Beer Opportunities Galore

So, I beered two more times tonight. This first one wasn't terribly easy and took some cooperation from puffy. They conceded before the hand was up but I had it all set up to win the next lead in my hand, ruff the diamond 10, cash dummy's two top spades and come to hand with whichever entry was left. But this would not have been possible if serapuff hadn't so graciously covered my J with the A at trick 6. And at the end, ruffing out the Q from Raphael's hand seemed very likely given the 9 falling from him earlier. And even if I wanted to take a ruffing finesse, it would risk the contract. The bidding and early plays kind of mark Raph with the Q, too, because with the Q in addition to the 14 point already shown, puffy probably would have opened 1NT. So, that's number 7 in about 120 hands this week. In a hand a couple of boards this one, I had an easy beer chance in 5H, but they sacrificed at 5S. A couple of hands later I thought I might get another beer in 4H when we had KT87 opposite Q9x, but the defense went SK, DA, D ruff, CA, D ruff :(



Then, playing money bridge with a robot, I was in 4S here. I'm not sure my line was absolutely the best (I think it was) but it certainly worked this time. This is an interesting declarer play problem. I decided the best line was to take the ace at trick one, cash the ace of spades and the AKQ of clubs, pitching my heart. If someone ruffs with a spade honor, I'm probably in good shape to make. And if clubs are 3-2, I'm probably in good shape. Maybe the best line is to pay ace and another spade immediately, trying to hold it to 3 losers - 1 each in spades, hearts, and diamonds. And when the spade K falls stiff, does that change things? I think it makes it more likely for the person with 4 trumps to have a stiff or void in clubs and therefore might be more in favor of trying to draw trumps. But that only works if lho led a stiff diamond and rho has no entry, highly unlikely, if you assume lho would find the play underlead the heart ace. And I'll need to lead diamonds off dummy at some point to finesse for the 9 if they split 4-1. Eh. too many things to think about, so I went with the gut of drawing 1 trump, cashing Q-K-A of clubs. They ruff, cash DK, D ruff, ruff the H, pull last trump, end of story and taking the last trick with the D7 is easy.