[fred]

---

You get to 3NT (yikes!) after dummy has shown 5-5 in the majors.

The opening lead is the 2 of clubs.

RHO wins the Ace and returns the 3 of clubs to the 10 and Jack.

LHO, a fantastic player, thinks for a while and returns the Queen of diamonds.

How do you play?

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[Phil]

I will assume there has been no bidding by the opponents, and their leads and carding are standard. Even though you don't specify the dealer, I will assume that partner was dealer.

1. Something is amiss with the lead or continuation, unless I'm getting 5th bested here. It's also a little odd that RHO returned a club at T2. Still, I suppose RHO may have had his reasons for returning a low club from AJ3 or AQ3, and I don't know that it really matters anyway. If I had to guess, I think the lead is from 5.

2. If communications were such an issue, and the lead was a true 4th best, a diamond looks kind of obvious from RHO. You don't comment on RHO's ability - is there anything to go by in that regard?

3. I think I can assume the spade hook is working. If my fantastic LHO is thinking, then the defense can set up an easy 5 tricks by forcing out the ♠K.

4. The diamond should be from Qx and it looks like LHO is trying to force me to take my diamond tricks while RHO has an entry, which no doubt is the ♥A.

5. So, LHO appears to be 2-5 or 2-4 in the minors.

Again, you don't specify the dealer, but if its LHO, then LHO will not have ♠K, ♦Q, ♣QJ and ♥A.

Even though I expect the hook to work, a spade makes no sense now. By going after spades, I will set up five tricks for the defense.

I see two possible lines:

A. At T4, play a heart to the 10. I expect it to hold and I will play the ♥K next. When I get the ♦ continuation, I will cash them, play a spade to the Q and expect to take 2 spades, 4 hearts and 3 diamonds. This line needs hearts 3-3 and the J in the slot.

B. Play a club at T4. LHO and plays another diamond. I win, cash my two clubs (by the way, I will pitch spades all the way on the clubs. Then a heart to the 10. If it wins I'm home.

I prefer "B".

Vultures, feel free to pick this apart now.

[fred]

Sorry I wasn't more specific.

Dummy was the dealer, the opponents passed throughout, and the opponents play 4th best leads. I am not sure what kind of signals they play, but it doesn't really matter on this hand.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[louisg]

At the risk of looking foolish......

I'm going to assume from the club spots that LHO started with ♣Kxx, and led clubs because he has length in both majors (this is corroborated by the switch to the ♦Q instead of a low one). My plan is to knock out the ♣Q, win the likely diamond return, and cash my minor suit winners (throwing spades from dummy). I now need 3 tricks from hearts, and need to hope that the ♥A is onside (otherwise the opps will have diamond winners to cash when they get in). Since I can only lead hearts once from hand, my choices are to play LHO for either ♥AJx or ♥Axxx(x). I hope to get some clues from the discards on the minor suit winners, but given LHO's presumed major suit length I'm inclined to try to drop the ♥J.

Edit: Should have said that LHO started with ♣Jxx.

[Hanoi5]

I didn't read Phil's post through but I'm going for a heart to the 10. I believe clubs are 3-4 in this hand and LHO has 8 cards in the majors.

[mikeh]

I may well be missing something, but I don't think we can make this if RHO has the heart A.... if we knock out the clubs (as I think we have to) and win the diamond return, if we cash our last diamond winner, we establish the setting trick for rho, and if we don't cash the diamond, rho can endplay dummy after winning the first heart trick.

So assume LHO has the spade K and heart A. Knock out the club, pitching spades, and win the diamond return in order to cash the minor winners, reducing to a 5 card end position....

The 6 card position sees dummy with AQx KQ10. Our discard on the 8th trick depends on our read of LHO.

If we judge him to have kept 3 spades, we pitch a spade and hook the spade and exit the heart K, playing for the J to drop.

