[Hanoi5]

I really hate making mistakes. I know everybody does but it seems so frequent in my case, it's such a $%*. I can play really well some hands but then I butcher others so terribly. I'd like to know of a secret formula, or any formula for that matter, to concentrate and not make this kind of mistakes. Now on to the hand:

Scoring: MP

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Bidding goes:

3♣ X XX 3♥
Pass Pass 3♠ Pass
4♠ 5♦ X 5♥
Pass Pass X Pass
Pass Pass

West leads the ♣K and East follows suit. What's your plan? What do you play now?

[kenrexford]

Well, Declarer's hand is hopeless but Dummy looks very nice. One simple and reasonable line would be to play the diamond Ace and ruff a diamong to play a trump. The opponent who wins the Ace will likely force a club ruff on dummy, after which you ruff a second diamond to pull trumps, ending on a good dummy.

Ruffing the diamonds high is an obvious precautionary move, since you have the K-Q-J-10-9-8 combined.

If you play the diamond Ace and see the Queen or King drop to Dummy's left, this might get trickier, but not immediately. You still ruff high and play a heart. You may need to take the obvious ruffing finesse at some point.

If the diamonds split like this and someone has Axx in trumps. In that event, after ruffing a diamond high and playing two trumps, you should be in dummy to play the diamond Jack while the Ace is still out; you should be fine. The error would be playing a third heart before finishing off diamonds.

I don't think I am missing anything...

[effervesce]

At first glance you consider what likely distributions you can make or can't make. LHO sounds like having 7 clubs and 3 spades. If trumps are 2-2 you can make since diamonds are 3-2. If trumps are 3-1 LHO having 1, then diamonds must be splitting 3-2 again. If trumps are 4-0 unfortunately you cannot make as they can tap dummy and thus can be ignored. If trumps are 3-1 LHO having 3 then RHO must have 5 diamonds and you cannot make either.

If LHO has a singleton diamond and therefore 2 trumps you can still ruff the diamonds good on the line: A clubs, A diamonds, diamond ruff high, trump lead. Trump spade lead and continuation, diamond ruff high. Trump to dummy, ruff diamond, trump to dummy, claim.

What if LHO has 6 clubs and 3 spades? If trumps are 2-2 then diamonds must be 3-2 and no problem. If trumps are 3-1 with LHO having 1, then diamonds must be 3-2. If trumps are 3-1 with LHO having 3, then diamonds are splitting 4-1, LHO having a singleton diamond. You can't make on this layout as you cannot ruff high enough times.