[fred]

gnasher, on Jun 4 2008, 07:01 PM, said:

What line did Fred play, and why?

I ruff the Ace of clubs and cashed the Ace of hearts (because I knew the King of diamonds was offside so crossing to the dummy via a diamond finesse to take the heart finesse was not an attractive option).

I had been planning to play a low heart next, but when LHO followed to the first round of trump with the Jack I decided to play the Queen of hearts instead (because I knew that I was down if LHO had KJ and because the tempo suggested that LHO did not have J10x).

I could not (and still cannot) see an attractive lines that involved things like ruffing spades and playing clubs before drawing trump.

Interestingly (to me at least)....

I saw Bobby Levin (my RHO) the next day and we talked about this hand. He said something like "After you cashed the Ace of hearts and were thinking about what to do, I almost showed you my hand because I knew you couldn't make it. The only reason I didn't is that I did not want you to think that the very action of doing this might wake up my partner to the necessity of returning a diamond. Of course it was 1000% that Stevie would return a diamond but....".

After all my claims of "100%" in previous posts (which to some of you may have seemed like overbids), it is notable that the "1000%" that appears in the above semi-quote was one of the actual words that Bobby chose

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[gnasher]

fred, on Jun 5 2008, 12:36 PM, said:

I could not (and still cannot) see an attractive lines that involved things like ruffing spades and playing clubs before drawing trump.

In earlier posts you said that we should believe the lead, and that RHO wouldn't have covered with five clubs. That means that clubs are 5=1 or 3=3. You also said that ♦K is marked offside.

Ruffing a spade, discarding spades on clubs, and taking a heart finesse works when clubs are 3-3 and RHO has ♥Kx or ♥Kxx.

Ace and a low heart works only when RHO has ♥Kx - when LHO has ♥Kx, he plays a diamond through.

Therefore ace and a low heart is correct only if you think it more likely that RHO has ♥Kx and ♣x than ♥Kxx and ♣xxx. Do you?

[fred]

gnasher, on Jun 5 2008, 01:51 PM, said:

fred, on Jun 5 2008, 12:36 PM, said:

I could not (and still cannot) see an attractive lines that involved things like ruffing spades and playing clubs before drawing trump.

In earlier posts you said that we should believe the lead, and that RHO wouldn't have covered with five clubs. That means that clubs are 5=1 or 3=3. You also said that ♦K is marked offside.

Ruffing a spade, discarding spades on clubs, and taking a heart finesse works when clubs are 3-3 and RHO has ♥Kx or ♥Kxx.

Ace and a low heart works only when RHO has ♥Kx - when LHO has ♥Kx, he plays a diamond through.

Therefore ace and a low heart is correct only if you think it more likely that RHO has ♥Kx and ♣x than ♥Kxx and ♣xxx. Do you?

For some reason that line of play did not occur to me either at the table or afterwards.

I can't see any flaws in your suggested line. If I think of something (unlikely) I will post it, but until then I think it is reasonable to conclude that I misplayed the hand.

Clubs were certain to be 3-3 by the way (read my earlier posts if you want to know why).

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com