[Ant590]

You end up in a grand slam after the following auction:

2♣ - (5♣) - 5♠ - (6♣)
7♣ - (pass) - 7♥ - all pass

---

(1.) Do you agree with NS's actions?

(2.) You get a club lead. What's the plan?

More to follow...

[inquiry]

Ant590, on 2011-February-28, 16:48, said:

You end up in a grand slam after the following auction:

2♣ - (5♣) - 5♠ - (6♣)
7♣ - (pass) - 7♥ - all pass

---

(1.) Do you agree with NS's actions?

(2.) You get a club lead. What's the plan?

More to follow...

West will have at least 7 clubs, maybe 8. So he has six, maybe five open spaces to East's 11 maybe 12 open spaces. This means East is at least 11/17 favorite to hold the ♠King. So it is 65% likely to be with East. So to choose a line that doesn't include the eventual spade hook of East has to climb at least into that neighboorhood.

In addition to the potential spade finesse, you have the third round of clubs, which will be a menace against West. Of course, it is in the wrong hand to be of maximal use, and it is hard to imagine West with long diamonds. But if East has four plus diamonds to teh Queen -- AND -- the spade king, you have a proven squeeze against him (6♥,+1♣+2♦+1♦ruff+2♠ on the hook). So your choices are (on all lines, do not try to enter dummy by ruffing a club, because East may have only one-unless diamonds are 3-3 and west follows to two hearts).

1) play one round of hearts then play to ruff two diamonds in dummy (if necessary). Requires West to have two diamond and one heart or ♥3-7 doubleton.
2) Play a heart to the queen then Heart Ace. Then diamond AK-diamond ruff. If The East has the diamond queen, play for the squeeze.

I go for line 2. Win club ace, heart to queen, and then play as shown . This makes if diamonds are 3-3 (less than 36% due to the club split, let's guess about 28%), or if the diamond queen is singleton or doubleton (roughly another 28% or so), or if East has the diamond Queen long plus the spade king 65% of the remaining (100%-28%-28%) = .65*44% = another 28%. So this seems about 84% minus the small fraction of time where West has 0, 1 or 2♦ and three hearts. West will have three hearts about 9% of the time. But some of that time with singleton or doubleton queen of diamonds or also three diamonds (and spade void). If West follows to 3D and two hearts, you will need to go with the club ruff not a spade to dummy to pull the last outstanding trump.

[nigel_k]

It looks like the long clubs are in East.

[inquiry]

nigel_k, on 2011-February-28, 22:20, said:

It looks like the long clubs are in East.

Oh crap. I will have to rethink it. I thought about the hands before I rotated them to have north with the strong hand. So it stuck in my mind that West had overcalled.... I will have to come up with another line tomorrow.

[Ant590]

nigel_k, on 2011-February-28, 22:20, said:

It looks like the long clubs are in East.

Yeah, sorry, I rotated to make South declarer.

I'll give you some more time then put in some more info.

[gnasher]

How about ♥A, ♦A, ♥ to the queen, ♦ to the jack? If diamonds are 5-1, we'll probably have a double squeeze with spades as the pivot.

[MrAce]

gnasher, on 2011-March-01, 04:50, said:

How about ♥A, ♦A, ♥ to the queen, ♦ to the jack? If diamonds are 5-1, we'll probably have a double squeeze with spades as the pivot.

Double squeeze doesn't work IF preempter has 3 card ♥, even with 4-2 ♦. Also, when he has only 2 or 1 ♥, at the end u may have to guess if ♣ were 2-7 or 3-6. (unless preempter has all the spots)

Your line seems still pretty good to me, i am not sure though if we shd worry about ♦ Q stiff offside, isnt it more of a concern 4-2 ♦ and 1-3 ♥ ?

Perhaps not touching ♦ A gives us double ♦ finesse if preempter turns out to have 3♥ with the compromise of losing to stiff Q offside ?

[Ant590]

Right, so lines so far involve playing a heart, and/or a diamond.

If you play heart ace:
East shows out.

If you play diamond ace:
Both opponents follow.
If you play another diamond towards the KJ:
West plays the queen

[gnasher]

MrAce, on 2011-March-01, 11:07, said:

Double squeeze doesn't work IF preempter has 3 card ♥, even with 4-2 ♦. Also, when he has only 2 or 1 ♥, at the end u may have to guess if ♣ were 2-7 or 3-6. (unless preempter has all the spots)

Your line seems still pretty good to me, i am not sure though if we shd worry about ♦ Q stiff offside, isnt it more of a concern 4-2 ♦ and 1-3 ♥ ?

Perhaps not touching ♦ A gives us double ♦ finesse if preempter turns out to have 3♥ with the compromise of losing to stiff Q offside ?

I think you're right (though an earlier version of this post said you weren't )

This post has been edited by gnasher: 2011-March-01, 13:04

[gnasher]

After I cash ♥A and East shows out, I could play for ♠K onside, West having at least three diamonds, and ♦Q coming down in three rounds: spade finesse, ♠A, spade ruff, ♦AK, diamond ruff (diamonds need to be good now), spade ruff (setting up the long spade). Now a trump to dummy and a top spade.

[Edit: this approach also works if East is 3028 - after the diamond ruff, I throw my last diamond on ♠J, ruff something in hand, and cross to ♥Q.]

