[Echognome]

Scoring: IMP

1NT - 2♣
2♠ - 4♠
All Pass

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This is perhaps an advanced/intermediate rather than a BIL hand, but I hope you find it instructive.

You open 1NT (showing 13-15) and partner propels you to the game in spades.

LHO leads a low heart (good news) and you win the Jack in hand. (Don't worry about the pips for now). You play a diamond towards dummy and LHO wins the ♦A and plays another heart. You win the A in hand (again not much difference if you won the K) and play a diamond to the Q. You think lead a spade to your 10 and LHO's K. LHO plays another heart, you play the K (or small if you played the K earlier) and RHO ruffs. Here's the position now:

Scoring: IMP

1NT - 2♣
2♠ - 4♠
All Pass

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You have lost three tricks already so must take the remainder.

RHO returns a small club after his ruff.

How should you play the hand and why?

Hidden Hint:

Spoiler

Your opponents are very good players. Why should that affect your answer?

If you feel the answer is quite obvious, please use hidden text.

Thanks.

[pclayton]

My view:

Spoiler

1. The club return was vital because it gives me a losing option if the ♦10 is coming down third and the K♣ is on my left.

OR

2. The club return breaks up a squeeze against RHO who holds: ♠Qxx ♥xx ♦Txxx ♣Kxxx; (its actually a double squeeze and doesn't matter if RHO or LHO holds the K♣ as long as RHO holds the diamond guard).

It seems I have a lot more chances with RHO holding the K♣, so I'll float it.

Oh well, down 1, next board.

[Winstonm]

Spoiler

I can't make this unless the spades are 3/2, so I have to assume the ace will fetch the outstanding trumps, meaning RHO had to start with 3. If that is the case, he would have exited with a spade when holding 10xxx of diamonds. The only thing that makes sense to me is that RHO with 3 spades and a safe exit is trying to give me a losing option. If a squeeze were possible, I'd have to draw the outstanding trump, cross to dummy, ruff the last heart, then cross back to dummy to play the squeeze card, and I don't have entries to do this. However, if the diamond 10 is coming down, then the only chance for the defense is to play a club. I rise with the Ace, bang down the spade Ace, and expect the diamond 10 to come in for 2 club pitches.

Winston

[FrancesHinden]

Mainly at this point we wish we'd played the hand differently earlier, then we wouldn't have had this problem.

I'm interested in the logic of playing a spade to the 10, and hence the heart pips are relevant. Did we know that it was very likely LHO had 4 hearts? If so a spade to the 10 gained when RHO had

- 3 or 4 spades to the KQ (though with 4 he probably should have split)

but lost when RHO had

- any low doubleton
- any Kxxx or Qxxx

The first is slightly more probably than the second (given hearts are 4-2), except that: i) LHO might have led a trump from 2 low rather than a heart from 4 low, and ii) it also gave us this problem, and iii) see below

We had an alternative line of spade to the ace, jack of diamonds discarding a club, second spade. Various things could have happened next, but we would have saved ourself this problem.

iii) We've got to this point because we're confused at RHO's not exiting with his presumed third spade. If he had simply led the third spade we'd need the D10 falling or a squeeze.

[inquiry]

Simple answer. A average player would not lead away from the ♣King handing you your contract when (if) you play low (assuming you pick up the ♠Q). As it is proposed in a BIL forum, I suspect the answer desired was to up with the ace of clubs, and hope the ♠Q and ♦T are both falling as you cash out.

The more complicated issue is East might return a ♣ from the ♣K to break up a potential squeeze where you need to have the ♣Ace as an entry rather than the "safe" trump as others have pointed out. In otherwords, against a good player who can diagnose the defensive problem, might lead away from the ♣King to give you a losing option. Some of the times you will guess wrong.