TOCM may find West with a singleton DQ here (or possibly it’ll be stuck behind the H2) so West decides to open a heavy pre-empt for a change. Hopefully Jim2’s partners in this situation have learned not to say “You’d have made it if …..”
Regards,
Iain
jim2September 26th, 2023 at 11:32 am
I confess that I almost posted that last night.
By now, my partners have nearly become numb to such twists. Well, those that remain …
bobbywolffSeptember 26th, 2023 at 3:42 pm
Hi Jim2,
Time for you to say, “Yes, unlucky at bridge, but thankful for life and the pursuit of happiness, at least it says here”
“Oh yea? Perhaps in sanskrit”.
jim2September 26th, 2023 at 4:57 pm
It’s gotten so bad that I put on my convention card for “System” simply Btfsplk.
Most of my opponents look at it and nod, and then pre-score up their tops before pulling their cards out of the slots.
David SnookSeptember 26th, 2023 at 6:46 pm
Well… quite the hand to play…
And after 6 or 7 tries, I think I figured out a safe path thru that maze…
For starters, South needs to take West’s club king w/ the ace, or the hand is over with before it really gets started.
South then needs to finesse on a diamond lead from the dummy, and when the finesse is successful, South next plays a heart. Now for South to succeed, it’s necessary for West to hold the heart king, and it does West no good to either drop the king on either of South’s led hearts, or hold up.
South eventually takes the king with dummy’s ace and either plays a low heart back to his now safe heart in hand, returns to the dummy via the diamond king for a discard on the heart queen or simply tosses a loser on his heart ace. South can now drop one of his two losers, either a spade or a club, on the remaining high heart, then finesses a trump and draw East’s queen with the diamond ace.
Is this not a ‘as if’ hand? You have to figure out how to play it ‘as if’ the heart king is with West and the diamond queen is with East? If the heart king and diamond queen are where they need to be, you can succeed and if they’re not…
Is there another way to figure out how to play this hand? from the bidding, we know West has long clubs, but what else?
Robert LiptonSeptember 26th, 2023 at 11:51 pm
We know that if he has the indicated long clubs headed by the KQJ, and the HK, he really shouldn’t have the DQ. His 3 clubs is limited; as Bobby has pointed out, if he also has the DQ he has an opening hand, with which he can simply rebid clubs.
This hand has two major points. One is that when you are in a marginal contract, you may need to place certain card in particular hands in order to make it — in this case, the HK. The other is the need to count and count and count again, points, distribution, honors, and suit lengths. Although the fact that there are two lessons to be learned here makes it a little less elegant for beginners, it is a clever hand to illustrate both points.
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HI Bobby,
TOCM may find West with a singleton DQ here (or possibly it’ll be stuck behind the H2) so West decides to open a heavy pre-empt for a change. Hopefully Jim2’s partners in this situation have learned not to say “You’d have made it if …..”
Regards,
Iain
I confess that I almost posted that last night.
By now, my partners have nearly become numb to such twists. Well, those that remain …
Hi Jim2,
Time for you to say, “Yes, unlucky at bridge, but thankful for life and the pursuit of happiness, at least it says here”
“Oh yea? Perhaps in sanskrit”.
It’s gotten so bad that I put on my convention card for “System” simply Btfsplk.
Most of my opponents look at it and nod, and then pre-score up their tops before pulling their cards out of the slots.
Well… quite the hand to play…
And after 6 or 7 tries, I think I figured out a safe path thru that maze…
For starters, South needs to take West’s club king w/ the ace, or the hand is over with before it really gets started.
South then needs to finesse on a diamond lead from the dummy, and when the finesse is successful, South next plays a heart. Now for South to succeed, it’s necessary for West to hold the heart king, and it does West no good to either drop the king on either of South’s led hearts, or hold up.
South eventually takes the king with dummy’s ace and either plays a low heart back to his now safe heart in hand, returns to the dummy via the diamond king for a discard on the heart queen or simply tosses a loser on his heart ace. South can now drop one of his two losers, either a spade or a club, on the remaining high heart, then finesses a trump and draw East’s queen with the diamond ace.
Is this not a ‘as if’ hand? You have to figure out how to play it ‘as if’ the heart king is with West and the diamond queen is with East? If the heart king and diamond queen are where they need to be, you can succeed and if they’re not…
Is there another way to figure out how to play this hand? from the bidding, we know West has long clubs, but what else?
We know that if he has the indicated long clubs headed by the KQJ, and the HK, he really shouldn’t have the DQ. His 3 clubs is limited; as Bobby has pointed out, if he also has the DQ he has an opening hand, with which he can simply rebid clubs.
This hand has two major points. One is that when you are in a marginal contract, you may need to place certain card in particular hands in order to make it — in this case, the HK. The other is the need to count and count and count again, points, distribution, honors, and suit lengths. Although the fact that there are two lessons to be learned here makes it a little less elegant for beginners, it is a clever hand to illustrate both points.
Bob Lipton