This entry was posted on 9/4/2007 11:54 AM and is filed under The Bad.
Here's a tough Declarer play hand I got wrong today.
2nd seat, unfavorable
QJ976 / J9863 / - / A85
Righty passed, I passed (good hand for Ekrens) Lefty passed and pard (random BBO) opened 1 Diamond in 4th.
I bid 1 Spade. He rebid 3 Diamonds.
Now what?
Pass is an option. 3NT is an option. 3 Hearts looks normal.
Over 3 Hearts, pard jumped to 4 Spades.
I actually considered bidding on for a few moments (give partner AKx x KQJTxx Kxx and slam isn't bad, either Diamond Ace onside or led) but thought better of it (rarely wise to try for slam that needs a perfecta to be 50%.)
The Ten of Diamonds was led and at first glance, I liked my chances
542 / Q / AKQ753 / KQJ
QJ976 / J9863 / - / A85
If I can play Spades for 2 losers, I'll just lose 2 Spades and a Heart.
Unfortunately, it's not quite that simple. The AKQ of Diamonds will take care of 3 of your baby Hearts, but you need to ruff a Heart in Dummy or set up the Diamonds or you'll be stuck with 2 Heart losers.
I figured that by winning and switching to the Queen of Hearts, I could induce the defense to switch to trumps. Then after 3 rounds of Spades, I could set up Diamonds (assuming they're 4-3.)
Make sense? Maybe.
Should you duck the first Diamond in dummy and then ruff? That looks like it lets you pick up 5-2 Diamonds.
The problem with that line is that if you get the chance to take an early Heart ruff, you need to pitch your Heart losers ASAP (because once you switch to trumps, the defense can win the first 2 rounds and then switch back to Hearts.) So you need Diamonds 4-3 to make this, looks like.
Not quite. If Spades are lying favorably (any doubleton ten) you can ruff the Diamond lead and play Spades from the top. If the Defender with Spade length started with at least 4 Diamonds, the defense has no effective counter.
Hmmm, the more I look at this hand, the less I feel like I should have gotten it right.
After I won the Diamond and played a Heart, RHO won the Ace and switched to Clubs.
542 / - / KQ753 / KQJ
QJ976 / J98 / - / A85
At this point, I was still worried about picking up Spades and won the Club in Dummy and led a trump (hoping that the defense wasn't good enough to violate Confucius' rule and play 3 rounds.)
Unfortunately, that's exactly what they did.
The uber-friendly lie in Spades (and Spade/Diamond length being in same hand) would have allowed me to prevail by playing 3 rounds of Clubs and then cross-ruffing the hand. That's pretty double-dummy, though. I should have just played 3 rounds of Clubs, ending in hand, ruffed a Heart, and tried to cash 2 Diamonds. Same down 1, but I would have at least given myself a legitimate shot.
LHO held
AK3 / K2 / T9862 / 764
RHO held
T8 / AT754 / J4 / T932
Unfortunately, the swing on this board was as big as could be, 12 IMPs (lose 6 instead of win 6.)
Not his best work, but essentially correct (that Bush is desperately trying to hand Iraq off to the next President so that he doesn't get ALL the blame in the history books.)
