[dcvetkov]

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This is s hand from BB, spots are approximate, I did not watch the vugraph, but seems lot of declarers lost their way in 7H or 7S

Contract in 7S and LHO leads club 7, you try the 10, and RHO plays the J. Plan the play.

P.S. Those who are familiar with the hand, try not to ruin the fun too soon;)

[kenrexford]

I think I'll start with a small heart to the Queen, in case I see a Jack drop. If that happens, I'll cash two spades, ending in hand, and hope that I can cash the heart 10 before leading to the spade King.

If the heart Jack does not drop, then I play two rounds of spades, ending in dummy in case I need to finesse the spade.

If the spades are such that I must lose a spade, I may end up finessing a diamond before playing spade and out. That might be necessary if the clubs are 7-1 and the person with seven clubs has the heart guard. That would give them 1-4-1-7, perhaps, but that's fine.

There may be some other contingencies, but those are the three that I'm watching for as starters.

[cherdano]

You have to decide whether to
(A) pick up spades 4-0 onside (have to play ♠K on the first round) or
(B) hearts 4-1 where the singleton holder has at most two trumps (play ♠AQ, two hearts, ruff heart, spade to king).

It seems the latter is considerably more likely.

[awm]

It seems like one can play:

(1) Lead 4th best spade to the king. Then finish pulling trumps. If trumps are 4-0 onside, use a heart to dummy as an entry.

(2) If spades break 2-2, make sure that dummy's last remaining spot is higher than our last spot. Cash top hearts, ruff the fourth round, then re-enter dummy with the trump to score six spades, five hearts, two aces.

(3) If spades break 3-1 or worse, then cash all remaining trumps and the diamond ace while retaining a heart as dummy entry. End with something like ♥AKxx in dummy and ♥x ♦Q ♣9x in hand. If one opponent holds the long hearts as well as both the ♦K and ♣K, he will be squeezed progressively into yielding the rest of the tricks (of course if hearts were 3-2 initially you will also make).

The only time this line seems to fail when making was possible is when hearts are 4-1 and spades are 3-1 (or worse) with the major suit shortnesses together. This seems pretty unlikely (plus you might be able to tell from the bidding, people often bid when they have two singletons).

[bid_em_up]

awm, on Oct 15 2007, 01:06 PM, said:

It seems like one can play:

(1) Lead 4th best spade to the king. Then finish pulling trumps. If trumps are 4-0 onside, use a heart to dummy as an entry.

(2) If spades break 2-2, make sure that dummy's last remaining spot is higher than our last spot. Cash top hearts, ruff the fourth round, then re-enter dummy with the trump to score six spades, five hearts, two aces.

(3) If spades break 3-1 or worse, then cash all remaining trumps and the diamond ace while retaining a heart as dummy entry. End with something like ♥AKxx in dummy and ♥x ♦Q ♣9x in hand. If one opponent holds the long hearts as well as both the ♦K and ♣K, he will be squeezed progressively into yielding the rest of the tricks (of course if hearts were 3-2 initially you will also make).

The only time this line seems to fail when making was possible is when hearts are 4-1 and spades are 3-1 (or worse) with the major suit shortnesses together. This seems pretty unlikely (plus you might be able to tell from the bidding, people often bid when they have two singletons).

And if the stiff heart is in one hand along with three spades, as is likely the case when hearts 4-1?

When one high heart was cashed, the heart J dropped. But now if you draw trump, you cannot score 5 heart tricks (no entry back to dummy) and if you cash a second heart it will be ruffed.

Take it from there...

[Walddk]

I know the hand, so I won't comment. However, South's clubs were A8x. I agree with the line Bart Bramley pursued. He got it wrong in the end though, and I am sure he is still kicking himself.

Since he did win the gold medal after all, he shouldn't be too harsh on himself. If I would trust anyone to play this grand slam, it would surely be Bart. Kit Woolsey was one of the commentators, and he sounded just as disappointed as Bart must have been.

Roland

[kenrexford]

Geez! Counted spades wrong. Ignore my line. LOL

[awm]

I must admit:

(1) I don't see how the ♥J falling particularly helps us. Obviously we still have the same squeeze that we can produce on any 4-1 hearts with 3-1 spades.

