BBO Discussion Forums: Bad bidding and play - BBO Discussion Forums

good problem, Nige1.all depend if you can trust card led ♠Q. at green/red with partner passed, I take lead as genuine, especially as west has shown up with ♣K also

Spade and ruff with the 6. I am going to play west for 7042 and both minor kings.

PS: My first thought was west 8032. No change in plan, though.

This post has been edited by Winstonm: 2021-September-01, 14:22

LBengtsson, on 2021-September-01, 11:28, said:

Excellent question. If you ask opponents, they will tell you that they lead the second higher honour. i.e West has shown ♠K

nige1, on 2021-September-01, 09:54, said:

I may well have missed something but I don’t think I can make this hand if east has the diamond king. In addition, it seems that west is 7=0=4=2. QJ10xxxx void Kxxx Kx is a reasonable 4S at the prevailing vulnerability.

So I hook the diamond, ruff a club, ruff a spade, cash the diamond Ace, lead a club, which is good


East is down to void Jx x void

I have void Q x x in dummy and x K x void in hand, having won 10 tricks and lost none (1S 1S ruff, AQ diamonds, AQ clubs and two club ruffs, along with 2 rounds of trump.

East has to ruff, else i pitch my diamond and make 13 tricks on a high crossruff

I overruff and ruff my last spade with dummy’s Queen of hearts. They both win the last trick.

I admit to being worried about trick one. Why didn’t east play his King from a presumed Kx! If for no other reason than to make me worried that he’d be overruffing dummy immediately?

mikeh, on 2021-September-01, 14:15, said:

Please assume that opener's suit is headed by ♠KQ

nige1, on 2021-September-01, 14:57, said:

I would have hoped you’d have told us if they play rusinow leads. Of course they are allowed to psyche a lead, but this is hardly the situation where that makes sense

I think I still need rho to hold 2 spades and Lho to hold the diamond king. I play much as I outlined before I leadned that the Queen of spades showed the King

Hook the diamond, ruff the club, ruff a spade low and lead the good club, forcing Rho to ruff. I overruff with my last trump, cross in diamonds, cash the heart Queen for my 12 th trick.

mikeh, on 2021-September-01, 15:27, said:

Have I missed something ? diamond to the Q, club ruff, cash ♥K, cross to ♦A, cash ♥Q and the winning club and they get a diamond at the end, this works if W is 8032 with ♦K.

Cyberyeti, on 2021-September-01, 15:54, said:

No, you didn’t miss anything. Serves me right for multi-tasking. I got fixated on my playing east for Kx spades and didn’t mentally press reset when I learned that west showed the KQ.


Oh well, that’s why focus is important

After a lot of soul searching, I'm now thinking that the play is the J of diamonds and let it run. If it loses, east can't return his last club else I ruff play my high trump, cross to dummy, draw trump and claim. If he returns a diamond, I can ruff out the club, play a high trump, cross, cross back in diamonds, draw trump and claim. So the best return is a trump. With a trump return, I win in hand cheaply, cross in diamonds, ruff out the club, cross in diamonds, draw trumps and claim.

What if RHO ducks the diamond? Then ruff a spade high lead a club and pitch a spade. East has no good answer.

But I could be wrong and my head hurts.

The difficulty for me was trying to figure out my problem - which turns out to be a shortage of entries to the north hand. It then became a little easier but not much - I would have failed at the table.