[cherdano]

Scoring: IMP

2N 3H
3S 3N
4S

---

♣A-2-4-6
♠3-J-Q-A

The expert/world class opponents use standard carding.

(If you play another spade,

Spoiler

West shows out

.)

[pclayton]

9 tricks are obvious.

Seems all we can do is to try to use our entries and double hook East out one of the red suits.

3. High spade back to the board
4. ♥10. If not covered, float it.
5. ♥back
6. ♠ to board
7. ♦J, etc..

There are alternate lines like eliminating diamonds and trying to throw West in with a heart, but your world class opponents will certainly unblock. There may be some obscure positions with West holding various diamond honors, but we won't be able to read the ending with any kind of confidence.

Its also possible West will make a diamond shift away from an honor (you have to guess) after winning the heart as well.

[Fluffy]

I liked also the multi double finese line, but you have no entries to try for it 4 times, if East keeps covering with only 1 honnor you end up entryless to dummy.

After debating with pillow I think best hope is that LHO has 5 hearts or ♥QJ.

[pclayton]

Fluffy, on Sep 23 2007, 03:06 AM, said:

I liked also the multi double finese line, but you have no entries to try for it 4 times, if East keeps covering with only 1 honnor you end up entryless to dummy.

After debating with pillow I think best hope is that LHO has 5 hearts or ♥QJ.

Yes and no. If the heart loses to LHO, you don't need a 4th entry, since you aren't hooking hearts a 2nd time.

Where the hand becomes interesting is if the heart is covered. A possibility is to switch gears by eliminating diamonds and trying to duck a club into LHO, This works if RHO for some reason covered the heart without holding the other honor and when RHO holds only one of the ♣J, 10 or 9. This gives up on playing for favorable diamonds, but it does create the entry problems Fluffy describes.

Its unclear what RHO's best play is looking at various heart holdings including Hx, Hxx and Hxxx, as well as HHx or longer. The lack of the 8 or 9 in dummy may make covering the correct play, but you'd ask yourself why declarer is playing for a possible double chinese finesse when other plays could be possible.

Covering from ♥Jxx or longer could be very wrong if declarer had KQx. Covering from Qxx only takes declarer off a guess when declarer holds KJ dub, although it costs a trick when declarer has AJ dub.

On balance, if the heart is covered I would probably just take a 2nd heart finesse.

If I were playing for the ♥QJ offside / elimination play, I'd definitely lead the 10 off dummy first, to tempt RHO to cover.