(2) Even if there is something you can do (for example you could take the diamond finesse, and play for diamond hook plus long hearts with club king, instead of playing for diamond king with long hearts and club king) I wouldn't want to pay off to a semi-automatic falsecard of the ♥J from Jxx or Jx (looking at the running suit in dummy) and start taking practice finesses.

I'm interested to see what I am missing here...

Edited: I guess I should amend this, since it does matter if we have the club 8 and not the 9. In this case we can reduce to a position:

♠-
♥AKxx
♦-
♣Q

♠x
♥T
♦Q
♣8x

We play the last trump. If LHO has ♥9xx and ♣K and ♦K, he has to pitch something. If he pitches a heart then we pitch club from dummy and we're cold. If he pitches club king, we can pitch a heart from dummy, cash the ♥T in hand, and play a club to dummy's queen for the ♥AK. If he pitches diamond king, we pitch a heart from dummy. Now we cash ♦Q and he must either pitch a heart (we pitch club queen and score three hearts) or pitch a club (we pitch a heart and dummy is good). This position doesn't exist if LHO started with ♥Jxxx, because he can hold on to ♥Jxx and ♦K, which establishes dummy's ♣Q but still leaves us a trick short. Of course, on the actual hand we were given where south has ♣9, we can continue the squeeze without breaking transportation (progressive squeeze); this also works if we have ♣8 but LHO started with ♣K9x(x).

[dcvetkov]

awm, on Oct 16 2007, 05:55 PM, said:

I must admit:

(1) I don't see how the ♥J falling particularly helps us. Obviously we still have the same squeeze that we can produce on any 4-1 hearts with 3-1 spades.

(2) Even if there is something you can do (for example you could take the diamond finesse, and play for diamond hook plus long hearts with club king, instead of playing for diamond king with long hearts and club king) I wouldn't want to pay off to a semi-automatic falsecard of the ♥J from Jxx or Jx (looking at the running suit in dummy) and start taking practice finesses.

I'm interested to see what I am missing here...

Edited: I guess I should amend this, since it does matter if we have the club 8 and not the 9. In this case we can reduce to a position:

♠-
♥AKxx
♦-
♣Q

♠x
♥T
♦Q
♣8x

We play the last trump. If LHO has ♥9xx and ♣K and ♦K, he has to pitch something. If he pitches a heart then we pitch club from dummy and we're cold. If he pitches club king, we can pitch a heart from dummy, cash the ♥T in hand, and play a club to dummy's queen for the ♥AK. If he pitches diamond king, we pitch a heart from dummy. Now we cash ♦Q and he must either pitch a heart (we pitch club queen and score three hearts) or pitch a club (we pitch a heart and dummy is good). This position doesn't exist if LHO started with ♥Jxxx, because he can hold on to ♥Jxx and ♦K, which establishes dummy's ♣Q but still leaves us a trick short. Of course, on the actual hand we were given where south has ♣9, we can continue the squeeze without breaking transportation (progressive squeeze); this also works if we have ♣8 but LHO started with ♣K9x(x).

This analysis is generally correct, but ending is different. I dont know the exact hand, and the almost hero that was mentioned earlier and in BB Bulletins was probably Bart Bramley, getting in right almost till the end.
Obviously there are no problems with hearts and trumps breaking 3-2 , and if trumps are 2-2, we can handle any heart break. So, what can be done with spades 3-1 and hearts 4-1?
Most declarers cashed two round of trumps and played two rounds of ♥, hoping that hearts break or the short ♥ hand, does not have last trump, but not today.
First order of business is to guard against 4-0 trumps with RHO, so trump to the king is the proper play, Declarer correctly deduced that RHO has KJ9x in clubs, so he could envision the ending after cashing one round of hearts and running all trumps.

♠ -
♥AKx
♦x
♣Q

♠-
♥9xx
♦K ( RHO)
♣K

♠
♥10
♦AQ
♣8x

RHO had already abandoned diamond guard ( cashing D early looks like a good play, but you need that hand entry for flexibility and threats entries). So Bramley by playing a D here would make the contract by squeezing poor East again, but he played a heart and that was it. Probably people close to Bermuda Bowl will confirm that Bart B was the only one this close to making it.