[ahydra]

County-level event, 7-board IMP matches.

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Agree with the bidding? If you do play 3NT, you get a spade lead - the 5 (4th highest, 2nd from rubbish) - and you hold up until the third round, South showing up with the spade AQ and North the ten. What's your line?

If you play clubs from the top then South plays the 10 and then the J.

ahydra

[Hanoi5]

If spades are 4-4 I'll try giving up a club before winning hearts, eventually falling on the diamond finesse. If they are 5-3 I'll try endplaying North in clubs after winning 4 hearts. How do I know? The lead, the cards played, was the ♠10 played under the K.

[PhilKing]

Whoah! Let's go back to trick one. It looks like we have already misplayed it. We play low from trick one and South plays ...

Whatever South does we can block the suit. Whenever, South plays the queen, we win. If South had AQTxx, he would play the ten, then the queen. Assuming South has AQxxx, he has nothing else (no overcall), so in practice the hand is just cold unless South has four clubs.

[nige1]

ahydra, on 2013-June-23, 15:07, said:

County-level event, 7-board IMP matches.
Agree with the bidding? If you do play 3NT, you get a spade lead - the 5 (4th highest, 2nd from rubbish) - and you hold up until the third round, South showing up with the spade AQ and North the ten. What's your line?
If you play clubs from the top then South plays the 10 and then the J.

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You might guess to put up dummy's ♠J on the opening lead and win ♠K when RHO covers with ♠Q. Unfortunately that appears to unblock the suit for the defence Then you might cash four ♥s, and two ♣s; finally agonizing over whether to finesse ♦ or exit in ♠.

[ahydra]

PhilKing, on 2013-June-23, 15:30, said:

Whoah! Let's go back to trick one. It looks like we have already misplayed it. We play low from trick one and South plays ...

Whatever South does we can block the suit. Whenever, South plays the queen, we win. If South had AQTxx, he would play the ten, then the queen. Assuming South has AQxxx, he has nothing else (no overcall), so in practice the hand is just cold unless South has four clubs.

Ah, the magic of the spade 9 Admittedly I missed that at the table. The spades went 5-J-A-x; x-9-10-x; 8-club-Q-K.

Now I played two clubs, South showing up with the rather ominous-looking 10 J, then I cashed all four hearts (they split 3-3) to leave myself the choice of the D finesse or an endplay on North (play a club and he can cash two clubs but then has to exit in diamonds round to my AQ). After much agonising I chose the latter mainly because I had the feeling that South had 5 spades. It looked good when South showed out on the club, but as I showed North my ♦AQ and smiled, he revealed the ♠7

I thought it was unlucky, while partner was saying that there's no reason to assume five spades in South and I should just "follow the field" and take the D finesse. But I think the correct answer is: look more carefully at the spade spots next time. I'm not 100% sure for this pair, but most people would lead the eight from 1085. Therefore he has four spades and the endplay won't work. As my partner said afterwards: style points are great, but I'd rather have IMPs!

ahydra