[Rado]

Hi all friends,
One interesting hand from the last night tournament (BBO_Italy i think but not sure)

Matchpoints, last board out of 14 and we hoped for a "top" to improve our desperate performance LOL

dummy
♠KJ94
♥AK106
♦5
♣AK92

hand
♠---
♥32
♦AKQJ9642 ( 8 pieces if lazy to count:-)))))))
♣J108

The bidding was far away from science (see the beginning of the message)
but the final contract as Eric Rodwell said "the grand should have some play"
1♣ (precision, 18+p) - 2♦ (natural FG)
2NT (balanced, waiting) - 7♦ ( I don't know what to bid, but i need a top)
all passed and lead 3 of ♠

What's your plan? what's the best %? what are the conclusions of non-DBL?
Why ♠ lead, and not ♥ or ♦ or ♣ - these were some of the questiones that came to my sleeping brain ( was about midnight in BG when this monster came)

Awaiting Yours
Rado

[Flame]

To your questions:
you cant gain much knowlege from the non dbl, since even with strong hand no one would double this atleast not in MP. with AQ of heart QJ of heart and Q of club would probebly still pass this as you LHO, as RHO i can probebly double.
Leads against grand are usually passive leads of weak suits, trying not to sell anything, it less ovious after ur bid, but let say for sure that the AQ of spade are not at the leader's hand, and the hearts rate to be on ur left.

ok the play, good lead for you and as mentioned before AQ of spades will probebly be on ur right, so put the 9 on the first round, if it bridges the Q ur home with a ruffing finesse in spade. if that doesnt work, play 5 rounds of dimond (to put some pressure on them) then play J of club to the Ace (maybe ur LHO will not be ready) ruff a spade, if the Q go down (RHO had AQ10) ur heapy, if not u enter with a heart ruff a heart (if u have any resson to believe ur LHO would be crazy enough to underlead the A of spade then ruff a spade here) if no mircle happend in heart u will have to take the club finnesse now.
its a good contract with good chances. id say lil more then 80% after the lead since the Q of club rates to be on ur left (lets say 60%) if u add the 50% of the 10 of spade u get 80%. add some mircle (QJ QJX in heart, AQ10 in spade) and u get more then 80%.
last thing, if the heart Q or J shows up on the A of heart i would still play the K of heart, and not finnesse.

[Flame]

I made a mistake there saying u can take 5 round of trumps, u dont have discards for these, u can only take out 2 rounds (discarding a club) then ruff a spade, and then u can play more dimond if u want and discard spade.

[inquiry]

The lack of a trump lead is somewhat curious. I will wait to draw a conclusion about that until later. We can all agree WEST is not likely to underlead ACE, so we place that card with EAST, we can also quess if WEST has a trump, that we can place ♠Queen with EAST as well. So first, I agree with Flame and try ♠9. If Queen covers, I am leading ♠K later to set up the J. If west show up with no ♦, I will lead the ♠K later to ruff out the ♠A and then likely play WEST for ♠Q on some squeeze lines. But if WEST shows up with a ♦, then I willl play EAST for AQT(x) of ♠.

Ok, so trick one, let's assume no good thing happens.. ♠9-T-ruff...

Now a trump. Does everyone follow. If WEST shows out, I play him for ♠Q and I ruff out the ♠A... This becomes a quard squeeze, West can't keep ♠Q and stoppers in both ♥ or ♣. I will explain if necessary, but let's assume evil case, WEST has at least one ♦. Argghh... ok. Now ♠ quard is behind ♠ threat, and playing a lot of trumps will squeeze dummy.

Ok, so now, with one trump still out, I play ♥A, and lead ♠K, ruffing out the ♠Ace. Now I play one more round of trumps. Are they split 2-2 or someone have three? Do I have any distributional clues? Assume EAST has three, a ♣ discard would be of interest to me, a ♥ even more. No one would pitch a ♥ from 4 card suit. Ok dummy pitches a ♣. If another round of trumps is needed, you are going to hurt your chances. You will never have a ♠-♥ squeeze against EAST, because he sits behind both threats. Thus you will never have a double squeeze where EAST quards ♠ and ♥ is a double threat.

Besides the 50-50 club hook, what is there? There is the attempt to drop ♠AQT tripleton, or the ♥QJx tripleton. You can try for one of these, not both before falling back on the ♣ hook. The chance of AQT tripleton (without lead info) is less than 1%. IF you figure that location of AQ is "marked" from the lead, the chance of AQT tripleton greatly increased somewhat, of course. The chance of QJx tripleton in ♥ (or QJ doubeton) is better.. it is like 10% or so. If you cash one high ♥ and EAST drops an honor, don't be persuaded by "restricted choice", likely a false card from QJx, QJxx etc, trying to talk you out of hooking in ♣.

Still, I like the odds of the drop in ♥ better, and an added benifit, ruffing a heart can set up a showup squeeze if WEST has four or five hearts and EAST has three ♥ to the Q or J.

So I would pull the third round of trumps if necessary discarding a ♠ (if not necessary, you can try to drop both the ♠AQT tripleton and the ♥QJx tripleton... before messing with clubs. Now I play ♣J to the ACE, cash second high ♥ (hope Q or J falls), ruff a ♥.

If my ♥Ten is not good, I will start some ♦s', with the plan to hook in ♣ if necessary. There might be some obvious chagne in plans, depending upon if I can find anything useful out about the distribution.

Ben

As an aside.. the spot cards in ♠ here are important. After the opening lead and the cover, and the second ♠ lead cover... have I seen the ♠2 and ♠3? IF not, I might change horses and play EAST for ♠AQT2, ♠AQT3, ♠AQT32, or ♠AQT tight. Now, I pitch ♥ from dummy and try to transfer the ♠menace from EAST to WEST... by continue to force EAST to cover. Once WEST alone guards ♠ the hand is SOOOOO much easier to play.

[Rado]

♣Hi all friends,

Thank you Flame and Ben for the detailed analysis.

First of all I was tempted to play low ♠ on the lead Suppose RHO with AQ10x must follow low too:-))))) Any way I played 9♠ covered by 10. Assuming the lead was from small cards we might be sure that RHO has max 4 cards in ♠ since with 5 or more he may overcall precision 1♣. Next 2 rounds of trumps pitching ♣ from dummy and RHO shows 1♦ + ♣ pitch. Now he might be 4414, 4513,4315, 31(45) or similar distribution. 6 cards in ♥ are also not probable due to non overcall. So we have great odds for ruffing ♠/♣ squeeze in case rho has 4 ♣ or the Q♣. Meantime we may check QJx in♥. So in my view the correct line is draw 3rd trump pitching ♠, AK 3rd♥ ruff, all trumps but one pitching ♥ and ♣ for the ending
dummy
KJ
-
-
AK

hand
-
-
x
J10x

Now RHO must keep 2♠ and 3♣ - mission impossible

P.S
at the real table I played it differently but lucky made it LOL

regards,Rado

[Fluffy]

Hate this hands, being sure of there is at least 1 line that succeds but unable to knwo wich