[paulg]

Scoring: IMP

West North East South
                        1♠
Pass  2♣*   2♥   Pass**
Pass  4♠   All pass

* natural or game forcing relay
** any minimum without 4 hearts

Lead: ♥10

---

East wins the ♥A and returns the ♥9. Surprisingly West follows with the ♥8.

How do you continue?

[se12sam]

Can't think of a decent line. How about winning in hand and leading the ♣Q?

East wins, gives West a heart ruff and you win the Diamond return in dummy.

Ruff a low club to hand and play 2/3 rounds of trumps ending in dummy and cash ♣K. Hopefully the ♣J and ♣10 have fallen on the second and third rounds to set up the rest of the suit.

[manudude03]

Win on table and play a club towards the Q. If it holds, spade to the jack, club ruff, amond to the ace, club ruff high, spade to the T, club ruff high and hope the A has dropped by then, draw trumps and claim conceding a diamond.

If East puts up the Ace (or West has the ace), then follow se12sam's line

[paulg]

These lines work. The ♣J10 were doubleton in RHO's hand and you can even cope with the 4-1 break as RHO is 5-5 in the reds.

It took me a long time to find a viable line at the table but it did deliver 12 IMPs in the end.

[Phil]

cardsharp, on May 8 2009, 03:39 AM, said:

These lines work. The ♣J10 were doubleton in RHO's hand and you can even cope with the 4-1 break as RHO is 5-5 in the reds.

It took me a long time to find a viable line at the table but it did deliver 12 IMPs in the end.

Did you consider any other line? It's easy sitting at my laptop, but I can't see any other viable line.

Did you Q?

[paulg]

Perhaps I should have said that the line was fairly clear but it took me a while to notice that it was viable

I've no idea how they played it at the other table as I don't tend to discuss boards at the event ... for a number of reasons.