[Laocoon166]

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Matchpoints.

How do good players approach hands like this? You could score anything between 8 and 13 tricks and the line to maximise that number seems like a maths problem that I have no idea how to solve at the table. What's a good strategy?

♦6 lead; leader is GIB who I think leads passively at NT according to DD simulations.

[ahydra]

Making 13 tricks seems to require helpful defence, though I can see 12 being a possibility.

My approach would be: trying hearts is free, but we may only have one diamond stopper remaining so can only try one of the black suits since they require effort to set up. Spades offers hope for two additional tricks while clubs offers only one, so this being MPs, you might gamble on spades.

Of course we don't want to pass up the free finesse in diamonds. So I'd duck. If it wins, I'd play SAK then heart to K and a third spade. If they split 3-3 (or SQ/10 drops) then that's awesome. If not, we can establish the last spade and in the endgame try for hearts 3-3 for the 11th.

However, if the duck loses to the DQ and another diamond comes back, you still try the SAK, heart to K, third spade line as above - but if you fail to get a nice spade split, simply go all-in on hearts. If they split 4-2 you're still making the contract. Finessing in clubs only gets you a trick here just over 25% of the time, so isn't worth it compared to the 4-2 split (50%).

That's just a rough analysis that one can get used to performing at the table - though I suggest you prefer the advice of the more expert players on the forum as I'm aware my declarer play, to be frank, rather sucks.

ahydra

Side note: just considering the best line at IMPs. If the DJ loses, one should probably ignore spades and go after clubs since then you are only off if both clubs are offside?