[Phil]

pass - (pass) - 1C - (1D)
1S - (2D) - pass - (3D)
3H - (pass) - 4H - AP

---

You play in 4♥ on the lead of the ♦J, ducked. You ruff the 2nd diamond (10, Q, K).

Now what?

[whereagles]

Club Q finesse. Can't get rid of it, so let's see what happens there before deciding what to do with trumps and spades.

[Phil]

whereagles, on Mar 16 2009, 09:42 AM, said:

Club Q finesse. Can't get rid of it, so let's see what happens there before deciding what to do with trumps and spades.

To Whereagles:

Spoiler

The finesse wins. Now what?

[mikeh]

I usually try to answer these in the time I would take at the table, altho with Frances' hands I often find myself taking longer

As it is, I ruff the second diamond and hook the club.

I will assume it wins (ok, I know it wins)

I ruff the last diamond and play AK and a spade.

If LHO ruffs ahead of dummy, it won't be from a stiff heart.. he doesn't hold 10 minor suit cards. So I can pitch a club safely, intending to win the round suit return, and, if he played a club, cash the trump A and then go about my business.

If LHO pitches, fine.. ruff low and play A of trump and then cross ruff

If rho overruffs dummy, he is stuck... I will win whatever he returns, and (unless he returned a trump) cash the heart A and go about my business.


This line works, I think, on all 2-2 trump breaks and on 3-1 where the long trump has 2 or 3 spades.

An alternative line, that involved an earlier cash of the heart A then the cross-ruff, loses to 2=3=5=3 in rho or 3=3=5=2, since rho gets to overruff in spades (when 3=3=5=2, after pitching a spade when we ruff a 3rd round of clubs) and pull a fatal 2nd round of trump.

[whereagles]

If the club hook works, I had in mind to go for mikeh's alternative live.

[FrancesHinden]

mikeh, on Mar 16 2009, 04:35 PM, said:

An alternative line, that involved an earlier cash of the heart A then the cross-ruff, loses to 2=3=5=3 in rho or 3=3=5=2, since rho gets to overruff in spades (when 3=3=5=2, after pitching a spade when we ruff a 3rd round of clubs) and pull a fatal 2nd round of trump.

<confused>

ruff second diamond
club to the queen, holding
ace of hearts (all following, let's say)
ace of spades
king of spades
spade ruff
.....if spades were 3-3 all along my hand is now high except for two trumps, so I just ruff a diamond and play winners

suppose RHO over-ruffs the third round of spades and cashes his other top trump, having started with a 2=3=5=3 as suggested. We are here, having cashed the ace of hearts, ruffed a spade (over-ruffed) and followed to another trump:

-
x
x
A10x


xx
Jx
-
x

there are no more trumps out
we just win a club return in dummy (say), ruff a minor suit card, ruff a spade and claim.

One of us is missing something obvious

I thought the problem was to cope with 4-0 hearts or 5-1 spades without going off on the obvious layouts.

[655321]

I will try to ruff dummy's losers in my hand:

Ruff the second diamond
club to Q
diamond ruff
club to Ace
club ruff
heart to Ace
club ruff

[Phil]

FrancesHinden, on Mar 16 2009, 12:49 PM, said:

One of us is missing something obvious

I thought the problem was to cope with 4-0 hearts or 5-1 spades without going off on the obvious layouts.

Nope. Just was curious as to the approaches of ♣ to Q and ♥A versus ♣ to Q and spade ruffs.

By the way, I carved this up pretty badly, but recovered in the endgame.