Power Pinochle Forums

You sit East, with

South becomes declarer in clubs. South starts with some aces:

Trick 1:

,

Trick 2:

,

Trick 3:

,

Trick 4:

,

West is in now...
Trick 5:

,

Trick 6:

,

Trick 7:

,

1. Do you agree with East's plays? With which tricks, if any, would you take issue?

2. As West, what would you lead?

Please give respect to the original post by using spoiler tags. Here is a hyperlink to how to use spoiler tags.

Please post your own thoughts before you reveal my post (Click to View)

@ Trick 1: If East WANTS to signal in Hearts:

And uses Jack-Leadbacks - East should have played a which is a non-signal.
And uses Only Ace-Leadbacks - East has played correctly.

@ Trick 5: If East WANTS to signal in Hearts:

And uses Jack-Leadbacks - East should have played a to signal.
And uses Only Ace-Leadbacks - East has played correctly.

Truth is, Hearts doesn't have much in the way of life expectancy. I believe signaling Hearts in this case may be contraindicated.

@ Trick 6: If East WANTS to signal in Diamonds:

And uses King-Leadbacks - East should have played a which is a non-signal.
And uses Only Ace-Leadbacks - East played the which is the weakest point and the correct play.

@ Trick 7: If East WANTS to signal in Diamonds:

And uses King-Leadbacks - East should have played a to signal.
And uses Only Ace-Leadbacks - East should have played a to signal.

Similar to the Hearts suit, Diamonds is likely to get sawed off in the near future. I believe signaling Diamonds in this case may be contraindicated as well.

With both of the red suits, by not signaling for them to be led, they may be preserved long enough to win tricks if trump can be run out.

@ Tricks 2 - 4: The signaling is as clear as it can be, for anyone who uses the King-Leadback. Without his team being in the lead AND without playing an Ace, East has signaled in Spades using a King-Leadback. While it is not a demanding signal, I think this is the best signal for West to receive. If West plays a Spade, East will likely win a trick that he otherwise wouldn't with his Club rags.

As for Question #2, What would I lead as West? Since in this case I don't know what West is holding, I would lead Hearts, as that is the strongest signal used. King-Leadbacks & Jack-Leadbacks are sometimes involuntary signals, so they can't always be relied upon as true. While it could be argued that Ace-Leadbacks aren't guaranteed either, when the Ace-Leadback fails, usually trump is there to back it up.

+1 rep to ToreadorElder for a well-constructed scenario.

*For the record, I would like to reiterate what I've said in previous posts, that I don't like to use Jack & King Leadbacks, as they dictate that you spend your higher ranked cards every time that you ARE NOT signaling. This is not the thread to argue such a thing, but I just want to state my stance.

The scenario isn't constructed. This was an actual hand from a game yesterday.

Also, without giving away anything from mick's response...he made a comment on question 2, what should West exit, that I didn't show West's hand. That was intentional.

Third question.

The play through the first 6 tricks is the same, but trick 7 is now

,

Now, as West, with what suit would you exit?

mickmackusa's response to "Considering the two Ace-Leadbacks and the King-Leadback, what suit would you, as West, exit with? (Click to View)

First off, MY question.

1 For tricks two, three, and four, East played :qs:, :ts:, :ks:.
Was THAT a signal, showing partner three Spades?
2 I've never heard of King signals. Will somebody explain them.
3 I need a good explanation of Jack signals. I thought one used Ace and Jack signals together.

My answers

Spoiler (Click to View)

If you are going to talk about inferences, South has plenty of Clubs as trump and wants Spades led. So (s)he must be short in the red suits. With nothing better to do, Eas-West should be playing red cards and force South's trump.

First off, MY question.

1 For tricks two, three, and four, East played :qs:, :ts:, :ks:.
Was THAT a signal, showing partner three Spades?
2 I've never heard of King signals. Will somebody explain them.
3 I need a good explanation of Jack signals. I thought one used Ace and Jack signals together.

My answers

Spoiler (Click to View)

If you are going to talk about inferences, South has plenty of Clubs as trump and wants Spades led. So (s)he must be short in the red suits. With nothing better to do, Eas-West should be playing red cards and force South's trump.

To the question...

,

.

Well, let's go through the situation. South plays

. East doesn't want to give a point, so the

is forced. South plays the second

. East can now see a route: give West a trump ace and one of the 2 missing spade aces, and there's a route to him. Note, too, that North did NOT signal in spades; moreso, he played

. If North had both spade aces AND a ten, he can signal with

, as the

covers the 4th round of the suit. Therefore, it's likely West has one or both missing spade aces. That means the parlay East hopes for, isn't that unlikely, especially given than his trump holding is really pathetic. East wants to clue West in. The 'normal' play, since East HAS to play a point, would be to play

...playing up the line. Therefore, he starts a multiple-card signal by playing the

.

Did it show 3? Not entirely. There's 1 other case. Give East exactly

, and he should play the same. Put yourself in East's shoes, with differing spade lengths including

and

, and with the goal of telling West something about spades. How would you play those cards to do this?

The Spade Play:

Perfectly clear. With either of the two holdings, South is showing fourth round control of the Spade suit. Either has :as: or he has only 3 Spades and will trump the fourth Spade.

That was what I thought the sequence was supposed to show. Not a convention per se, but sequence of played cards that is "unusual". Poor players might do it because "it doesn't matter". Good players would always do it, with a partner that notices such plays, because "it does matter".

Right. The only 'conventional' aspect is in deciding what is 'usual' and what is 'unusual.'

But I'll take it further than showing 4th round control...I'll generally do this only with the initial 4-card holding. I may do it if I really, really need to get in...maybe I've got 1 or 2 crashable aces, or where my aces have a high risk of getting ruffed, as here *before* West cashes the other red aces. Switch, say, one of the diamond aces in the original East hand, to a spade ace. If North gets in before me, I probably lose 2 red aces.

Here's my comments now on how this hand went:
East's plays

Spoiler (Click to View)

So on the second question

Spoiler (Click to View)

Part of the thrust of this quiz is actually to recognize when NOT to make certain signals.

1. I agree with East's plays on West's EXCEPT on Trick 7 I would give an additional Ace leadback in diamonds instead of the non leadback King of diamonds.

2. Not seeing what West has, I would recommend that Trick 8 be either a King of hearts OR diamonds so a three point trick will result for the W/E team.

ToreadorElder

mickmackusa

ToreadorElder

ToreadorElder

mickmackusa

richardpaulhall

ToreadorElder

richardpaulhall

ToreadorElder

eodlance