[Stephen Tu]

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IMPS (though IMO solution is same at MP)
West leads small spade to East's ace. East returns a club.

Your plan?

[Cyberyeti]

Is the spade so small it screams singleton ?

I see the MP/IMP solution as different here unless the spade led is the 2.

At MPs I would consider diamond ruff, spade ditching a club and try to crossruff diamonds and clubs making overtricks

At IMPs I think I win ♣A, ruff a diamond, trump to hand (presumably E shows out), ruff a diamond and play a top spade discarding a loser, I presume this gets ruffed but now I can ruff high if necessary and draw the last trump for 10.

[Stephen Tu]

 Cyberyeti, on 2019-March-20, 13:37, said:

Is the spade so small it screams singleton ?

I see the MP/IMP solution as different here unless the spade led is the 2.

It's a middle spade, but given the bidding I think you should assign very high probability to singleton.

[mikeh]

I admit, given that I approached this as an imp problem, that it took me quite a while to figure out how to go down.

The clearly correct imp line is so obvious that I had to work to find the losing line

At imps, win the club ace and ruff a diamond to pitch a club on the top spade.

Now, if it is RHO short in spades, and he ruffs, I overruff and play another diamond to ruff, and cash another spade, and so on, but I expect LHO to ruff the second spade. There is no return that he can make that can prevent me scoring 7 hearts in hand, 2 ruffs and the club Ace.

So the losing play:

Win the club Ace and see that a 2-1 trump break allows us to draw trump and get to dummy, even if the J is doubleton, by a diamond ruff and now run the spades, making 12 tricks.

However, if one infers that the spade lead is a stiff (which is reasonable....why lead a small spade from nothing, when partner has bid 2D?), and one recognizes that RHO likely has 6 or 7 diamonds and 4 spades, and that LHO didn't preempt in clubs, therefore will usually not have 7+ clubs (tho being vulnerable this isn't ironclad), there is a risk that trump are breaking badly.

So: how to go down? Cash a top heart, and have RHO show out. Ruff a diamond, pitch a club (or a diamond) on the spade as LHO ruffs in, and watch with horror as LHO tables the heart Jack. You have to win in hand, and have two more minor suit losers.

[Stephen Tu]

OK so mikeh has figured out how to go down and is 90% of the way there.

Now find the better play which IMO also implies that it actually *is* right at both IMPs and MP to cash a high heart and go for 12 tricks if hearts are 2-1, because you still make it when hearts are 3-0.

[mikeh]

 Stephen Tu, on 2019-March-20, 15:06, said:

OK so mikeh has figured out how to go down and is 90% of the way there.

Now find the better play which IMO also implies that it actually *is* right at both IMPs and MP to cash a high heart and go for 12 tricks if hearts are 2-1, because you still make it when hearts are 3-0.

I confess that I don't get it. Since you state that the 'better' line preserves the chances for 12 tricks if trump behave, we have to win the club Ace, and then you have us cash a top heart, which is a play that I would hope I would not make at imps, and would hope I would think about very carefully at mps, and then not make.

Assume RHO fails in trump.

We have no spade to play, so eliminate that.

If we play a second top trump, we have only one diamond ruff available so that holds us to 9 tricks if LHO ruffs our spade play from dummy. So that's out.

If we play a low trump, LHO wins and taps dummy with a diamond (maybe after cashing a club first)

So we can't play a major suit at trick 3.

We ruff a diamond, and then what? we have only one trump left in dummy, and we can't get back to our hand by using it, since we can't then take a second ruff. A spade gets ruffed and the heart jack sinks the contract, so we lead a club perforce. RHO goes in with a card higher than our 9 and advances a spade, on which we pitch a diamond, but LHO ruffs and plays the fatal heart Jack. Or LHO wins the club and tables the heart Jack anyway.

So we can't play any card from our hand at trick 4, if the first three tricks were spade to the Ace, club win by the Ace and top heart with RHO showing out.

I may be doing a face-palm when you show me the 'obvious when you look at it' answer. Maybe, if there is one, I might get to it if I spent a little more time but I'm not going to. Besides, it was presented as an imp problem and it took me maybe 5 seconds to find the line that cannot fail. It took me longer to find a losing line. Having found a solid line to 10 tricks, I am not painting the lily.

