[jillybean]

---

lead ♦Q

[the_clown]

Chances arent great.
I guess I would draw trumps, play ♣ to the King, and if it holds, eliminate the minors. Depending on the information I have to that point, I would play ♠A and a ♠ hoping E has doubleton Honour, or a ♠ to the Jack hoping ♠ KQ are onside, or E has singleton H. It would be useful to know how many rounds of ♣s and ♥s E could follow.

[wyman]

You need the club A onside, so you'll assume that. Then your choices are to play either for both spades onside or spade Hx on your right.

I'm inclined to think that the hands look like:
RHO: Hx / x / KJ10xxxx / Hxx
LHO: H10xxx / x / Qx / AHxxx

or so. What I'll do then is win this, ruff a diamond to hand, draw trump (hopefully in 1, but I think I can afford 2), lead a club up. My plan is to win 1 club, and ruff 2 diamonds and a club. When LHO wins the club ace, if he plays a spade, I'll win the ace. Once I've stripped the hand, I'll still have a heart in both hands, so I'll duck a spade to righty, and he'll be forced to lead a diamond for a ruff & sluff.

Do I win?

[aguahombre]

And if your line doesn't work, do you get a "preempts work", free of charge?

Wyman's line for dub honor behind the AJX seems like the best hope. also works with stiff honor or KQ tight.

Extra credit for someone: I forget the name of the coup (not applicable here, but related) where declarer bangs an Ace early before elimination, in hopes that a defender with KX won't be awake enough to unblock.

This post has been edited by aguahombre: 2011-December-12, 19:19

[wyman]

if my opponents were pretty good and rho unblocked an honor under the spade ace, I'd pay off to KQ tight by playing dummy's trump to hand and leading a spade up.

[aguahombre]

wyman, on 2011-December-12, 19:44, said:

if my opponents were pretty good and rho unblocked an honor under the spade ace, I'd pay off to KQ tight by playing dummy's trump to hand and leading a spade up.

This is strange, since your stated line of play makes that holding irrelevant on this hand...After the elim, RHO is still endplayed; you won't be paying off.

[wyman]

aguahombre, on 2011-December-12, 19:48, said:

This is strange, since your stated line of play makes that holding irrelevant on this hand...After the elim, RHO is still endplayed; you won't be paying off.

Right. For whatever reason, I thought I'd need to spend my last trump in dummy to get back to play a spade up, giving up the ruff/sluff. But looking at it more carefully, that's not true, even if hearts end up breaking 2-0.

Thanks for noticing.

[jillybean]

wyman, on 2011-December-12, 17:15, said:

Do I win?

It sounds good but I don't know the answer. My partner sent this as a problem and he is yet to send the
full hand.