7NT

[Dave Flower]

The following had was dealt in a practice session:

K 10 8 x x x x
Q J 10
-
A Q x

A Q
A K
A K Q 10 9 x x
K x

North opened 1S, and south bid 7NT

West led H8 (probably second highest from rubbish), East following.

South won, and cashed SA, West discarding a heart.

Take it from there

Dave Flower

[Mick Heins]

Post by Dave Flower
K 10 8 x x x x
Q J 10
-
A Q x
A Q
A K
A K Q 10 9 x x
K x
North opened 1S, and south bid 7NT
West led H8 (probably second highest from rubbish), East following.
South won, and cashed SA, West discarding a heart.
Take it from there

There is nothing to do, sad to say, as you have no transportation
for a squeeze.

You could try cashing the KS and tossing the HA under it, then cashing
the QJ of hearts. But then you are reduced to trying to drop the JD.

[ais523]

Post by Dave Flower
K 10 8 x x x x
Q J 10
-
A Q x
A Q
A K
A K Q 10 9 x x
K x
North opened 1S, and south bid 7NT
West led H8 (probably second highest from rubbish), East following.
South won, and cashed SA, West discarding a heart.
Take it from there

You can win at most three tricks in hearts and three tricks in clubs
(due to only having three cards in each). We know where all the spades
are, and they're offside, so unless you can force East to discard the
Jack of Spades somehow you can win at most three spades. Likewise, we
have no way to take the diamond finesse without putting the opponents on
lead (thus failing to make 7NT), so we need to either drop the Jack of
Diamonds or force the opponents to discard it if we're going to make
more than three diamond tricks without losing one.

If West has 4 or more diamonds, the contract is obviously unmakable;
West can simply hold onto diamonds (and East to spades) and we have no
way to dislodge that.

If West and East have 3 diamonds each, the contract is trivially makable
because the diamonds run.

The interesting case is if East has 4 or more diamonds. Making the
contract without the defenders being able to stop you then requires
playing six tricks in hearts and clubs, with East being unable to hold
both the guard in diamonds and spades. Unfortunately, at that point,
South will have /only/ diamonds and spades, leaving the spade suit as
the only possible entry between the hands. If East unguards diamonds,
you can make the contract as long as the Queen of Spades hasn't been
played: three hearts, three clubs, two spades (the Ace you cashed
earlier and a low card to the Queen as an entry), five diamonds. If
East unguards spades, though, you'd need to have played the Queen of
Spades already, because otherwise you can't run spades in the North hand
(because the suit is blocked). So sadly, you have to commit to a suit to
attack before East gets to discard, meaning that any possible squeeze
attempt can be broken up somehow.

Any possible winning line in the situation where East has length
would thus rely on denying East information about the hand; although
East has a winning strategy to beat any potential play by you, that
doesn't guarantee that East will be able to find it. However, that
doesn't seem to be possible on this hand either; you'll have shown out
of hearts and clubs by the time East has to make a decision, and West
has shown out of spades, so East will pretty much know the entire hand
by that point. The only thing East won't know is /which/ diamonds are in
your hand, but a good East should be able to work out that after three
clubs, three hearts, two spades (the Ace played on trick 1 and the
low-to-the-Queen as an entry) South will be stranded and be forced to
play diamonds repeatedly, so the only suit possibly worth guarding is
diamonds.

As such, I don't think you can do any better than 13 tricks if diamonds
split and 12 tricks otherwise. The way to do that is to play three
diamonds immediately, running diamonds if they split, otherwise cash all
the remaining honours in South's hand and use the club x as an entry to
North's (to make 12).

(Incidentally, I'm curious as to how this hand would work in a suit
contract. 7D seems like it might be makable (although obviously not
after the start above!). 7S won't make because the Jack of trumps is
offside, and the opponents have long trumps in hearts or clubs.)

[Mick Heins]

Post by ais523

Post by Dave Flower
K 10 8 x x x x
Q J 10
-
A Q x
A Q
A K
A K Q 10 9 x x
K x
North opened 1S, and south bid 7NT
West led H8 (probably second highest from rubbish), East following.
South won, and cashed SA, West discarding a heart.
Take it from there

You can win at most three tricks in hearts and three tricks in clubs
(due to only having three cards in each). We know where all the spades
are, and they're offside, so unless you can force East to discard the
Jack of Spades somehow you can win at most three spades. Likewise, we
have no way to take the diamond finesse without putting the opponents on
lead (thus failing to make 7NT), so we need to either drop the Jack of
Diamonds or force the opponents to discard it if we're going to make
more than three diamond tricks without losing one.
If West has 4 or more diamonds, the contract is obviously unmakable;
West can simply hold onto diamonds (and East to spades) and we have no
way to dislodge that.
If West and East have 3 diamonds each, the contract is trivially makable
because the diamonds run.
The interesting case is if East has 4 or more diamonds. Making the
contract without the defenders being able to stop you then requires
playing six tricks in hearts and clubs, with East being unable to hold
both the guard in diamonds and spades. Unfortunately, at that point,
South will have /only/ diamonds and spades, leaving the spade suit as
the only possible entry between the hands.

