We recently wished to prepare the alcohol (1) as a synthetic intermediate: the known ketone (2)l seemed an obvious precursor. However, reaction of this material under standard conditions (Ph3P, excess CC14, reflux) gave the mono-chloro olefin (3) in moderate yield plus unreacted ketone, in keeping with the reported behaviour of cyclohexanone itself.2 ... Various other conditions for the transformation (2) (4) were possible,3 but these involved more complex reagents ...
