Bridge Problem

[beth_leonard]

I don't know if anyone who reads my journal likes bridge, but here is my current bridge quiz -- is it possible to make 4S on this hand?
Bidding - opponents silent, partner opens: 1C - 1S - 3S - P

Dummy:
S: AKQ8
H: xxx
D: Kx
C: Jxxx

Me:
S: T9xx
H: AKx
D: xxxx
C: AQ

Opening lead, small diamond.

Ok declarer, what's your plan?


As it turns out, the Diamond Ace is to the right, club K on the left, and the spades break 4-1 to with 4 on the left with the jack. We went down 1 (making 2) but after the night was over I think I see how to have made 3 (with one very weak assumption that I can't test anymore because I don't remember *all* of the opponents cards.) I don't know if there's any way to make four, and it seems like I was correct to not bid it in this case.

--Beth
--Beth

Comments

[motleypolitico.livejournal.com]

Ok, doing a trick count:

You've got a spade loser, a heart loser, two diamond losers, and a club loser potentially. So that's 5 losers hanging out there, and you've got to reduce that to 3 losers.

Best way I see to go about this, involves biting the bullet on your club loser (cash AQ, making the J good, but *ruffing* the third round of clubs in hand). There are layouts where you can get yourself three club tricks (Kx onside) without the loser, but it doesn't much help as you have no winners to set up elsewhere. You'll eventually pitch a heart loser on the club J. So now we're down to only having one more loser to get rid of. And I don't see a way that you can toss RHO (with the diamond ace) in, so he has to either lead away from the diamond ace or concede a ruff/sluff. So I don't see how to avoid the second diamond loser, although if RHO doesn't have the Queen, and you do it late enough, he may fly Ace and bail you out if you can get LHO to break diamonds for you. If you can hold yourself to a single diamond loser through poor defense that way, you also have chances to make, losing a diamond, a club, and a spade. LHO will ruff in with his Jack of spades at some point, but who cares, it was going to be good anyway.

If you were psychic and knew the 4:1 spade break was coming, you could hook finesse the T on the first or second round of spades when you pull them, but that's not the percentage play by any means, and I'm still not sure you can do that and get all the ruffs you need.

There may also be a way to make this on a dummy reversal, where you score up a total of 5 trump tricks (4 in dummy, one ruff in hand in clubs), 2 hearts, and 2 clubs and find a spare trick around somewhere, either on a ruff/sluff or by scoring the diamond King, but I'm not seeing it. I suppose there are also possibilities for a double squeeze as well, since you have both opps guarding hearts, one guarding diamonds, one guarding clubs, but I don't think it quite sets up nicely for you and it's hard to rectify the count with the bad spade break out there.

So, moral of the story, you needed the diamond Ace onside to make it an easy game, so you're at least a 50% game there, and you had chances even if that was off, if you could hold spades to zero losers, which happens on pretty much any 3:2 break. So it was a good game on a bad lay of the cards.