Now that I think about it, you can indeed play 3 rounds of clubs, pitching the HA.
Then when you lead the last heart, you have:

KT8xx
Q
-
-
J9
(immaterial) -
Jxxx
-

Q
-
AKQT9
-

A spade is immediately fatal, so he has to pitch a d. Then you play
low to the Q.

[ais523]

Post by Mick Heins

Post by Dave Flower
K 10 8 x x x x
Q J 10
-
A Q x
A Q
A K
A K Q 10 9 x x
K x

[snip]

Post by Mick Heins
Now that I think about it, you can indeed play 3 rounds of clubs, pitching the HA.
KT8xx
Q
-
-
J9
(immaterial) -
Jxxx
-
Q
-
AKQT9
-
A spade is immediately fatal, so he has to pitch a d. Then you play
low to the Q.

I think you've miscounted the rounds of spades there? North started with
seven and now has five, South started with two and now has one, so
North's played one more round than South.

Once you fix that, East has seven cards at this point rather than six,
and thus can safely pitch whatever the seventh card is.

[Mick Heins]

Post by ais523

Post by Mick Heins

Post by Dave Flower
K 10 8 x x x x
Q J 10
-
A Q x
A Q
A K
A K Q 10 9 x x
K x

[snip]

Post by Mick Heins
Now that I think about it, you can indeed play 3 rounds of clubs, pitching the HA.
KT8xx
Q
-
-
J9
(immaterial) -
Jxxx
-
Q
-
AKQT9
-
A spade is immediately fatal, so he has to pitch a d. Then you play
low to the Q.

I think you've miscounted the rounds of spades there? North started with
seven and now has five, South started with two and now has one, so
North's played one more round than South.
Once you fix that, East has seven cards at this point rather than six,
and thus can safely pitch whatever the seventh card is.

Aha. You are right. You could cash one diamond to get rid of the 7th
spade, but then Jxx of diamonds would suffice for a stopper.

I still think it makes it harder on east to do it this way, as they have
to find the spade pitch.

[Travis Crump]

Post by Dave Flower
K 10 8 x x x x
Q J 10
-
A Q x
A Q
A K
A K Q 10 9 x x
K x
North opened 1S, and south bid 7NT
West led H8 (probably second highest from rubbish), East following.
South won, and cashed SA, West discarding a heart.
Take it from there
Dave Flower

I wonder if the idea is cash the other spade and heart and cross to a
club honor[not sure which is best, but let's say A], and then cash the
HQ and SK pitching diamonds. The hope is that the opponents think you
wouldn't voluntarily block clubs like this so you must have long clubs
instead of long diamonds. It is a six card ending and the opponent can't
keep 3 clubs and 4 diamonds. The danger is an extra undertrick when the
opponents are good enough not to be fooled, but depending on the form of
scoring the upside might be well worth the risk.

[ais523]

Post by Travis Crump

Post by Dave Flower
K 10 8 x x x x
Q J 10
-
A Q x
A Q
A K
A K Q 10 9 x x
K x
North opened 1S, and south bid 7NT

[snip]

Post by Travis Crump
I wonder if the idea is cash the other spade and heart and cross to a
club honor[not sure which is best, but let's say A], and then cash the
HQ and SK pitching diamonds. The hope is that the opponents think you
wouldn't voluntarily block clubs like this so you must have long clubs
instead of long diamonds. It is a six card ending and the opponent can't
keep 3 clubs and 4 diamonds. The danger is an extra undertrick when the
opponents are good enough not to be fooled, but depending on the form of
scoring the upside might be well worth the risk.

If you're discarding *small* diamonds, then that's tantamount to showing
length in diamonds. You bid 7NT as your first bid, thus your hand must
be almost entirely honours, and thus any suit where you're discarding
small cards must have length.

I also don't see any reason why West can't have a club guard; if it's
West who guards clubs and not East, then East will guard diamonds even
if they're successfully deceived. (There's also the risk of the
opponents being able to signal something useful to them about clubs
when you play that suit.)

I can see why you might want to try this anyway at IMPs, though. It's
only 50/100 points if it doesn't work, and a huge number of points if it
does, and that's a good deal even after being IMPed.

[Travis Crump]

Post by ais523

Post by Travis Crump

Post by Dave Flower
K 10 8 x x x x
Q J 10
-
A Q x
A Q
A K
A K Q 10 9 x x
K x
North opened 1S, and south bid 7NT

[snip]

Post by Travis Crump
I wonder if the idea is cash the other spade and heart and cross to a
club honor[not sure which is best, but let's say A], and then cash the
HQ and SK pitching diamonds. The hope is that the opponents think you
wouldn't voluntarily block clubs like this so you must have long clubs
instead of long diamonds. It is a six card ending and the opponent can't
keep 3 clubs and 4 diamonds. The danger is an extra undertrick when the
opponents are good enough not to be fooled, but depending on the form of
scoring the upside might be well worth the risk.

