Missing assets:
♠AQJ10987532 7 HCP
♥KQ862 5 HCP
♦A10986 4 HCP
♣Q10862 2 HCP
Lack of overcall by LHO suggests 5233 shape. With 5242 or 5134 a bid is almost automatic. If LHO is 5233 then RHO is 5242. Can LHO hold all HCP? Can’t tell without more info on their competitive agreements. A double on 16-18 could be likely.
RHO should be balanced or semi balanced. With any singleton I would expect a balancing bid. If RHO has many Honors, they are not well placed for their side and would prompt a pass.
East’s small spade lead suggests no interior sequence.
When the
♠K wins either the
♠A is with LHO or RHO is keeping communications open with LHO holding 6 spades. We can’t make the hand if
♠split 6-4. Yes, blockage might hinder cashing tricks immediately but there are enough missing high honors that transportation exists.
There are no clear entries to dummy after the
♠K. The
♦10 and
♣J are potential delayed entries. Both the
♦ and
♣ suits are blocked.
Suspect
♦A and
♠A are not in the same hand. Playing on
♦s puts us at the mercy of East’s switch. A spade switch while likely will not be as painful as a
♣ switch from East. We will either have to guess or cash
♦then play our last spade.
Assume we play on
♦s and they win he Ace and run 4 spades. We come down to (as Chris suggests):
North
-
-9-
1075-
J95--
South
--
A10---
-QJ
AK7
Now
♦♦,
♣♣♣ offers no extra tricks in
♥s (they keep
♥H=Hx). Therefore we are tightroped into
♦♦ ♥♥, hoping for a useful
♣ or
♦ return.
♣s remain ambiguous.
Starting with the
♥J at trick 2, let’s assume no cover (since that obviates the hand). Assume LHO wins since if
♥J wins we can switch to a
♦ and make 7 tricks by force. After losing the
♥H and 4 spades we retain the same cards. The net difference is leaving one
♥ and one
♥ honor instead of 2
♥ honors at bay. Now when we cash our remaining
♦, East will win or not. If not, we can clear
♣s, confident that West must return a
♥ when in with the
♣Q if it does not drop. If East is in with the
♦A we will either finesse a
♥ return, decide whether to cash or duck a
♣ or win the
♦ return in Dummy and finesse
♥s. If the
♣Q is doubleton, we still have the
♥ finesse available, and can cash the
♦10. If not, then we create a true stepper to the
♦10 by leading
♥s. East is endplayed.
I sense the two lines are roughly equivalent, but think leading the
♥J leads to a more transparent ending (easier to judge) and offers the chance of a defensive mistake.
My luck? We chose one of these 2 paths when the
♣Qx was there all along!
Steve