[helene_t]

Scoring: XIMP

1♦-(1♠)-3NT-(p)
6NT-(x)-a.p
Diamonds break 3-2 (East has 3) .

---

During your first lesson with your new BIL mentor you play some boards against her IAC teammates. You kick their asses as they double most of your cold contracts and fail to double the doomed ones.

At this board, your lazy mentor punts a slam to give herself a coffee break.

Afterwards you can see that most declarers managed to make 12 tricks. But what's the correct play, assuming that diamonds break 3-2? You have 10 top tricks and hearts will give you one more. If RHO has Ax of hearts you have two heart tricks by playing a heart from dummy and duck out the second heart trick, but that's risky. You could rectify the count for a club/spade squeeze against RHO by playing ♥Q from dummy first, which RHO will have to cover, but that breaks hearts as an element in a (3-suited?) squeeze.

So .... should you cash ♣K early? Should you play hearts early? How to decide what to discard on the diamonds? You need four discards, you can spare a spade and a club, probably a heart, but there is no obvious 4th discard.

[Fluffy]

I'd overtake ♦10 and play a heart to the king then run some diamonds.

this will require a guess in the end but I think you can read it most of the time.

I'd give up on clubs anc concentrate on spades and hearts. Cashing ♣A+K before the last 2 diamonds.


I will end up probably with 2-2 in the majors in both hands

[nige1]

helene_t, on Nov 28 2009, 10:19 PM, said:

Scoring: XIMP

1♦-(1♠)-3NT-(p)
6NT-(x)-a.p
Diamonds break 3-2 (East has 3) . During your first lesson with your new BIL mentor you play some boards against her IAC teammates. You kick their asses as they double most of your cold contracts and fail to double the doomed ones.
At this board, your lazy mentor punts a slam to give herself a coffee break.
Afterwards you can see that most declarers managed to make 12 tricks. But what's the correct play, assuming that diamonds break 3-2? You have 10 top tricks and hearts will give you one more. If RHO has Ax of hearts you have two heart tricks by playing a heart from dummy and duck out the second heart trick, but that's risky. You could rectify the count for a club/spade squeeze against RHO by playing ♥Q from dummy first, which RHO will have to cover, but that breaks hearts as an element in a (3-suited?) squeeze. 
So .... should you cash ♣K early? Should you play hearts early? How to decide what to discard on the diamonds? You need four discards, you can spare a spade and a club, probably a heart, but there is no obvious 4th discard.

---

Scoring: XIMP

1♦-(1♠)-3NT-(p)
6NT-(x)-a.p
Diamonds break 3-2 (East has 3) . During your first lesson with your new BIL mentor you play some boards against her IAC teammates. You kick their asses as they double most of your cold contracts and fail to double the doomed ones.
At this board, your lazy mentor punts a slam to give herself a coffee break.
Afterwards you can see that most declarers managed to make 12 tricks. But what's the correct play, assuming that diamonds break 3-2? You have 10 top tricks and hearts will give you one more. If RHO has Ax of hearts you have two heart tricks by playing a heart from dummy and duck out the second heart trick, but that's risky. You could rectify the count for a club/spade squeeze against RHO by playing ♥Q from dummy first, which RHO will have to cover, but that breaks hearts as an element in a (3-suited?) squeeze. 
So .... should you cash ♣K early? Should you play hearts early? How to decide what to discard on the diamonds? You need four discards, you can spare a spade and a club, probably a heart, but there is no obvious 4th discard.

---

[dellache]

Agree with Nigel and Fluffy.
Moreover, in the end I would trust West ♥ count at trick 3, because usually, the weak hand signals count honestly in this position at the beginning of the play. Hence the necessity to watch the spots carefully.

[inquiry]

What was the opening lead? If a spade (as is likely) a second round of spades after losing to heart ace would hurt some lines of play.

[helene_t]

yes sorry, spade lead

[gnasher]

After a heart to the king, I'd cash four diamonds, then probably ♣AK, and then the rest of the diamonds. Making them discard before they've seen any club tricks makes it harder for them to work out what's going on, so they're more likely to make informative discards.

Subsequently cashing both of them before the remaining diamonds caters for the possibility that RHO started with ♣Q10 only, and or started with ♣Q10x and has already (wrongly) thrown one away.

[Edited to correct "queen" to "king" in the first sentence - thanks Fluffy.]

This post has been edited by gnasher: 2009-December-01, 04:41

[Fluffy]

It is RHO who overcalled 1♠ heart to the queen doesn't look so good.

[gnasher]

Fluffy, on Dec 1 2009, 11:26 AM, said:

It is RHO who overcalled 1♠ heart to the queen doesn't look so good.

Sorry, I meant a heart to the king - I've corrected it now. I'm playing the same line as everyone else, except for the timing of cashing the club honours.

[manudude03]

I'll take the squeeze line without the count. Win the lead, diamond up, heart to the king, cash 2 top clubs, run the diamonds discarding 2 hearts, a club, then on the last diamond, hopefully I'll have this position (East having already thrown the ♣T).

---

a) East throws a heart: Throw a spade and squeeze him again for the OT.
East throws a spade: Throw a club taking 3 spades.
c) East throws a club: Settle for just making taking 1 club and a spade.

If on the offchance West has the ♥A and takes it (unlikely), I'll go for the double squeeze (East in spades and clubs, West in hearts and clubs)