If you're discarding *small* diamonds, then that's tantamount to showing
length in diamonds. You bid 7NT as your first bid, thus your hand must
be almost entirely honours, and thus any suit where you're discarding
small cards must have length.

You are trying to make the opponents think you have AQ AK AKxx Kxxxx.
You could get cute and throw the DT first, but that risks diamonds being
Jx/8xxxx.

Post by ais523
I also don't see any reason why West can't have a club guard; if it's
West who guards clubs and not East, then East will guard diamonds even
if they're successfully deceived. (There's also the risk of the
opponents being able to signal something useful to them about clubs
when you play that suit.)

Even a pseudosqueeze won't potentially work 100% of the time.

Post by ais523
I can see why you might want to try this anyway at IMPs, though. It's
only 50/100 points if it doesn't work, and a huge number of points if it
does, and that's a good deal even after being IMPed.

[Dave Flower]

Post by Travis Crump

Post by ais523

Post by Travis Crump

Post by Dave Flower
K 10 8 x x x x
Q J 10
-
A Q x
A Q
A K
A K Q 10 9 x x
K x
North opened 1S, and south bid 7NT

[snip]

Post by Travis Crump
I wonder if the idea is cash the other spade and heart and cross to a
club honor[not sure which is best, but let's say A], and then cash the
HQ and SK pitching diamonds. The hope is that the opponents think you
wouldn't voluntarily block clubs like this so you must have long clubs
instead of long diamonds. It is a six card ending and the opponent can't
keep 3 clubs and 4 diamonds. The danger is an extra undertrick when the
opponents are good enough not to be fooled, but depending on the form of
scoring the upside might be well worth the risk.

If you're discarding *small* diamonds, then that's tantamount to showing
length in diamonds. You bid 7NT as your first bid, thus your hand must
be almost entirely honours, and thus any suit where you're discarding
small cards must have length.

You are trying to make the opponents think you have AQ AK AKxx Kxxxx.
You could get cute and throw the DT first, but that risks diamonds being
Jx/8xxxx.

The chances of six diamonds breaking 5/2 are minuscule.

However, J/8xxxx is possible. But that requires a defender to hang on to 8xxxx -
not obvious!

I like to idea of discarding D10.

Dave Flower

Post by Travis Crump

Post by ais523
I also don't see any reason why West can't have a club guard; if it's
West who guards clubs and not East, then East will guard diamonds even
if they're successfully deceived. (There's also the risk of the
opponents being able to signal something useful to them about clubs
when you play that suit.)

Even a pseudosqueeze won't potentially work 100% of the time.

Post by ais523
I can see why you might want to try this anyway at IMPs, though. It's
only 50/100 points if it doesn't work, and a huge number of points if it
does, and that's a good deal even after being IMPed.

[ais523]

Post by Travis Crump

Post by Dave Flower
K 10 8 x x x x
Q J 10
-
A Q x
A Q
A K
A K Q 10 9 x x
K x
North opened 1S, and south bid 7NT

[snip]

Post by Travis Crump
You are trying to make the opponents think you have AQ AK AKxx Kxxxx.
You could get cute and throw the DT first, but that risks diamonds being
Jx/8xxxx.

That doesn't look anything like a 7NT bid opposite 1S to me. You have 23
HCP. Depending on system, your partner's opening bid might be weaker
than 12 HCP if unbalanced (and wouldn't you expect their hand to be
unbalanced, given your own hand?), but even if we assume that we have 12
HCP as a minimum, that means 35 minimum for the partnership. That's 5
missing HCP, plenty of room for the Ace of Clubs to be in an opposing
hand and played trick 1; so even if you were considering going for the
grand, you'd at least check for missing aces first. (This is actually a
decent argument to /always/ do an Ace check even if you're planning to
jump to 7NT regardless; it tells the opponents less about the hand,
because they can't then distinguish between a hand that knows where the
Aces are and a hand that doesn't. Knowing how many aces are in dummy is
unlikely to help with the opening lead, and after that point the
information you give away is of no use.)

Contrast the hand that South actually had; it has 25 HCP. 25 opposite 12
is 37, so (in a system where 12 HCP is an absolute minimum) you now know
for certain that there are no missing Aces, as your partner needs to
hold the missing Ace to have enough HCP for the opening bid.

[Dave Flower]

Having posed the problem, here are my comments.

I agree with the line of cashing all the major suit winners, probably discarding Dx, D10.

But should the first round of clubs be won by the Q or the A ?

Finally, the line of play involves blocking the only suit in which there are no communications problems!

Dave Flower

Post by Dave Flower
K 10 8 x x x x
Q J 10
-
A Q x
A Q
A K
A K Q 10 9 x x
K x
North opened 1S, and south bid 7NT
West led H8 (probably second highest from rubbish), East following.
South won, and cashed SA, West discarding a heart.
Take it from there
Dave Flower