[matmat]

Scoring: IMP

you stumble your way into 6♠.
♥7 led.

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I took what seemed like a reasonable line to me and it did work. In retrospect I am not convinced it was the best line available.

How would you play it?

[FrancesHinden]

Well, one obvious line is to win in dummy and take the spade finesse. This basically needs spades 3-2 with the king onside, with some minor additional chances (e.g. Kx of diamonds).

If the first spade loses to the king I can win a return in dummy, ruff a diamond, cross in a major, ruff a diamond, draw trumps (in some order) and make if someone has Kxx of diamonds; but a good player will duck with Kxx of trumps sitting over. If the return is a major suit I can alternatively squeeze LHO if he has the king of clubs and either 4+ diamonds or the king of diamonds.

The alternative is to
- win in dummy
- ruff a diamond
- play a trump towards dummy
- win the reutrn in dummy (say a trump)
- ruff a diamond
- draw trumps
- cross on a heart
- cash the ace of diamonds and ruff a diamond

making if diamonds are 4-4 or the king is short. They can play a club back when they win the trump which ruins any squeeze, although if LHO has both black kings he's stuffed. This line also assumes no heart ruff, while the spade finesse line avoids conceding a heart ruff when RHO has 5 hearts and Kx or Kxx of trumps.

On percentage grounds, it's more likely that diamonds play for 2 tricks than spades play for 6 tricks, which seems to make line two better, except that:

(i) there might be a heart ruff, as described
(ii) If LHO has Kx of spades, he's very unlikely to duck the first spade (this will depend on the auction) and now you can pick up the 34% of the time the DK is short
(iii) weak opponents might take the SK with Kxx as well

So it really comes down to how likely LHO is to duck with the SK.

[Rossoneri]

How did the bidding go? Might help to know if the ♥ lead was more likely to be a singleton.

[matmat]

Rossoneri, on Aug 13 2010, 06:17 AM, said:

How did the bidding go? Might help to know if the ♥ lead was more likely to be a singleton.

the auction, if you think it useful, though not a thing of beauty (suggestions welcome):

1♠ - 2♦
2♥ - 2NT
3♠ - 4♠
5♥ - 6♥
6♠

[olliebol]

The last remarks Frances Hinden made about ducking the spade finesse convince me that in real life the spade finesse at trick two is the far better play.