Help
Imps, regional KO, final match.
Your methods require opening 1C with all balanced hands with no five card major and opening values that don’t fit a notrump opening, hence 1C, explained as 2+.
1D showed hearts and 2H showed 11-13 with 4 hearts.
The double was takeout of hearts.
3D was a help suit game try.
The double suggested that, if we had merely eight hearts, they might break badly, but partner saw the double as well and still made his game try. Since we are maximum (1N would have been 14-16) and we have diamond help and a ruffing value we accept despite our weak trump holding.
The opening lead is the spade King.
It’s pretty much normal to duck these leads unless we see a good reason not to do so. We can’t see any such, so we duck, as RHO discourages. LHO can’t be sure we don’t have Jxx so he shifts…to a trump.
The King is topped by the Ace and a spade comes back. The Jack forces the Queen, and we take our ace.
We cash a second heart…there’s no reason not to and sometimes the suit is 2-2 despite the double. Not this time. LHO pitches a spade
What now?
We have lost a spade and a heart and the diamonds are a problem.
We can play for Hx onside, but that double is worrying. He has at most KQ10x x KQxx QJxx. Take away a diamond honour and would he come in, red?
What can we do about it if both diamonds are offside?
It looks natural to ruff a spade, but we need to picture the ending if we do that, before or after pulling trump.
Say we ruff a spade at trick five…it’s safe since LHO would have overcalled with long spades. Since he pitched a spade, we can strip him of that suit.
Let’s say we then pull trump…on which LHO pitches a diamond. What now?
We have void QJ 10xx xx opposite void void AJxx AKx
But, if we give LHO both diamond cards, he’ll have void void KQx QJxx
We can’t endplay him…he’ll always have a club exit even after we’ve played AK and ruffed one…he can give us a ruff-sluff, since we are out of trump in our hand.
So….do we have to go back to hoping RHO has Hx in diamonds?
Hmmm…for an endplay to work, we need to put LHO into a position in which, after he takes the diamond Jack with an honour, he must either return a diamond (on which we play the 10) or give us a ruff sluff.
Can we get to that position?
We have to ruff a spade in hand, to remove his spade exit….but that means we can’t finish pulling trump! We need to keep a trump in hand for the ruff sluff to be a threat.
What if we win the spade return at trick three, cash one heart and then abandon trump temporarily?
We ruff a spade, cash the club AK and ruff a club….now we have void QJ 10xx void opposite void x AJxx void
And, if we’ve read this correctly, LHO has void void KQx Q. While RHO has x x xx void.
We play a diamond to the Jack, taken by the king. LHO smoothly exits a low diamond.
We’re cold now, if we read the position. If RHO started with Qx, we duck in dummy, capture the Queen with the ace and finally pull the last trump.
If LHO started with both diamond honours, we pop the 10 from dummy and claim.
LHO is a good player….he knows that you know that he’s 4=1=4=4 and has the values to double 2H, so he’s never winning the queen…his only hope is to play the king.
I confess that at the table I went wrong. I played far too quickly, pulling the last trump before really thinking about the hand, and that left me hoping for Hx onside. It wasn’t. Lose 12
Could the defence have done better?
Yes, but it wouldn’t have been easy.
RHO had to switch to a diamond at trick three, which kills the endplay.
Our guys arguably had a better shot at that since north played the hand, and west had the chance to make a spectacular play at trick one. East led a spade through Jx and West held KQ10x….he should have played the spade King! Now, when east wins the heart ace, he really has no choice but to play a diamond. Btw, it was our west who said he ought to have played the spade king.
We lost by 12☹️
So this hand weighed on me for days afterwards…and still annoys me.