Friday, July 13, 2007

Safety or gamble at MP?

Saturday I played a marathon as preparation for the upcoming EK for university students. Concentration for a long period of time could be one of the biggest problems we'll face, so we played in a good field for an entire day with MP scoring. Imp tournaments are more relaxed imo, so MP is a great training.
We didn't do great, but it wasn't bad either. Some silly mistakes mainly in carding, but our bidding system and competitive agreements work.

The most interesting hand I declared was the following:
AQ9x
AQxxxx
Axx
-

KT8x
K
KJx
AJTxx

We were on the way to grand slam, but partner missed in number of keycards (it was late), so we ended up in 6 instead of 7. Not that it's such a great grand slam anyway, so I didn't complain (it would probably make, but that's not the important issue imo).

LHO leads K. Imo the best way to make lots of tricks is to play on s. I discard a in dummy and take my A. Now comes K of course, followed by a to the Ace. When you play a small RHO shows out (doesn't ruff ofcourse, since that's pointless).

Back into the tank! Is there still a way for +1? Is my contract in danger?

Trumps are 3-2 or 4-1. 3-2 is no problem. So what about 4-1? If RHO has 4 s we'll probably go down. If LHO has 4 of them, we need to unblock s when ruffing out our s, and take the finesse later on to keep control of the hand. That's a safe line when LHO has 4s, but may still be dangerous if LHO has 3 s and a singleton minor! We will have played A to ruff a ...

Anyway, I choose to unblock the s, ruffing with T and K (keeping 8 opposite Q9x). When I played 8, LHO played the J and I made +1.

I was quite surprized that scored a top! Since 6 is a normal contract, and are divided Jx-xxx, any line you choose will get you an overtrick as long as you play on . LHO didn't have a singleton , so the lead doesn't matter much. EXCEPT: the lead of a small will make it harder on you, because they take away an easy entry for ruffing out the s. I guess you'll need even better unblocking there, and you'll need to play on a 3-2 split for sure. Still, you can always make the contract.

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