Monday, April 23, 2012

Timing's off

Playing online, I bid to a diamond slam and played it for down 2. Click on my name to hide the other hands and click "Next" to see my line.  Can you find the cringe-worthy moment?

 


Did you spot the misplay?

It was trick 6.  I need to come to hand with the 10 of diamonds, ruff the 4th spade, unblock the hearts, come back to hand with a club ruff, pull trumps (hoping they are 2-2 at this point) and claim.

3 comments:

  1. hi, if south is a sound defender, he will ruff the club, with which you wanted to come back to hand (after the dT is played to the dA and the 4th spade was ruffed with the dQ and hKQ were cashed), promoting North´s dJ. if you come back to hand immediately by leading a club at trick 6, south can ruff in, driving one of your diamond honors, but you can still ruff the 4th spade on the table, cash the dQ, the hK, overtake the hQ with the hA and make the rest 3 tricks with your trumps.

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  2. What happens if you play a small spade at Trick 3?

    Assume that the Trick 2 small spade is ducked to South, and that South continues with the second round of clubs. You ruff in hand, ruff your remaining small spade in dummy, cash two hearts, and then draw trumps ending in hand, claiming.

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  3. Playing a small spade on trick 3 seems to be the sort of thing one does double-dummy. At the table, the logical line seemed to be to cash two spades and ruff two spades in dummy. West's ruff at trick 3 was quite unexpected since with a singleton in an unbid suit, he might have led it. Also, this being match-points, the "normal" line makes 13 tricks and ducking trick 3 unnecessarily loses a trick. Of course, the diamond slam is relatively hard to find -- most people will be in 3NT -- so I can probably just play to make.

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