[Echognome]

Scoring: Total Points

2♣ - 2♦
2NT - 3♥
3♠ - 4♣
4♦ - 6♣
All Pass

---

You and your partner have been a bit aggressive in the bidding. However, you get the nice lead of the 7♥ to the J.

Plan the play.

[keylime]

6♣ is a fine spot that has some chances.

What I'm worried about is the trump split. If we held the nine of clubs it's pretty easy to cope with most of the trump layouts.

Admittedly the 7♥ looks to be from a shortish holding and quite passive. I'm going to play LHO for my K♦, some spade honor card, and probably a trump holding. I'm playing the K♣ to see if RHO shows up with the 10/Q/9.

[FrancesHinden]

We could try and take a spade ruff in the short hand, but that looks not very hopeful.
Win the heart.
Ace of spades, spade.
Heart return.
Ace of diamonds, diamond ruff, spade ruff, diamond ruff, trump to the jack, king of trumps... now what?
This simply doesn't work.

So let's make two diamond tricks.

It seems odd to try and safety play trumps for one loser when we might have a diamond loser. The simple line is to win the heart, club to the ace, club finesse, win the return in hand, draw the last trump (assuming they break) and play diamonds one way or the other. We have sufficient entries to hand for this.

Is there any reason to play on diamonds first? The 'standard' technical line is to say that if there is no diamond loser we can afford to safety play trumps: so play ace of diamonds, queen of diamonds discarding a spade (if not covered) and if this works, play the trumps for one loser.

But having said that, what is the best way to play the trumps for one loser?
If they are 3-2, we can't go wrong (unless we do something seriously weird).
What about 4-1 breaks?
Let's compare (i) ace of clubs and finesse (ii) start with the king (iii) start with low towards the A8 planning to cash the AK next

LHO has:
singleton Q: anything
singleton 10 or 9: (i) or (iii) (entries are too difficult to cope with ii)
small singleton: (i)

RHO has:
singleton Q: (i) or (ii)
singleton 10 or 9: (ii)
small singleton: nothing

I think all the singletons are equally likely, so no reason not to take the obvious line in clubs however many losers I have in the suit.

So I might as well draw trumps first, in case that was a singleton heart lead and RHO wins the DK and gives a heart ruff.

After all that thought, I'm left with the simple line: draw trumps, set up and cash winners!

[winkle]

I'd lead a club to the ace and take the diamond hook. Regardless of whether it wins or loses, I'll ruff a diamond next and take the club hook.

This wins if (1) Qx or Qxx of clubs are on side, or (2) DK is on side and tripleton or shorter, and clubs are not Qxxx(x) off side.

[inquiry]

The heart lead into my known suit is worrysome.

If dummy had one club more and one spade less, I would cash club king as a safety play, planning on 6C, 4H, 1S, and 1D (if i catch the club queen) and falling back on guessing diamonds if I didn't. But with 5-3 fit, I am not going for the safety play in clubs playing for just one club loser. If I lose two clubs, I lose two clubs.

So I play it straight up. Win heart, club to ace, club hook, hopefully club king for no losers. Now 5C, 4H, 1S, all I need is two diamonds, so I will choose to play ruffing finessee through WEST after that odd lead.

[FrancesHinden]

inquiry, on Jun 20 2006, 03:30 PM, said:

The heart lead into my known suit is worrysome.

Why is hearts a known suit?
The only time they were bid was by partner as a transfer to spades.
In fact, hearts are the only suit that has been neither bid naturally nor cuebid.

[inquiry]

FrancesHinden, on Jun 20 2006, 10:05 AM, said:

inquiry, on Jun 20 2006, 03:30 PM, said:

The heart lead into my known suit is worrysome.

Why is hearts a known suit?
The only time they were bid was by partner as a transfer to spades.
In fact, hearts are the only suit that has been neither bid naturally nor cuebid.

Whoops.. mis remembered the aution... thought it was 3C-3H... my bad.... I wouldn't treat xxxxx as a five card suit...

[SoTired]

must have QC onside to have any chance. one possibility is to play a dummy reversal and hope diam are 44 (or KD falls in 3 rounds or long diam is with long club) and clubs are 3-2 (there are other layouts that allow you to make if clubs are 4-1). AH, AD, ruff diam, KH, ruff diam, AC, JC, ruff last diam with dummy's last club. If all has gone well, you lead to AS, play KC to draw the last trump and cash the 2 good hearts, losing a spade on the 13th trick.

[Echognome]

A couple of things to note.

Can you afford a trump loser?

If you play for no trump loser, then how do you plan on playing the other suits to keep them to one loser?

If you can afford to lose a trump, what must happen in the other suits? What's the safest play in trumps if you can afford one loser? How are you going to manage your entries?

Can you play for either layout? Or at least can you combine some chances?

[cnszsun]

I think we almost can't have trump loser. Even we find the ♦K, we have only 3 free winners in hand to take care of dummy's 4 small ♠s, still one ♠ loser there unless one defender is ♦Kx doublten.
So, play trump for no loser first by finesse, then setup a ♦ trick is what i thought.

[Echognome]

The full hand was:

Scoring: Total Points

2♣ - 2♦
2NT - 3♥
3♠ - 4♣
4♦ - 6♣

---

The Play went:

T1: ♥7 - 3 - J - K
T2: ♦A - 4 - 5 - 2
T3: ♦Q - 7 - ♠2 - ♦3
T4: ♦8 - K - ♣2 - ♦6
T5: ♣4 - 9 - K - 5
T6: ♣3 - T - A - ♦9
T7: ♥8 - 2 - A - 4

Hearts then played. West ruffed in with the Q, returned a trump, but I then claimed.

West felt afterwards that his ♣T was a mistake. I felt my ♦Q is a mistake if I plan on running it, for if West did cover the ♦Q, I didn't think I could make it.

[winkle]

Echognome, on Jun 21 2006, 08:48 AM, said:

The full hand was:

Scoring: Total Points

2♣ - 2♦
2NT - 3♥
3♠ - 4♣
4♦ - 6♣

---

The Play went:

T1: ♥7 - 3 - J - K
T2: ♦A - 4 - 5 - 2
T3: ♦Q - 7 - ♠2 - ♦3
T4: ♦8 - K - ♣2 - ♦6
T5: ♣4 - 9 - K - 5
T6: ♣3 - T - A - ♦9
T7: ♥8 - 2 - A - 4

Hearts then played.  West ruffed in with the Q, returned a trump, but I then claimed.

West felt afterwards that his ♣T was a mistake.  I felt my ♦Q is a mistake if I plan on running it, for if West did cover the ♦Q, I didn't think I could make it.

This is why it is technically superior to take the diamond finesse the other way. If you can't pick up trumps, you need three diamond tricks. The best way to do that is to play RHO for Kx or Kxx.

As the cards lay there is no legitimate way to make this hand. But switch east and west's hands, and my line picks it up.