[fred]

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LHO, a passed hand, makes a takeout Double of your 1D opening.

You end up in 5D.

The opening lead is the King of hearts.

You win and decide to try the Ace-King of diamonds.

You are surprised to see RHO discard on the 2nd round of diamonds.

What now?

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[dburn]

Ruff a heart and lead a spade towards the queen. If East plays the king, unblock the queen. Win the club shift with the ace and play a spade to the nine (catering for a West had such as ♠10xxx ♥KQxx ♦Qxx ♣Kx). If West has ♠K, you can expect the club finesse to succeed.

Of course, one could equally well run the queen of spades at trick four, intending to play as above (and not blowing an overtrick when both black-suit finesses are right). But leading towards the queen may give you slightly more chance of not losing to ♠K10 doubleton with East, since with that holding he will probably play the ten (he does not know that you don't have two little spades).

[fred]

Very good answer!

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[gnasher]

Didn't I have an almost guaranteed line at trick 2? ♥A, ♦A, ♥ ruff, ♦ finesse. For there to be a problem, that has to lose.

If they play back a spade, play low and claim. If they play back a club, win cheaply and set the spades up for one loser, ruffing them out if necessary.

[Codo]

gnasher, on Oct 1 2008, 04:35 PM, said:

Didn't I have an almost guaranteed line at trick 2? ♥A, ♦A, ♥ ruff, ♦ finesse. For there to be a problem, that has to lose.

If they play back a spade, play low and claim. If they play back a club, win cheaply and set the spades up for one loser, ruffing them out if necessary.

And if trumps are 3-1? If you give him the 2. Diamond trick, he can play another Diamond. If you let him win the third, he can play a heart.

[gnasher]

Yes, my suggestion doesn't work on the actual, rather unlikely, layout. Once east showed out on the second trump, I'd have to revert to Burn's line, but starting the spades by running the queen from hand.

[fred]

gnasher, on Oct 1 2008, 07:35 AM, said:

Didn't I have an almost guaranteed line at trick 2? ♥A, ♦A, ♥ ruff, ♦ finesse. For there to be a problem, that has to lose.

If they play back a spade, play low and claim. If they play back a club, win cheaply and set the spades up for one loser, ruffing them out if necessary.

I like this line a lot - well done!

I was the dummy on this one and I left my PC while the hand was being played. When I returned the hand was over and my partner asked me "how should I have played from trick 3?" so I did not really think about the question of how she should have played from trick 1.

It is a much nicer problem if you start at trick 1 partly because it still incorporates the point I was trying to make.

I will let my partner know that she got the early play wrong. Thanks for thinking about and mentioning it.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[gnasher]

gnasher, on Oct 1 2008, 02:24 PM, said:

Once east showed out on the second trump, I'd have to revert to Burn's line, but starting the spades by running the queen from hand.

One more wrinkle: having got to this position (leading a trump from dummy and seeing East show out), we can cater for West's being 5=3=3=2 (unlikely, I know, but we already know that the bidding was odd).

Give up a trump trick to West now. Then when we've lost a spade and won the club return, we can run all the trumps before finessing against West's ♠10, squeezing West in the blacks if he was 5=3=3=2.