[Winstonm]

Why not win the club ace and ruff a diamond, return to hand with a trump and ruff a second diamond? Now you can safely play a high spade and pitch a club. If the hearts are 2-1 and the long spade is with the long hearts you can still make 12 tricks.

[Cyberyeti]

 Winstonm, on 2019-March-20, 16:56, said:

Why not win the club ace and ruff a diamond, return to hand with a trump and ruff a second diamond? Now you can safely play a high spade and pitch a club. If the hearts are 2-1 and the long spade is with the long hearts you can still make 12 tricks.

Because it doesn't make 12 tricks all the time trumps are 2-1 which Stephen implies does not negate the certainty of 10 if trumps are 3-0.

[mikeh]

 Winstonm, on 2019-March-20, 16:56, said:

Why not win the club ace and ruff a diamond, return to hand with a trump and ruff a second diamond? Now you can safely play a high spade and pitch a club. If the hearts are 2-1 and the long spade is with the long hearts you can still make 12 tricks

That is a reasonable line. It doesn't address Stephen's suggestion that one can cash a high heart at trick 3.

Indeed, on reflection, this is superior to my line, in that there is a miniscule chance that RHO is, say, Axxx Jx AKxxxx x (I would expect a save by west with his presumed 1=1=4=7). There is no chance that LHO can ruff the second diamond ahead of dummy and return the killing heart J, since that would require West to hold at least 14 cards, assuming 4 spades, 9 diamonds and his club (not to mention that this gives the silent West KQJxxxx in clubs)

Once I found a line that guaranteed the contract against a 3-0 split, I stopped worrying But I ought not to have done so: a tiny but risk-free chance of overtricks should always be pursued. Thanks.

[Stephen Tu]

Well, maybe I should have set the scenario more specifically.
You think you are down 6 with like 9 boards to play of a 60 board match against an evenly skilled team in the final match of the GNT A district tourney, for right to represent the district in Vegas this summer and $2000 for your team in subsidies. It would be heartbreaking to lose the match by 1 which makes the overtricks kind of important since the margin is pretty tight. Or alternatively you were fatigued, and mistakenly didn't recognize the danger until RHO showed out of trumps, and need to recover.

This was a problem my opponent faced in reality. Not sure which of the above he was thinking. It ended up not mattering since the subsequent 9 were lost by a large margin, but success here might have changed the mojo.

Quote

We ruff a diamond, and then what? we have only one trump left in dummy, and we can't get back to our hand by using it, since we can't then take a second ruff. A spade gets ruffed and the heart jack sinks the contract, so we lead a club perforce. RHO goes in with a card higher than our 9 and advances a spade, on which we pitch a diamond, but LHO ruffs and plays the fatal heart Jack. Or LHO wins the club and tables the heart Jack anyway.

If you ruff a diamond and lead a club, RHO can't win and lead a spade. You can ruff high, ruff a 2nd diamond, then lead a high spade pitching last diamond, they score SA, club, spade ruff. RHO has to let LHO win to lead the HJ.

[Cyberyeti]

 Stephen Tu, on 2019-March-20, 17:45, said:

Well, maybe I should have set the scenario more specifically.
You think you are down 6 with like 9 boards to play of a 60 board match against an evenly skilled team in the GNT A district finals, for right to represent the district in Vegas this summer and $2000 for your team in subsidies. It would be heartbreaking to lose the match by 1 which makes the overtricks kind of important since the margin is pretty tight. Or alternatively you were fatigued, and mistakenly didn't recognize the danger until RHO showed out of trumps, and need to recover.

This was a problem my opponent faced in reality. Not sure which of the above he was thinking. It ended up not mattering since the subsequent 9 were lost by a large margin, but success here might have changed the mojo.

If you ruff a diamond and lead a club, RHO can't win and lead a spade. You can ruff high, ruff a 2nd diamond, then lead a high spade pitching last diamond, they score SA, club, spade ruff. RHO has to let LHO win to lead the HJ.

So you're basically playing for a defensive error ?

[nige1]

Stephen Tu writes 'IMPS (though IMO solution is same at MP) West leads small spade to East's ace. East returns a club. Your plan?'
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I often get these wrong. My feeble guess:
Win ♣A, ♥A
- If both follow then claim 12 tricks.
- If LHO shows out then ruff a ♦, ruff a ♠ high, ruff a ♦, top ♠ discarding a loser. If LHO ruffs, then hope defenders don't find a trump promotion.
- if RHO shows out in ♥s but still has some ♠s, then you might make 11 or 12 tricks.
On further thought, this effort seems doomed

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[Stephen Tu]

 Cyberyeti, on 2019-March-20, 18:15, said:

So you're basically playing for a defensive error ?

