[Fluffy]

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LHO leads a heart.

[kayin801]

Edit: deleted madness

[c_corgi]

I think it is better to ruff only two spades in dummy: King of Hearts, Ace of Spades, Spade ruff (9), Diamond to Queen, Spade ruff (Q), King of Clubs, Club to Jack. With the Ace of Hearts still in hand, there is the option to draw the trump and ruff out diamonds if trumps break. If they don't, we can draw last trump and guess the diamonds if the singleton was the 10 or attempt a coup against 10xxx with West.

[mikeh]

I look forward to seeing what I have missed, but I win in hand, cash the club K.

if the 10 appears, I'll rethink but lack the time to cater to that now (it's late) and I'll proceed with spade A and ruff.

I play diamond to the Q and ruff spade and cash club Q. If the spades have come good, I cross in hearts, pull trump and claim.

If not, I cross in hearts and run the 2 clubs.

Then I decide whether to play for the drop in diamonds or take a hook, depending on what I have learned so far. As an example, if LHO had 4 trump and I suspect 4 or 5 spades, and 3+ hearts, then of course I hook. I'd expect to have some decent feel for the shape by this time against most opps.

I reject the c_corgi line in trumps since a 4-1 trump break is fairly high percentage and my odds in diamonds are pretty good a priori and may be much better by the time I need to make a play.

I've been in worse grands and some of them have made!

[phil_20686]

mikeh, on 2012-November-22, 00:29, said:

Then I decide whether to play for the drop in diamonds or take a hook, depending on what I have learned so far. As an example, if LHO had 4 trump and I suspect 4 or 5 spades, and 3+ hearts, then of course I hook. I'd expect to have some decent feel for the shape by this time against most opps.

If you play this line, the hands where you are bringing in the diamonds are those where you take five diamond tricks, in which case you only needed to ruff one spade.

If the diamonds are 3-3 you can sometimes make even against a 5-0 club split, by playing a cross ruff, and ruffing a heart low and two spades low and the two diamonds high and one spade high.

This hand is too hard for my poor little brain, but I think the following line is better. Heart K, diamond Q diamond A. If the J drops cash a top club from south. As long as both follow can claim, and can make sometimes when clubs 5-0 now. If no J has appeared, play ace of spades ruff a spade, now cash two top clubs ending in the north hand, now ruff a spade and play a low diamond ruffing with the 9, draw the last trump and claim. If trumps are 4-1 with east having four, go home. If west has four, you can often still make due to that crucial club 8, provided that the diamonds are 3-3, by trump couping west, and he cannot stop me from crossing back to hand, since I can ruff a spade high to coup him again if he ruffs in.

[gnasher]

Win in North, ♣K, ♠A, spade ruff with the nine. Club to the jack.

If clubs are 3-2, ruff another spade, cross to ♦Q, draw trumps, set diamonds up.

If trumps are 4-1 either way, draw trumps using ♦Q to get back to North, guess diamonds (probably playing them from the top).

That works against:
- Trumps 3-2, almost all the time. (Even if East has ♦Jxxxx, there will usually be a non-simultaneous double squeeze, with East squeezed on the third trump and West squeezed on the fourth round of diamonds.)
- Trumps 4-1 either way and ♦J coming down in 3 rounds.

With either 4-1 break, I could take a finesse against ♦J, but Pavlicek's cheating machine tells me that the drop is still better.

[Edited because my first line involved some pointless overtaking in trumps, risking running into a spade ruff with ♣10.]

This post has been edited by gnasher: 2012-November-22, 13:30

[c_corgi]

gnasher, on 2012-November-22, 13:16, said:

Win in North, ♣K, ♠A, spade ruff with the nine. Club to the jack.

Ah yes, this is better. Not sure about the double squeeze bit: I think it only works if declarer realises that East had 5 diamonds to start with, otherwise he will pitch his H8. When trumps are 4-1, there are extra squeeze chances from cashing the HA before crossing to draw the last trump if it doesn't look likely to get ruffed.

[Fluffy]

I though there would be a line that at least tested ♦J doubleton, before comiting to trumps 3-2, but now I see how blind I was.

I gotta remember than instead of overtaking a trump honnor it is better to use a trump entry early to dummy to test for 4-1 split.

I used c_corgi's line, except that I ruffed low the spades.

West had ♣10xxx, but there was really no way to go down when ♦J appeared doubleton in east (didn't even have to think about finese), in fact overtaking a club honoor at the point west assisted the second round is pretty 'safe', it makes whenever its makeable at that point.

Very pretty trump coup, but gnasher's line is twice as effective, and much more if we remove ♣9 or 8.