Friday, June 12, 2009

Continuing the Count Crunching

The solution to the "how to place dummy" is that a club to the king is best, for reasons well pointed out in the comments. At the table, I chose the inferior line of three rounds of diamonds, ruffed and overruffed. The choice of line was irrelevant as every thing was reasonably friendly.

The solution to the "how to wreck your life" problem posed here was also pointed out accurately in the comments. Partner would have led a diamond from an original holding of Qxxx. Also, we can extend our counting exercise to partner's hand. They led their fourth best club, are marked with a singleton heart, so their most likely shape is 4144.

Here is a more advanced example of the count-crunching-machine in play.


1S = no four card major

When East elected to lead his diamond and West gave him a ruff, can you deduce the East-West hands ?

Diamonds are known to be 1- 5; hearts are known to be 4-3; spades rate to be 4-1 and so the clubs have to be 4-4. A check of our calculations shows that 1354 (West) and 4414 (East) is consistent with the bidding and their system.

On the question of high cards, East has to have AKJ10 of spades (ruffs the diamond with the spade ten)and the Ace of clubs. West has already shown up with the diamond ace.

At the table, the defence (after the diamond ruff) continued with Ace and another club. Only the Club/heart jacks are unaccounted for; can declarer make this contract irrespective of their location or is it another case of the patient dying ?

3 comments:

  1. Given that east passed the takeout double, he is almost certainly 4414, rather than AK10 Jxxx x Axxxx. Acting on this assumption, it seems that you can make by winning the CQ, pitching a diamond, cashing the KQ of hearts and leading a spade up. East wins and leads a third club, which you ruff in dummy. You now cash the HA, pitching a club and ruff a heart in hand and lead a second spade in the following ending:

    ----Qx
    ----void
    ----K
    ----void

    AJ
    void
    void
    x

    ----xx
    ----void
    ----Q
    ----void

    West has no answer.

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  2. Could east not hold AJ109 Jxxx x AJxx and have falsecarded when ruffing the diamond? Admittedly this makes west's takeout double even more aggressive.

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  3. gosney doubled? ewwww, too aggressive imo. Partner's going to be stuck too many times and if he is expecting us to have our double then he will pass more often with 12-14 hands with 4 ok trumps. I reckon 2NT is better if he wanted to compete in a minor contract.

    Anyways, Khokan's analysis is correct once you know E/W's distribution then it's easy.

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