[Fluffy]

♠Q62
♥Q654
♦Q8
♣KJ103


♠A954
♥A98
♦K742
♣A9


You are Vul

1NT-(2♣*)-3NT-all pass

2♣*: ♥ + another, 4-4 at least (any suit can be longer) .

Lead is the ♦J, Queen holds and RHO plays the 5 UDCA (followed by a negative smith echo as soon as you let him).

LHO: Tom Hanlon
RHO: Paul Hacket

[Mosene]

This is ugly. I'll start with a club to the 9. And boy do I hope LHO has the heart K (and Kxx to boot).

[kenrexford]

Hate it, but for bizarre reasons I'm playing a heart to the Ace and another heart.

[gnasher]

I'm playing LHO for 4 hearts and 5 diamonds. Two possible lines are:

(1) Play LHO for something like Kx KJxx AJ10xx xx. Club to 9, ♣A, spade. If he doesn't clear diamonds, ♥Q will be my 8th trick, and I'll endplay him to lead diamonds for a 9th. If he does clear diamonds, I'll cross to ♠Q, cash the club, cross back to ♠A and endplay him with a diamond to lead hearts. Note that I have to keep ♠A as a late entry to my hand.

(2) Play LHO for something like xx KJxx AJ10xx Qx. Finesse against LHO in clubs and cash two more rounds of the suit, throwing spades. LHO can't throw two diamonds (I duck a diamond, duck the spade continuation, and just lose a heart, 2 diamonds and a spade), or a spade (I can score two heart tricks and then endplay him to give me ♦K), so he throws a diamond and a heart. Now I duck a spade, win the return, cash ♠A if necessary, and play ace and another heart. He can't take that, or I'll get 3 heart tricks, so I win ♥Q and then endplay him to lead from ♦A.

[Fluffy]

club to the 9 holds.

if you try a spade then:

Spoiler

LHO wins ♠K and exits in spades (RHO showing J10xx).

[gnasher]

Fluffy, on Feb 12 2009, 07:06 AM, said:

club to the 9 holds.

if you try a spade then:

Spoiler

LHO wins ♠K and exits in spades (RHO showing J10xx).

From this point it's just a matter of being careful with my entries. Win in dummy. Cash ♣K, throwing a spade. ♠A, squeezing him down to six cards. Lead a heart towards dummy. If he's now 3-3, he has to duck, and can the be endplayed with two more rounds of hearts. If he's 4-2, I can score ♥Q and then duck a diamond to set up my ninth trick, whilst I still have ♥A as an entry.

[Phil]

gnasher, on Feb 11 2009, 06:59 PM, said:

I'm playing LHO for 4 hearts and 5 diamonds.  Two possible lines are:

(1) Play LHO for something like Kx KJxx AJ10xx xx.  Club to 9, ♣A, spade.  If he doesn't clear diamonds, ♥Q will be my 8th trick, and I'll endplay him to lead diamonds for a 9th.  If he does clear diamonds, I'll cross to ♠Q, cash the club, cross back to ♠A and endplay him with a diamond to lead hearts.  Note that I have to keep ♠A as a late entry to my hand.

(2) Play LHO for something like xx KJxx AJ10xx Qx.  Finesse against LHO in clubs and cash two more rounds of the suit, throwing spades.  LHO can't throw two diamonds (I duck a diamond, duck the spade continuation, and just lose a heart, 2 diamonds and a spade), or a spade (I can score two heart tricks and then endplay him to give me ♦K), so he throws a diamond and a heart.  Now I duck a spade, win the return, cash ♠A if necessary, and play ace and another heart.  He can't take that, or I'll get 3 heart tricks, so I win ♥Q and then endplay him to lead from ♦A.

I'd go with Gnasher's "1" line.

[Fluffy]

---

indeed gnasher's first line is best IMO. What happens if LHO DUCKS ♠K?

I instead tried ♠A then ♠ trying to commit to ♣ later while starting to develop my spade trick if LHO had ♠10x or ♠Jx.


Then LHO exited in clubs after a long, long tank.

I should had realiced that if he in fact had ♥K, all he had to do is clear the diamonds and await for 1 off (because my spades where blocked).

When I played a heart up I had some table feeling that RHO had it, but didn't get the right reasons to duck the heart, had I done so, 9 tricks come in many ways (Endplaying East for 4 club tricks for example).

Instead I went for 2 off and losed 3 IMPs.

[gnasher]

gnasher, on Feb 12 2009, 12:59 AM, said:

(1) Play LHO for something like Kx KJxx AJ10xx xx.

(2) Play LHO for something like xx KJxx AJ10xx Qx.

Line 1 requires that LHO have ♠K and not ♣Q. Line 2 requires that he have ♣Q, but whether he has ♠K is irrelevant. That seems to make line 2 better.