[Fluffy]

Here is a deal played last weekend, I didn't find the winning line untill I saw all the cards, wonder how many would do:

Scoring: IMP

2♠-2NT
3♠-4♣
4♠-ps

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Lead is ♥7

Full hand on monday .

[david_c]

Well, double-dummy any one of four different plays could be needed at trick two.

(i) ♠K. Just draw trumps!

(ii) ♠x. Similar to the ♠K, but if one opponent has a singleton club it may be essential to play the right spade from dummy at trick two.

(iii) ♥K ruffed (followed by leading a spade from hand). May be the only way to avoid a club ruff.

(iv) ♦. It might be necessary to take out the diamond entry immediately.

All of these are kind of flashy in one way or another, so I'm thinking any one of them could be the right answer. Playing the ♠K looks most sensible to me.

[Codo]

How can I fail:
1. A Club or a unlikely Diamond ruff together with two trump loosers.
2.loosing trump control when spades are 4-1 or 5-0 and I ruff a Heart to come to hand.

So I try the King of spade. This wins, whenever the Queen is singelton, or they don´t find/have a ruff.

But as David wrote, this is no certinity, just feels good.

[FrancesHinden]

I'm fairly certain there is not a 100% line.
There are two risks:
i) A club ruff when East has a singleton (assuming 4C was a cue bid I assume West would have led his)
ii) Losing control

I want to work out if the second is a risk, before deciding the best approach for the first.

The best way to stop a ruff is to attack communications, so one approach here would be AK of hearts discarding a diamond (in case they are 6-1), diamond to the Queen. Win the (assumed) club return in hand and run the SJ. Suppose someone wins from AQxx or singleton honour and plays a heart. There's no point ruffing in dummy as I have no safe entry to hand, so ruff in hand and play a spade. Heart back (or diamond). We've ruffed twice and played two rounds of spades, and still have two spades left to draw the outstanding trumps. So losing control is only a problem if trumps are 5-0 and a club ruff is far more likely than that.

There are three ways to try and stop the ruff: play a diamond at once (after the other top heart) to take out the DA entry, or play a spade, or ruff the second heart to run the SJ.

Let's look at all the combinations and spade honours and the DA, still on the assumption that RHO has the singleton club.

1. LHO has the DA
i) LHO has any 3 or 4 card spade holding - play any spade now
ii) LHO has Ax - play a spade*
iii) LHO has Qx - play a diamond
iv) LHO has xx - play a diamond
v) LHO has any singleton - play a diamond


*this depends on what 3S showed. If RHO KNOWS we don't have the SA, he can insert the SQ, and we should play a diamond instead then guess spades later.

2. RHO has the DA
i) LHO has any 3 or 4 card spade holding - play a spade
ii) LHO Has Ax - play the SK (though a low one will often work)
iii) LHO has Qx - play anything (run the SJ in due course)
iv) LHO has xx - play anything
v) LHO has any singleton - play anything

So if LHO has 1 or 2 spades excluding Ax, play a diamond and if LHO has 3 or 4 spades, play a trump. With clubs assumed to be 3-1 with length on our left, overall that seems to be extremely close between the two possibilities.

3. ruff the heart and run the SJ
This works when whenever LHO has
i) Axx(x)
ii) AQx(x)
iii) Qx
iv) Q

Does this line lead to control problems?
Ruff the heart, lose a spade.
Take the heart force in dummy. Cross to hand in clubs
lose a spade
take the heart force in hand
draw trumps (assumed to be 4-1)

that's all our trumps gone and we haven't knocked out the DA yet, so this line fails
much of the time trumps are 4-1

Doesn't seem to be an obvious single dummy answer.

[whereagles]

My instinct is to lead a small spade off dummy trick 2, so that's what I'm going to do.

[Winstonm]

Low diamond from dummy at trick two - if east has the Ace, he must fly else I can pitch the diamond loser on the heart king. If East wins, this gives me the entry to hand to lead up to the spade king. I West wins, hopefully this strips the entry for a potential club ruff later.

Winston

[Poky]

2nd trick, I would ruff the heart. This is the only winning line when LHO has:
Axx-550 and RHO Qx-524. I strongly feel LHO has a void in clubs.

[keylime]

I lead a small diamond from the dummy as well. If LHO's on short clubs, it would cater to LHO holding the diamond ace - this doesn't for some reason make a lot of sense since they didn't table a club to begin with. I think therefore LHO's on the long club holding or two clubs exactly. Time to perform some sort of scissors coup on RHO.

I also have my apology ready.

[Free]

I think we need to play trumps ASAP. Playing the K is a bit silly imo, so I'd rather play small to the K. Lots of danger out there to come to our hand (even small ♦ might give opponent's a ♦ ruff), so perhaps the best way is to ruff a ♥...

Not easy to find out what the best line is!

[winkle]

I like a small spade from dummy. Righty is more likely to have a stiff club than lefty, so the biggest danger is righty winning the first trump and switching to a club. If lefty wins the first spade his most likely continuation by far is a diamond, not a club.

Second choice is a club to the queen followed by a spade to the king. That way righty can't lead his stiff club.

I really dislike playing on the red suits (particularly diamonds) as they remove losing options for the defense.

[mikeh]

I like Frances's analysis, as per usual. At the table, I'd probably have just played a trump from dummy, and would have chosen the K, against good opps, if only because it is the best play to hold the trump losers to 1: catch a stiff Queen. Now, admittedly, small away from the Kx could catch RHO sleeping with Qx, a much more likely holding, but a good RHO will pop the Q from Qx: it can never (realistically) lose, regardless of where the A is, and it gains when partner holds the A.... against the average opponent, I'd lead low from dummy.

Having read the analysis, I incline now to a ♦ to the Q: after the pitch on the second ♥ top.

[jdonn]

Spade king seems clear to me unless I'm really missing something. Get those trumps out!

[Fluffy]

Didn't read everything fully but I think only Frances found the winning line, congrats!

The full hand.

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[FrancesHinden]

Mildly amusing: all that agony over whether to play a diamond or a spade at trick 3, and the only thing that mattered was taking the diamond discard on the other top heart at trick 2!

[Fluffy]

This game is sometimes easier than it seems

[whereagles]

LOL.. such a simple thing. I feel so stupid...

It's not really the game being simpler than it seems. It's more being simpler than we make it!