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        riddles >> medium >> Trump Management (Bridge)
        
(Message started by: ThudanBlunder on Feb 1^st, 2010, 11:15am)

Title: Trump Management (Bridge)
Post by ThudanBlunder on Feb 1^st, 2010, 11:15am

You deal yourself the following bridge hand:

SPADES: ----
DIAMONDS: A, K
CLUBS: A, K, Q
HEARTS: J, 10, 9, 7, 6, 4, 3, 2

You open 4 Hearts, which is passed around. On winning the diamond lead in your hand, you note that dummy is void of trumps. So nothing is to be gained by postponing the drawing of trumps. How would you do so?

Title: Re: Trump Management (Bridge)
Post by Three Hands on Feb 1^st, 2010, 12:18pm

[hide]I'd go with the 7 to start - if trumps split 5-0 you're up against it anyway trying to get them to lead trumps, as they will otherwise get the 4 tricks through trumps to take you off. A 3-2 split loses the 3 tricks only - less if defence make a mess of it, but nothing better for you to do. The 4-1 split only loses all 4 tricks if the singleton is the 8 and the player with four hearts ducks the first round, or if the singleton is the 5 and the player with four hearts covers with the 8. Otherwise this makes, and improves chances of an over-trick if the honours get mixed up.

Playing safe by going with the J, 10 or 9 might get around the loss if the singleton is the 8, but otherwise it doesn't help much, I think.

Guess the only other worry could be getting ruffed by oppo's next lead, but that's fairly unlikely as well.[/hide]

Title: Re: Trump Management (Bridge)
Post by ThudanBlunder on Feb 1^st, 2010, 3:09pm

Excellent, Three Hands! Are you better at bridge than your brother?
[hide]
If the trumps split 3-2 we can make our contract regardless of how we play them, losing exactly three trump tricks. In the event of a 4-1 split, if the 5H is the singleton the contact is down. If the 8H is the singleton a high-trump lead will secure the contact, and if a trump honour is singleton a low- trump will limit us to three trump losers. Since there are three trump honours it would seem to favour a low trump lead 3 to 1.

However, this lead will cause us to go down by two tricks in the event of a 5-0 split. But leading the 6 or 7 will result in only a one-trick set in the event of a 5-0 split. [/hide]

Title: Re: Trump Management (Bridge)
Post by Aryabhatta on Feb 1^st, 2010, 10:11pm

Interesting one T&B.

Title: Re: Trump Management (Bridge)
Post by rmsgrey on Feb 2^nd, 2010, 6:02pm

on 02/01/10 at 15:09:39, ThudanBlunder wrote:

Excellent, Three Hands! Are you better at bridge than your brother?

Quite possibly - I've not played even semi-seriously in something like 7-8 years.

I can't think of any scenario where leading 2,3, or 4 gains - you have 5 trumps higher than the 5, so, aside from possibly ruffing with them if opponents lead a C (or a third round of D after the second trump round), you might as well ignore them.

So the choice is between 6/7 and 9/T/J - at which point I look at the hidden text and generally agree with the analysis there...

The next interesting question is which of 6 and 7 is more likely to draw LHO into dropping RHO's singleton 8?

Title: Re: Trump Management (Bridge)
Post by Aryabhatta on Feb 3^rd, 2010, 11:31am

on 02/02/10 at 18:02:58, rmsgrey wrote:

The next interesting question is which of 6 and 7 is more likely to draw LHO into dropping RHO's singleton 8?

Should not matter I think.

Looking at AKQ5, LHO has no requirement to go up. If there is a trump promotion of the 5, contract is down anyway. And there is no way you can reduce declarers trumps (5 ruffs at least!) to try and score the trump 5...

A better chance is to play low and hope partner has the some card higher.

Title: Re: Trump Management (Bridge)
Post by Three Hands on Feb 6^th, 2010, 7:04am

on 02/02/10 at 18:02:58, rmsgrey wrote:

Quite possibly - I've not played even semi-seriously in something like 7-8 years.

Well, I'm 4 years or so worth of rusty in playing bridge myself, so not exactly at my best now either. To be honest, in a real situation I'd have probably just gone with the 7 of Hearts without spending as long thinking about it... ::)