[Ant590]

Scoring: IMP

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You open a weak NT sitting south, and the bidding proceeds as follows:

1NT - (2♣)* - 4♦** - (4♥)
4♠ - All Pass
*Asptro (Hearts and another)
**Transfer to spades

West leads a small heart which is won by East with the ace
East then cashes the Ace of Clubs and returns the Jack of hearts

If you decide to duck it he continues with a small club
If you decide to put the queen on it West wins with the King, and returns a club

You ruff the club, and draw trumps- West following twice and East discarding a small diamond on the last spade

The position now:

Scoring: IMP

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How do you play the diamonds?

HINT:

Spoiler

When you play the first round of diamonds West follows with the the ten, and East follows small

[Trumpace]

What is the vulnerability?

(Question to the experts: Could East have bid 5C (or 4NT) over 4S, showing support for either minor?)


Does Apstro show 5-4 or 5-5 ? What about point count? how many does that show? Does it change based on whether it is weak NT or strong NT?

The situation till now:

West has shown up/promised 2 spades, 5 hearts and very likely at least 4 clubs. He has space for no more than 2 diamonds.

Counting points, West had J spade, K heart and perhaps KJ of clubs.

Assuming apstro can show either of 5-4 and 5-5 and could be weak (around 8 points), I will finesse East for the DQ by leading the 9. This caters to 5-5 rounded with West and in case west is 5-4, finesse is better odds than drop assuming Apstro can show 8 points (although the fact that East did not bid 5!C/4NT over 4S probably means he has only 3 diamonds)


(btw, before trying to guess diamonds, I think we should have ruffed the last heart and played out trumps looking for any information from the discards.)

[MickyB]

Asptro shows at least 5-4 either way around, so it looks like hearts are 4-4.

[dank]

I play East for ♦Q. If West has QT dub that's life.