[FrancesHinden]

Another hand from the league match. Still 28 board match, IMPS converted to VPs.

Scoring: IMP

1♦ 1♥ P 4♠
P P P

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Dummy says "oh dear, now I've got to show what my 1H overcall looked like"
You lead the king of diamonds (requesting count), partner plays the 4 (odd number) and declarer the Queen.

Now what?

[Codo]

What will declarer have? At least AQTxxx in spade and less then Kx in heart. The Q stiff in Diamond....I believe in a 7114 or 8014 hand, because with shorter spades or longer clubs, he sure had the ability to find a slower approach.
Unluckly, I cannot beat his hand, if he has the ace of Club in a legal way and I will always beat it, if Pd has a black ace.

So, I look for the secret informations:

Quote

Dummy says "oh dear, now I've got to show what my 1H overcall looked like"

That makes me confident, that there is a kind of macho sitting sout, who may look at AQTxxx, Kx, Q, Axxx. Still much with the Club queen protected and clubs 4333 around the table and the hearts behaving well for them. But I will try to set up pds 4. trump by playing another high diamond and a thrid one, when I am in with King of Spade. Maybe declarer will loose control or some other nice things may happen.

[whereagles]

At table I'd play another diamond. Which is probably wrong because this is a problem

[winkle]

If declarer has seven spades, I can't find a layout where my play matters. Nor can I find an intersting case when he has both HK and CA.

So I'm going to play him for 8212 with the SA and one of the HK and CA. I'll return a small heart now, which I think is necessary to avoid some squeeze ending if he has AQTxxxx Kx x Tx and I later misguess to play him for the CA.

[FrancesHinden]

The actual hand isn't actually that interesting: it goes off if you either continue diamonds or switch to a low heart (my choice). Declarer has

A109xxxx
Kx
Q
A10x

But I thought for a long time at the table about whether a top diamond could cost at trick 2, and I couldn't really see how it would help. I was also worried about various squeeze layouts, or declarer having something like AQ109xxx xx Q Axx when I need to switch to hearts at some point anyway.

[whereagles]

Yeah.. that heart suit looks threatening. But given we stop trumps and can't play hearts from our side anyway, there seems to be no rush at the moment.