[Patapon]

I was sitting in the plane next to Balicki and he showed me this hand from NO.

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E.......S.......W........N
1NT . 2♠ . 2SA* . x
pass. pass. 3♥.3♠
pass 4♠

*2NT: means something..

West leads the 9♦ witch promises the 10 but denies the Queen.Est takes the Ace and play back a trump.

[JLOGIC]

Well I thought of a spectacular variation. Assume RHO is 3244 with Jxx, AQ, AKQ in minors.

Seems impossible to make in that case right? It's not!

-Win spade in hand
-Cash DK
-Heart to Q
-ruff a diamond
-heart to ace
-heart. RHO pitches a club perforce. We ruff with the ace!
-Club to RHO
-RHO returns a trump perforce (else we just ruff our club in dummy. We win the 9
-Heart from dummy!! This is the position:

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If east ruffs, we just ruff our club. If east pitches his diamond, we ruff with the ace, spade to the queen, and cash our diamond. If east pitches his club, we ruff low and play a club. Now our club jack is good, so east must let us take the last 2 whether he plays a trump or gives us a ruff.

Pretty spectacular theme!

[JLOGIC]

Unfortunately, if LHO is 1543 then the winning line is a mundane simple squeeze on LHO. However we can't ruff a diamond from dummy prematurely, we have to lead clubs up twice, forcing RHO to play trumps twice, and then we ruff our diamond and have the squeeze.

To be honest that was my first thought, and if it hadn't been a Balicki hand I wouldn't have thought further. I don't see how to cater to 1543, as well as 1534.

Edit: one improvement on my line is to just win the SA at trick 2 in case LHO has stiff jack of spades, it's important to have both Q9 in dummy. If we do that we don't have to ruff high later heh.

[Patapon]

JLOGIC, on Aug 8 2010, 12:20 AM, said:

-Win spade in hand
-Cash DK
-Heart to Q
-ruff a diamond

Unfortunately, if LHO is 1543 then the winning line is a mundane simple squeeze on LHO. However we can't ruff a diamond from dummy prematurely, we have to lead clubs up twice, forcing RHO to play trumps twice, and then we ruff our diamond and have the squeeze.

When you ruff the Diamond, you know who has got the last Diamond because the 9 lead denies the Queen, then if the Queen doesn't appears it must be in RHO.

If the Diamond Queen drops then you will simply squeeze ♥♦ LHO even at that point.

[JLOGIC]

Patapon, on Aug 7 2010, 07:38 PM, said:

JLOGIC, on Aug 8 2010, 12:20 AM, said:

-Win spade in hand
-Cash DK
-Heart to Q
-ruff a diamond

Unfortunately, if LHO is 1543 then the winning line is a mundane simple squeeze on LHO. However we can't ruff a diamond from dummy prematurely, we have to lead clubs up twice, forcing RHO to play trumps twice, and then we ruff our diamond and have the squeeze.

When you ruff the Diamond, you know who has got the last Diamond because the 9 lead denies the Queen, then if the Queen doesn't appears it must be in RHO.

If the Diamond Queen drops then you will simply squeeze ♥♦ LHO even at that point.

Yes, but now you have to play clubs from your hand. If LHO gets in with the ten, they can play a diamond, allowing RHO to pitch a heart to beat you (this would be a great play by RHO, CJ, they win and play a spade, win in dummy and play a club RHO ducks to partner's ten to get a diamond played killing the menace, and allowing RHO to pitch his heart! This allows a club ruff, but then we can't get off dummy, alternatively if we pull trumps we have no diamond menace left for the red suit squeeze).

So you need RHO to have AKQTx of clubs to make after that start with LHO being 1543. Still, that is pretty good!

Fascinating hand, as are all balicki hands. It would be funny to go down to LHO having 1543 with the club ten and having your teammates say you had an obv red suit squeeze that you messed up

[Patapon]

You are right Logic.

Balicky didn't see that, or more likely he prefered not to notice this because the other line of play was much more beautiful.

[kfay]

It's a knockout!!!!

[Fluffy]

LOL: nice catch Hanoi. Did you remember it?

[Hanoi5]

Not at all! Roger Lee noticed it in 2010 and it's the last comment in the Checkmate article.