Or I could just play for diamonds to be Qxx-xxx or Qxxx-9x.

This post has been edited by gnasher: 2011-March-01, 13:39

[MrAce]

gnasher, on 2011-March-01, 13:20, said:

After I cash ♥A and East shows out, I could play for ♠K onside, West having at least three diamonds, and ♦Q coming down in three rounds: spade finesse, ♠A, spade ruff, ♦AK, diamond ruff (diamonds need to be good now), spade ruff (setting up the long spade). Now a trump to dummy and a top spade.

Or I could just play for diamonds to be Qxx-xxx or Qxxx-9x.

That also makes sense, ♠ K onside is very likely, i just cant think of West sacrificing with 2 or at most 3 ♣ over 5♠, holding the K.

[Fluffy]

I would play ♥A early, the 4-0 breakis bad news, my inclination was to bank the contract on a diamond finese, but after hearts 0-4 I don't know what to do, and I will be biased if I think of it since I already read LHO has ♦Q.

gnasher's line seems to go down when diamonds are 2-4. From the bidding my suspect is that RHO is 7-4 rather than having 8 clubs. West had no reason to raise 5♠ to 6♣ with just doubleton.

[MrAce]

Fluffy, on 2011-March-02, 09:45, said:

I would play ♥A early, the 4-0 breakis bad news, my inclination was to bank the contract on a diamond finese, but after hearts 0-4 I don't know what to do, and I will be biased if I think of it since I already read LHO has ♦Q.

gnasher's line seems to go down when diamonds are 2-4. From the bidding my suspect is that RHO is 7-4 rather than having 8 clubs. West had no reason to raise 5♠ to 6♣ with just doubleton.

If west has 3♣ then East has only 6 ♣, so he cant be 7-4 Anyway, i also think east has a side suit, but more likely to have 4♠ to the K, that explains west's sacrifice over 5♠ better imo.

[han]

inquiry, on 2011-February-28, 22:08, said:

East will have at least 7 clubs, maybe 8.

Maybe 8? So that west has raised to 6C on a singleton? I don't think so.

It's very unusual for the opponents to preempt on a nine-card fit. Has east preempted to 5C (!) on a six-card suit? If so he is extremely likely to be 5-6. The other opportunity is that west has raised to 6C on a doubleton club. If so, he won't have too many spades (after all, he bid 6C over 5S) and most likely not the spade king.

We will almost always know from the lead how the clubs split. I find it very strange that the club card is not given, and that nobody complains about this. Perhaps this is because the opponent's bidding is so strange that nobody even tries to make sense out of it? The vulnerability isn't given either... what is going on here?

After cashing the ace of hearts and seeing the 4-0 split, the distribution that makes the most sense to me is east holding 5026 with KQJ10xx of clubs, and west being 2443 with 2 small spades. I can play for west holding Qxxx in diamonds, not a very good chance. However, if this is really the correct distribution (and east really has the spade king), then I can make on any diamond layout by playing a heart to the queen instead of cashing the ace of hearts. Upon seeing the 4-0 heart split, I can ruff a club, cash the AK of diamonds (changing tacks if the queen happens to appear with east), take the spade hook, pitch a diamond on the spade ace, ruff the third club, ruff the last diamond and play a spade from dummy, finishing with a trump coup on west.

I don't know if this is the best line, I've made my construction of the EW hands after hearing about the heart void, while I had to decide before trick 2. I do think that comparing different lines without taking the bidding or lead into consideration is futile. MrAce, I don't agree with your "that explains west's sacrifice better imo". The shape you suggest for west is 3442!

[Ant590]

Thanks for all your thoughts everyone. It confirms that one the actual hand (see below), most sensible lines do not make... I think.

Perhaps EW's pre-epmpting style is too crazy to make this a legitimate problem for this forum - if so I apologise!

---

[gnasher]

han, on 2011-March-02, 16:26, said:

After cashing the ace of hearts and seeing the 4-0 split, the distribution that makes the most sense to me is east holding 5026 with KQJ10xx of clubs, and west being 2443 with 2 small spades. I can play for west holding Qxxx in diamonds, not a very good chance. However, if this is really the correct distribution (and east really has the spade king), then I can make on any diamond layout by playing a heart to the queen instead of cashing the ace of hearts. Upon seeing the 4-0 heart split, I can ruff a club, cash the AK of diamonds (changing tacks if the queen happens to appear with east), take the spade hook, pitch a diamond on the spade ace, ruff the third club, ruff the last diamond and play a spade from dummy, finishing with a trump coup on west.

I think you've mistimed (or mistyped) this - you still have a diamond left.

[han]

Aha, you are right gnasher. After cashing the heart queen and seeing the 4-0 split, I need to get to get to hand in diamonds instead of ruffing a club. Cash the ace-king of diamonds (seeing if the queen drops), then take the spade hook, pitch a diamond on the spades, ruff a club, ruff a diamond, ruff a club, ruff a diamond, and trump coup.

Ant, I think EW are just really bad, and west even more so than east.

[Trinidad]

Removed

Rik

[gnasher]

I rather admire East's 5♣, even though I wouldn't do it myself. West's action worked, I suppose, but it's still awful.

[cherdano]

Well, maybe we shouldn't throw the first stone about bad bidding on this hand anyway.