Yeah, I had cut my notch, then bored, leaving a trigger, but the tree was a little too small to get a wedge in. My mistake happened at that point - I should have gone to the other side of the tree one more time, and double checked that my hinge was uniform in thickness, since I wasn't trying to swing anything. I neglected to do that, and left too thick of a hinge on the far side. When I cut my trigger, the tree started to chair a little, so I quickly jammed a wedge in, while I got out of Dodge. I think if I hadn't wedged it, the chair would have opened the rest of the way up, and the tree would have gone down. Instead, I was able to stop, assess from a distance, and go the long way around to see what was going on with the other side of the tree. That's when I saw my error. I was able to stand back to the side of the chair, and reach in with the tip of my bar to cut through the hinge, just like you described, which allowed the tree to fall with gravity. It would have been better to not make the mistake in the first place, but since I was paying attention to what the tree was doing when it started to chair, I was able to get out of the way.