[matmat]

Scoring: XIMP

opps silent.
... - P
2♣ - 2♦
2NT - 3♣*
3♠ - 4♥
5♣ - 6♠
all pass

* -- puppet, 3♠ showed 5.

---

Auction is there for completeness.

You get the inevitable diamond lead (♦2).

a] J or K?
b] regardless of your guess in (a) RHO wins the ♦A and switches to a club. LHO shows out on the second spade. how do you play now?

[ArtK78]

I don't know - this doesn't seem too interesting.

In any event, I play the ♦J from dummy and win the club return. I pull trump, unblock the club honor, ruff a heart and throw my remaining low heart and low diamond on the QJ of clubs.

Is there something here that I don't see?

EDITED AFTER ORIGINAL POSTING

[matmat]

ArtK78, on Dec 22 2008, 05:19 PM, said:

I don't know - this doesn't seem too interesting.

In any event, I play the ♦J from dummy and win the club return. I pull trump, unblock the club honor, ruff a heart and throw my remaining low heart and low diamond on the QJ of clubs.

Is there something here that I don't see?

Now, if RHO had won the diamond and returned a diamond, the hand would be more interesting. Fortunately, you specified a club return.

yeah. i think i screwed up the problem.
you don't get the option of not screwing up at trick 1.
you play the K and lose to the A.

hehe
now what?

[ArtK78]

I find the misguess at trick one to be highly unlikely, but that is what you are specifying.

Given that trump are 3-1, you have two choices - the 50-50 shot at the ruffing heart finesse or play the player with 3 trump to have 4 or more clubs. Given that RHO won the ♦A and shifted, one might assume that the ♦A was singleton. But, then again, he saw you rise with the ♦K at trick one - hardly a normal play for a declarer to make if he had 2 or 3 small in hand. Perhaps RHO thinks that you have the ♦Q and you are trying to induce a second round of diamonds. So, it is not entirely clear that RHO has a singleton diamond.

If you assume that RHO had a singleton diamond Ace and it turns out that RHO is long in spades, it would not be unreasonable to assume that RHO had longer hearts than LHO and was favored to hold the HK. If RHO is "known" to have only 1 diamond along with his 3 spades, he has 9 unknown cards to LHO's 8 unknown cards. That makes RHO a slight favorite to hold the ♥K. Since the ♥K rates to be with RHO, you can only succeed if RHO has at least 4 clubs. So, you ruff a heart, lead a club to hand, ruff a second heart and cash the Q and J of clubs from dummy, pitching diamonds. If RHO ruffs in you are dead. But if the clubs live, you are home.

The same analysis would lead to the conclusion that RHO is a slight favorite to hold 4 or more clubs, whether he has the ♥K or not.

The percentage line, all other things being equal, would be to pull trump, unblock the club honor and take a ruffing heart finesse through LHO. If this wins, you claim, ruffing your last heart in dummy and throwing your diamonds on the high clubs. But all other things are not equal.

The question is, is it reasonable to assume that the ♦A is singleton?

[JLOL]

matmat, on Dec 22 2008, 05:11 PM, said:

You get the inevitable diamond lead (♦2).

a] J or K?

LOL

[Fluffy]

LHO has 4 diamonds it seems.

Our best chances are to catch RHO with 4+ clubs, wich is very likelly if he has stiff ♦A.

Play ♠AK and then ♣K + ♥Q ruffed.

Now just pray while you cash your club winners. And ruff your other heart loser in dummy.