, 10:07, said:

Several possible strategies. My first thought was regarding whether to duck the ♥ and let it run to the 10 or take it with the Ace. The Ace is likely best. I think at the end you need to have run down to the last trump and play to the AJ♣ and take the finesse or not depending on discards.

That's what most of the room thought too.
Some others had idyllic expectations about diamonds without KQT9.

[pescetom]

Cyberyeti, on 2026-March-12, 07:20, said:

Ace of hearts, ruff a heart with the 9, spade to the K, heart ruff high, draw the last trump, diamond

In hearts West showed QJ2 and East 765, in spades West showed T8 and East 2.
Now East puts up Q diamonds

[mikeh]

I’ve held off replying because there are a host of issues and you didn’t give us anything resembling the information we’d have at the table. I just don’t understand giving complex play issues, many of which depend on drawing inferences, without telling us everything we’d be entitled to know. Maybe you don’t realize how important this is, but it really does affect how one attacks a complex problem.

First of all, the auction. Maybe you don’t think it matters, and often it won’t. But, for example, did west have an opportunity to double a 4D cuebid?

Then leads. So you say east led the heart 6 and later plays the 5 and 7. Do they play 3rd and fifth or 3rd and low or 4th best? That information affects our reading of shape.

How good are the opps? Most competent players would drop the heart king under the ace with KQJx(x).

Is east good enough to pop the diamond queen from Q10 doubleton? Is he bad enough that he’d lead away from the heart king rather than lead the diamond K from KQ? Yes, I know that such a lead hands us the contract but he couldn’t know that


And so on.

As it is, given that it’s matchpoints and no way do I want to go down 2, I suspect I’ll probably just hook the club…but there are other less likely scenarios that I might work on if I knew what I’d know at the table.

[pescetom]

Yes I do appreciate that, but I prefer to let people ask about things like carding agreements when they recognise the need for the information, I think that is part of the learning process for intermediates.
The initial lead was 4th best.
As for the auction, we supplied a few and more may be forthcoming: mine allowed West to double 4D, but let's assume the auction of mw64ahw in the hand diagram at the top of the page, which does not (it allowed double of artificial 2H instead).
Let's say opponents are experienced but intermediate.
East is good enough to not lead away from hearts King when holding another suit headed KQ or QJ, but not quite good enough to pop the diamonds Q from QT (although he would from Qx on a good day).

[Cyberyeti]

pescetom, on 2026-March-12, 13:36, said:

In hearts West showed QJ2 and East 765, in spades West showed T8 and East 2.
Now East puts up Q diamonds

And E discarded ? (and the discards they're playing)

[pescetom]

Let us recap.

Here is the assumed auction:

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And here the assumed plan for first six tricks:

Cyberyeti, on 2026-March-12, 07:20, said:

Ace of hearts, ruff a heart with the 9, spade to the K, heart ruff high, draw the last trump, diamond

And here is how that went:

pescetom, on 2026-March-12, 13:36, said:

In hearts West showed QJ2 and East 765, in spades West showed T8 and East 2 (EDIT: pitching 2 of clubs on second round of trumps)
Now East puts up Q diamonds

Cyberyeti, on 2026-March-13, 07:24, said:

And E discarded ?

West discards 3 diamonds on the Q of East at trick 6, if that is your question.

Cyberyeti, on 2026-March-13, 07:24, said:

and the discards they're playing

Ostensibly odd-even, the 3 of West is encouraging in diamonds here.

[Cyberyeti]

No that wasn't the question, somebody discarded on the second trump

[mikeh]

pescetom, on 2026-March-13, 11:50, said:

Let us recap.

Here is the assumed auction:

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And here the assumed plan for first six tricks:


And here is how that went:




West discards 3 diamonds on the Q of East at trick 6, if that is your question.


Ostensibly odd-even, the 3 of West is encouraging in diamonds here.

Following suit is not ‘discarding’. Discarding is precisely the opposite of following suit. And, afaik, nobody plays odd/even when following suit, if for no better reason that one will often not have the ‘right’ spots, plus (of course) attitude in a suit declarer is playing is rarely of any benefit to the defenders. Count, on the other hand, is sometimes important (although people who always give count are very easy to play against).

I duck the diamond queen. I win whatever the return is…if a diamond, pop the ace.If a club, do not play the jack…win with the K, cross to the diamond ace and run trump.

