[jillybean]

Scoring: IMP

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West North East South

 -     -     1♣    1♠
 Pass  4♠    Dbl   Pass
 Pass  Pass  

C3 C2 CK


How will you play this?

[goobers]

I'm really not smart enough to do anything but win, draw trump (A, Q, back to K) and then try running hearts

[mr1303]

If that line of play worked, I don't think this hand would be posted as a problem, since you have 11 top tricks.

[jillybean]

Correct, it didnt work.

Scoring: IMP

---

West North East South

 -     -     1♣    1♠
 Pass  4♠    Dbl   Pass
 Pass  Pass  

C3 C2 CK CA
SA S4 S5 S3
S2 S6 SQ SJ
C5 C4 C8 C9
S9 S7 C6 SK
H4 H2 HA HJ
HK DT H5 H3


So far so good but here I had to drop my losing ♦ and the ♣,
I played another ♥ instead.

[han]

Looks like the finesse was marked after RHO showed up with the stiff heart jack. So ruff a club back to hand and take the finesse.

Playing a club at trick 4 seems very odd to me. What was the reason for playing it?

It may be best to duck the first trick to guarantee an entry back to hand. This gives up on an overtrick quite often, but let's you make the contract when RHO has the stiff jack or 10 of hearts. Probably not worth it in the long run unless you are playing rubber bridge.

Another possibility is trying to ruff a diamond in dummy.

[vuroth]

I see 2 paths - either attack diamonds right away, trying to ruff one on the board, or play hearts for 3/2 and throw a diamond on the hearts (4/1 heart split won't work, unless you keep a trump entry to the board).

Given the double, I'll guess RHO has 4 spades. Ace of clubs, ace of spades, low to the queen, prepared to finesse the jack of spades in righty if he's got 4. Then, I simply hope hearts are 3/2.

V