If we judge him to have come down to 2 spades (from an original holding of 4+) we pitch a heart and hope to cash 3 spades and exit the heart K, to win the Q on the last trick.

This makes whenever LHO started with 4=4 in the majors and eliminates the need to guess where the heart J is... it also makes on some other lies.

[fred]

mikeh, on May 11 2009, 06:53 PM, said:

I may well be missing something, but I don't think we can make this if RHO has the heart A.... if we knock out the clubs (as I think we have to) and win the diamond return, if we cash our last diamond winner, we establish the setting trick for rho, and if we don't cash the diamond, rho can endplay dummy after winning the first heart trick.

So assume LHO has the spade K and heart A. Knock out the club, pitching spades, and win the diamond return in order to cash the minor winners, reducing to a 5 card end position....

The 6 card position sees dummy with AQx KQ10. Our discard on the 8th trick depends on our read of LHO.

If we judge him to have kept 3 spades, we pitch a spade and hook the spade and exit the heart K, playing for the J to drop.

If we judge him to have come down to 2 spades (from an original holding of 4+) we pitch a heart and hope to cash 3 spades and exit the heart K, to win the Q on the last trick.

This makes whenever LHO started with 4=4 in the majors and eliminates the need to guess where the heart J is... it also makes on some other lies.

As far as I can tell, you missed nothing. Excellent analysis Mike - you are right on

One of the cool things about this hand is that the 10 and 9 of hearts are illusions - your line works just as well with KQxxx of hearts in the dummy.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[kenrexford]

I'm fairly certain that LHO does not have four diamonds. So, if I'm inclined to play LHO for AJx in hearts, I have another option to think through.

I could win the diamond in hand and then hook a spade. Assuming that wins, I could then play the heart King out.

If LHO wins that and plays another diamond, my assumptions about LHO's diamond length means that I can afford to cash out diamonds, planning on a hook of hearts as my next move. If LHO returns the spade King, I can cross in diamonds and do the same thing.

If LHO ducks the heart, then I can cash the two top diamonds and lead a heart toward dummy.

I'm not sure if that alternative line does anything for me, but it seems like it might. I might catch some sort of stiff honor or something.

[Fluffy]

ken you would better start then with low heart to the 10, then you are free to play ♥K from dummy, and use your last diamond entry to hand to hook spades once hearts are cleared, 4 hearts, 2 spades, 3 diamonds for 9 tricks. This will make when ♠K is onside and ♥J is onside third or doubleton. No need to find ♥A onside (am I missing something?)

Comparing this with the squeeze line is impossible, since it depends on your table presece and reading skills to solve the guess in the ending if you go for the squeeze.

[fred]

Fluffy, on May 13 2009, 03:34 PM, said:

ken you would better start then with low heart to the 10, then you are free to play ♥K from dummy, and use your last diamond entry to hand to hook spades once hearts are cleared, 4 hearts, 2 spades, 3 diamonds for 9 tricks. This will make when ♠K is onside and ♥J is onside third or doubleton. No need to find ♥A onside (am I missing something?)

Yes, I think so.

You know the spade King is onside (LHO would have switched to a spade if he did not have the King) and both lines depend on that regardless.

Your line depends on the Jack of hearts being onside while the squeeze line depends on the Ace of hearts being onside - these conditions are equally likely.

But what you are missing (I think) is that, once LHO is known to have 2-3 in the minors, it is very unlikely that he has only 2 hearts (that would make spades 6-0). His most likely shape is 4423 and the squeeze is necessary in that case. The squeeze will also work if LHO is 5323 (as will your line), but in practice if you adopt the squeeze line you will go down in LHO has that shape.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[Fluffy]

Oh well, I wasn't in the best mood for thinking so I had to miss something .

Also you won't have to guess the position when LHO happens to have ♥AJx I think.

What I though is that you didn't need clubs 4-3 for the finese, but the more I look at it the most convinced I am that LHO can never hold 5 clubs.