[rogerclee]

A friend of mine recently told me about this hand:

Scoring: IMP

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You open 1NT, hear 2♣ on the left (single suited), and partner raises to 3N. Lead is the ♦2 (attitude) to your RHO's ♦7. Your opponents are strong experts.

[inquiry]

Ok. welll west has AK-long in diamonds. If he has both major suit kings, he will be squeezed to death on run of clubs. If he has but one of the kings, he is still in a little bit of a fix... run all the clubs coming to this...

with six tricks in, you lead the last club... what is west to play? If he throws a major either one, cash the ace in that suit

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Of couirse, here I gave him six diamonds. No matter. But if he lacks the king of spades, he will come to something like this...

with six tricks in, you lead the last club... what is west to play? If he throws a major either one, cash the ace in that suit

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Of course, you could always simply try the heart hook while you have transportation to the dummy, but what fun is that.

You win 1♦, 5♣ your two major aces, and the endplay (or drop) of the major king. I prefer to try for the card read than the simple finesse.

[benlessard]

Playing for an endplay here seems really bad.

You are going to lose 5D if you exit with a D and LHO has 6D but doesnt have both K

Give LHO

Kxx
xx
AKxxxx
x

He will discard 2H and a S, you will endplay him but still be down 1.

So playing for an endplay will only work if hes got both K and you guess wich one he bare, against strong experts i expect them to be able to discard deceptively without too much difficulty since he can see the endplay coming a trick 2.

[jdonn]

Benlessard, if west really has the 12 card hand you gave him the endplay would work!

Inquiry, your posts are with 5 tricks in, not 6.

[Fluffy]

The only problem to an endplay is that East might have ♦Axx or both major kings, nevermind, if it is a friendly game you must play for the strip squeeze.

[gnasher]

I don't see any need to make a decision yet. I play four rounds of clubs, ending in dummy, then decide whether to take a heart finesse or play for an endplay (by crossing to the other major-suit ace and cashing the last club). If West has both kings, let's hope I play for one of the endplays.

[gnasher]

benlessard, on Dec 29 2008, 07:56 AM, said:

Playing for an endplay here seems really bad.

You are going to lose 5D if you exit with a D and LHO has 6D but doesnt have both K

Give LHO

Kxx
xx
AKxxxx
x

He will discard 2H and a S, you will endplay him but still be down 1.

So playing for an endplay will only work if hes got both K and you guess wich one he bare, against strong experts i expect them to be able to discard deceptively without too much difficulty since he can see the endplay coming a trick 2.

Assuming you meant to make West 3=2=6=2, the endplay works perfectly. He can discard two hearts and a spade, but has no good discard on ♥A. In fact, that sequence of discards makes it easy to get the ending right.

[xcurt]

Ok I meant to post this up last night, but since this one still seems open...

It seems obvious to win and cash three rounds of clubs ending in dummy, leaving ♣8 facing ♣Tx.

From here, the available lines seem to be

a: ♣8 not overtaking, then heart finesse
b: overtake ♣8 and then
b1: diamond -- hoping to endplay LHO
b2: cash ♠A and then diamond
b3: cash ♥A and then heart

And LHO holdings

no kings and 5 diamonds (we need to finesse -- and this is a truly sick overcall so I will discount it)
no kings and 6 diamonds (we need to finesse)
no kings and 7 diamonds (the finesse line and line b3 work)
both kings and any number of diamonds (we need to follow any of the strip lines)
only the heart king and any number of diamonds (we need to guess which strip line to follow, the finesse line fails unless the heart king is stiff)
only the spade king and any number of diamonds (we need to guess which strip line to follow, the finesse line works)

So playing for the finesse line seems just wrong, it only gains when the heart king is onside AND either we would have misguessed which endplay line to take, or LHO has exactly 6 diamonds.

So what happens after cashing off all the clubs?

Edit -- so given that the endplay line is a strong favorite, I'll play to win the third club in hand so I can make LHO blind pitch on the fourth club -- thus increasing the chances he is not blanking a king on fourth street. I'll probably play for his card on fifth street to be the one that concedes my ninth trick, and play as follows

if he pitches a heart on the last club, ♥A, diamond
if he pitches a spade on the last club, ♠A, diamond
if he pitches a diamond on the last club, ♥A, heart