No. There is a cold line. I was just correcting the one small flaw in mikeh's analysis of the ruff a diamond trick 4 line. Ruff a diamond at trick 4 is wrong for the reasons he outlined, if club RHO lets LHO win, if spade LHO ruffs and leads trump. If ruff spade high to ruff 2nd diamond like nige1 opps get the trump promotion as long as they correctly count out the right suit to cross to RHO with.

[cherdano]

Oooh, this is pretty. Didn't see it until I read Nigel's post.

Spade to A, Club to A, ♥A (RHO shows out). Now we duck a club.
- On a spade, we ruff high, ruff a diamond, ruff a club, ruff a diamond, play a high spade pitching our last diamond.
- On a club, we ruff in hand, ruff a diamond, ruff a spade high, and revert to the previous line.
- On a diamond, we ruff in dummy, ruff a club, ruff a diamond, high spade pitching a club.
- If LHO exits with a low trump, we run spades in dummy, and have a reentry to the remaining ones whenever LHO ruffs in with his last trump.
- If LHO exits with ♥J, we of course just play another heart to dummy and run spades.

So we make 12 tricks when hearts are 2-1, and 10 tricks when RHO is void.

[Stephen Tu]

 cherdano, on 2019-March-20, 21:33, said:

Oooh, this is pretty. Didn't see it until I read Nigel's post.

I know, right? It took me a long time to find also. This non-intuitive play to cut the opp's communications for either late trump promotion or for drawing a 2nd trump is like the last option most of us will look at. Shows the importance of looking at EVERYTHING, when your first lines are failing, preferably at the point where East leads the club at trick 2.

There's also a couple other ways to succeed if East wins the club and lead a spade, you can ruff high as you did, or you can just pitch a diamond, or you can ruff with the ten.

[mikeh]

Neat hand, thanks for posting

[GorkemOzge]

 Stephen Tu, on 2019-March-20, 12:22, said:

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IMPS (though IMO solution is same at MP)
West leads small spade to East's ace. East returns a club.

Your plan?

Feels straight forward to me playing IMPS. West's attack of small spades most likely mean that west has a singleton spade and at least a trump to expect a possible ruff. Therefore, East can not be played for heart length. If hearts are 2-1 the contract is laydown anyways so West should be played for the heart length from the beginning. Cashing the Ace of hearts might cause some problems. There are possible ways of J of hears getting a promotion, so playing imps I would go for the safest way. Winning the club return, and immidiately ruffing a diamond. Cashing the Q of spades discarding the club from hand. West will ruff, and West will either return a diamond or small trump. If a diamond is played, it is ruffed, a spade is then ruffed with the Q of hearts, and another diamond is played, the contract is home with the possibility of an overtrick. You can ruff a club to get back to the hand. If a small hearts is played, it is won in hand with the 10, a diamond will be ruffed, a spade ruffed high and south will collect trumps. Total losers would be: A of spades, a small club(was discarded and west ruffed), and a diamond. If the defender returned a diamond, total losers would be: A of spades, a small club.

Example problems with cashing the ace of hearts: East shows out, now you can ruff only 2 diamonds. If you try to discard a club with a spade honor, the defence will switch to trumps (playing the J) and the contract will fail, having lost a spade, a club(discard), and 2 diamonds. The declarer might instead play something like this: After cashing the Ace of hearts, will ruff a diamond, ruff a spade high, ruff another diamond, and cash a top spade honor, discarding the last diamond or the club. The contract fails either way because the defence uses the remaining communication. West ruffs, and plays a diamond if a club was discarded, and east will play a spade, promoting the jack, and if a diamond was discarded, west will play a club, and east will play a spade again promoting the Jack.

The declarer should therefore prevent all these outcomes and NOT cash the ace of hearts playing IMPs, and gurentee the contract.

Note that West is most likely one of these two shapes: 1-3-4-5, 1-3-3-6. If West had 7 or more clubs, could have bid 3clubs, and likewise it would mean west having 2 or less diamonds. With 8+ diamonds, East might have bid differently.