This hand comes to us courtesy of my friend Greg. You hold:
Jxx AKJxxxx J xx
You open 3H and play it there. The opening lead is the spade 9, and dummy hits with:
Kxx x Kxxxxx Axx
You duck in dummy and RHO plays low. What's going on here? What does LHO have? Plan your play.
Greg made some intelligent deductions on this hand and was able to score a very good board here. I'll let him tell the rest of the story in the comments.
Thanks, Greg.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
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4 comments:
I think one of the key things you left out in the descriptions is that the opponents are little blue haired old ladies. This speaks to the question of whether the lead is from Q98 (and RHO has correctly ducked from ATxx) or from AQ9.
I don't think my LHO would really lead the 9 from Q98, much less would my RHO duck from any holding (especially ATxx). So the lead kind of has to be from AQ9.
If a blue haired LOL is leading small from AQ9, she must have a supremely awkward hand to lead from, like AQ9 QTxx Axx KJx.
So I played the heart ace, and "ran" the diamond jack to the king, which held. Then diamond ruff, duck a club, win club return, diamond ruff, spade up (LHO pops ace), win spade continuation, club ruff, exit heart. LHO had to win and lead into my trump KJ for 10 tricks.
Of course, this is all a good story, and I think those inferences are there, but two things should be noted:
1) I fell from grace by playing the spade up before ducking the club, at which point my RHO could have promoted a trump trick by returning a diamond. She exited a club instead.
2) my LHO was holding her hand basically face up on the table so drawing the inference on the opening lead wasn't as clever as it sounds.
3) it was teams so really the overtrick was just me showing off.
On that note, what do you lead from AQ9 QTxx Axx KJx against 3H P P P?
My thinking (before I read your comments) was that LHO underlead AQ9(x-x) because he or she was void in a suit, apparently diamonds.
Cute hand.
No self-respecting blue-haired LOL would ever think of bidding 3NT with that had; would you?
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