Say east played a club…as I play the last spade from hand, I hold x void 8 x. Dummy void x void AJ

Assuming honest carding on the lead, and few players falsecard here, especially in a suit in which declarer probably has shortness, east has to have come down to void K void and 2 clubs. If he keeps his heart, he’s stiffed his club, whichever it is. So I pitch the heart. West, meanwhile, is down to void void K and two clubs. He has to keep the diamond so he also stiffs his club. Claim.

Note how dependent this was on their leading agreements: to play for a double squeeze require east to be the only defender to guard hearts, which means that he has to have had 5. Were they playing 3rd and low or 3rd and fifth, we’d have a different scenario…west could guard hearts. There might still be a squeeze but it isn’t a sure thing and one might misread the end position.

[pescetom]

Cyberyeti, on 2026-March-13, 12:09, said:

No that wasn't the question, somebody discarded on the second trump

That is in the EDIT in the post above.

[pescetom]

mikeh, on 2026-March-13, 12:35, said:

And, afaik, nobody plays odd/even when following suit, if for no better reason that one will often not have the ‘right’ spots, plus (of course) attitude in a suit declarer is playing is rarely of any benefit to the defenders. Count, on the other hand, is sometimes important (although people who always give count are very easy to play against).

You may not know, but playing odd/even when following suit is quite normal for Italians (which is part of why it was limited to first discard in ACBL).
They have various levels of sophistication (in this case very low) in combining/alternating it with count and in handling ambiguity with the wrong spots, plus exploiting odd-high/odd-low where attitude is not important. And very rarely is there any issue of tempo, before anyone suggests that.

mikeh, on 2026-March-13, 12:35, said:

I duck the diamond queen. I win whatever the return is…if a diamond, pop the ace.If a club, do not play the jack…win with the K, cross to the diamond ace and run trump.

Say east played a club…as I play the last spade from hand, I hold x void 8 x. Dummy void x void AJ

Assuming honest carding on the lead, and few players falsecard here, especially in a suit in which declarer probably has shortness, east has to have come down to void K void and 2 clubs. If he keeps his heart, he’s stiffed his club, whichever it is. So I pitch the heart. West, meanwhile, is down to void void K and two clubs. He has to keep the diamond so he also stiffs his club. Claim.

Note how dependent this was on their leading agreements: to play for a double squeeze require east to be the only defender to guard hearts, which means that he has to have had 5. Were they playing 3rd and low or 3rd and fifth, we’d have a different scenario…west could guard hearts. There might still be a squeeze but it isn’t a sure thing and one might misread the end position.

Yes I agree that knowing that the lead was 4th and seeing the 5th makes the situation easier to read.
I don't think it makes a difference if you duck the diamonds Q or not but yes, West is compressed in the minors and any play to that end will succeed.
It might have been elegant to use a spoiler given that our resident I/A were still on the fence
Thanks all the same.

[pescetom]

Here is the full deal :

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Only our T-Walsh pair made 6♠S= (North who is old school passed as Dealer) and I wonder if that was merely East failing to put up ♦Q on trick 1, or South getting it right (he is quite capable).
The others in 4/5/6♠N all hooked ♣J.

[mikeh]

pescetom, on 2026-March-13, 16:30, said:

You may not know, but playing odd/even when following suit is quite normal for Italians (which is part of why it was limited to first discard in ACBL).
They have various levels of sophistication (in this case very low) in combining/alternating it with count and in handling ambiguity with the wrong spots, plus exploiting odd-high/odd-low where attitude is not important. And very rarely is there any issue of tempo, before anyone suggests that.


Yes I agree that knowing that the lead was 4th and seeing the 5th makes the situation easier to read.
I don't think it makes a difference if you duck the diamonds Q or not but yes, West is compressed in the minors and any play to that end will succeed.
It might have been elegant to use a spoiler given that our resident I/A were still on the fence
Thanks all the same.

The ethical issues with that odd/even when following suit must be horrendous. Rosenberg, for one, thinks O/E discards are an abomination for that reason…only the truly ethical don’t twitch or balk when they don’t have the appropriate card to discard, and that problem is far more common when following suit (where you are limited to your holding in just that suit) than when choosing a pitch from at least two and sometimes three suits.

In fact I defy anyone to play O/E when following suit without often giving partner illicit information.

[Cyberyeti]

Playing ♦Q from Qx is bizarre in some auctions, if N hasn't shown K♣ why doesn't he have ♦ K10x and ♣ xx and decided to take the diamond finesse the wrong way because of the count he has so far