[awm]

Scoring: IMP

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Pass - Pass - 1♠ - X
Pass - 1N - Pass - 3N

You are declarer in 3NT (feel free to comment on the auction). West (the 1♠ bidder) leads the ♦4. What is your play at trick one?

Your opponents are expert players, and are not unlikely to open light (or a four-card suit) in third chair. Opponents lead fourth-best, and are unlikely to lead 5th from a five-card suit.

[petergreat]

The nine must be the card...it is very unlikely that they led the 4 from nothing. Therefore there should be one honour with West at least and you can finesse it.

[se12sam]

I play the ♦9 from dummy; and when it is covered by East, I duck it. I think this changes the tempo equation of the deal
* If East returns diamond, we are guaranteed 4♦, 3♣ and 2 ♥ tricks.
* If East returns a spade, West has two choices -- cash spades (allowing us 2♠, 2♦, 2♥ and 3♣) or switch to something else (allows us to set up the fifth diamond safely if East had ♦ length).
* If East returns a club or a heart, I win in dummy and play spades myself -- causing the same dilemma for West

[jdonn]

I think playing the king to save an entry for setting up spades is wrong. The entry situation to hand is too awkward and a correct diamond guess will see me home anyway.

Now there are two QJxx holdings west can have in which case I should play the 9, and two Hxxx holdings he can have in which case I should play low. However, there is a chance west led from Hxx perhaps in which case I should also play the 9. Further the opening bid is a (mild) inference to play west for the stronger holding. One last factor is that I would rather choose the card that has a chance to hold as it gives me more options to unblock clubs before wasting my diamond entry.

So I agree with the player of the first 2 replies, though not with their reasoning at all. The first reply obviously doesn't understand the combination. The second reply has created 5 losers for himself if the heart finesse is off.

[Phil]

I had written a long reply yesterday but deleted it.

One thing to consider is that with ♦QJ84, some LHO's would lead the Q.

There are just too many forks to consider right now. A lot of what we do is dependent on the location of the spade honors, and possibly even the different club length in LHO's hand. The fact LHO is in 3rd seat also brings in another level of complexity.

At the table, I think I'd play the 10 without much though. if RHO doesn't cover I'm in great shape, although I'm going to depend on the heart finesse instead of LHO holding just 3 clubs, (and RHO not holding a spade picture). Translated this means I'll unblock the clubs, ♦ to hand, heart finesse, ♦K, exit ♦.

If the T fetches an honor, I'll win, hook the diamond, cash the clubs, ♦K, exit a diamond. I'll need some help at this point obviously

[mikeh]

I also had written a long reply yesterday. This hand is very complex. While Phil may be correct in opining that some Wests would lead the Q from QJ84, i suspect that even more would simply not lead the suit from J874. So I make it slightly more than 50% that LHO has QJ84/QJ74.

If we play low and rho plays an honour, we are home: hook the diamond at trick 2 and cash the heart A (catering to the stiff K) and exit the heart Q.. we can compress the clubs and still score 9 tricks... 5 diamonds, 2 hearts and 2 clubs.

If we play low and rho plays the 7 or 8, we are in trouble... we win, hook the heart, and are at a crossroads if it wins.... we could play the diamond 10 to put LHO on play, but he has an easy club exit. We can win the first club with the A and exit the spade Q (catering to stiff J). It is entirely possible that rho has a high major card...perhaps even two! Untangling what happens on this layout is too complex to write up in detail, hence my not posting yesterday..but I think most routes lead to failure. However, one plausible path to success is if LHO holds the not unlikely Kx in hearts... we score 3 hearts, 2 clubs and 4 diamonds.

If we play the 9 and rho plays a spot, we are still not home, but the odds look good.

If we play the 9 and rho covers, we are in serious trouble if we win:, then I think we usually fail. Ducking the diamond honour from RHO seems counter-intuitive, but it isn't really... we only have 4 diamond tricks coming to us, and ducking preserves communication. RHO has a difficult exit... depending on his major suit holdings. I would hope for this line to allow us 4 diamonds, 3 clubs and a winning heart finesses if they haven't established a spade trick for us.

So I think that we are cold on any lie of the cards if we play low and an honour appears.. even if the heart K is offside.... while we are usually but not always down if a spot appears. We will usually but not always make if we play the 9/10 and an honour appears (probably down if rho holds the heart King unless the spades block). We usually make if we play the 9/10 and it holds.

So low has the highest variance... either cold or in trouble, while 9/10 give reasonable play on any layout but don't generate a cold make.

Since I think it slightly more likely than not that RHO has a stiff spot, which is the danger holding, I play the 9.

[awm]

Scoring: IMP

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I tried the ♦9 and RHO played the jack. At this point I decided to play for the heart finesse to be on, and the contract failed. It doesn't really look as though I can make against best defense once I guessed wrong at trick one.

My reasoning was basically that LHO would likely lead a spade from AKJxx, and ruling out this possibility makes it more likely RHO has a spade honor. If RHO has a spade honor and a diamond honor, then the heart king is almost surely onside, so putting in the diamond nine seemed right. But it was a loser on this one. The contract went down at the other table also.