[MrAce]

---

Team match.
Silent opponents.
North plays 6♠

LEAD : ♣5 (they lead 2-4th)

You try J of clubs but W produces Q.....

[shyams]

Is it OK to assume West was not dealer?

A potential line is to play East for ♦Tx and thus try an intrafinesse. However, if West was indeed dealer and passed, then that line become much lower %. All indications are West holds ♣AQ(xxx) and is very unlikely to also hold ♦KQxx and pass in the first seat.

[Jinksy]

Timo, I suggest editing the name of the thread to make the problem easier

[jexa_]

MrAce, on 2016-November-02, 01:19, said:

---

Team match.
Silent opponents.
North plays 6♠

LEAD : ♣5 (they lead 2-4th)

You try J of clubs but W produces Q.....

hmmm i can see a line but it would be a miracle if it succeds

edit : ok maybe its your only chance. Ruff the club,give em a diamond, play two rounds of spades, play hearts discarding a diamond on 4th heart, cash Ace of diamonds and ruff a diamond. Claim rest.

You need 3-2 spades break, 4-2 hearts break (or 5-1), 3-3 diamonds break. The one with 3 spades should also hold 4 hearts(or 5)

[Kaitlyn S]

Jinksy, on 2016-November-02, 07:03, said:

Timo, I suggest editing the name of the thread to make the problem easier

I would appreciate knowing how to do that - I've tried to change the name of a couple of my threads and it wasn't obvious how to do that.

[MrAce]

Sorry all, it is 6 ♠. not 6 ♦ as in the title.
Perhaps a mod can fix it.

shyams, on 2016-November-02, 06:04, said:

Is it OK to assume West was not dealer?

West was not dealer.

[MrAce]

jexa_, on 2016-November-02, 09:10, said:

hmmm i can see a line but it would be a miracle if it succeds

edit : ok maybe its your only chance. Ruff the club,give em a diamond, play two rounds of spades, play hearts discarding a diamond on 4th heart, cash Ace of diamonds and ruff a diamond. Claim rest.

You need 3-2 spades break, 4-2 hearts break (or 5-1), 3-3 diamonds break. The one with 3 spades should also hold 4 hearts(or 5)

♠ are 3-2

♥ are 3-3

[Kaitlyn S]

Kaitlyn S, on 2016-November-02, 09:55, said:

I would appreciate knowing how to do that - I've tried to change the name of a couple of my threads and it wasn't obvious how to do that.

I see a few possibilities.
1. Play East for ♦10x a la Shyams..rd 7.
2. Play East for ♦K10 or ♦Q 10. This has lower odds unless West was a passed hand.
3. Play East for ♦10xx and try to guess West's distribution to endplay him. West must have at most 2 spades. You need to play for a distribution that will allow you to make when West gives you a club trick (either by a dummy reversal or by having East helplessly follow to four hearts.) Since you need to strip hearts, I don't think the reversal works so West has to be 2-2-3-6 or 2-2-4-5. Draw 2 trump and take 2 hearts, lead a diamond to the 7. Oh wait, there's a bonus here! If West wins a doubleton honor... oh nuts, West has to be 2-2-2-7, not much chance.
4. Give up a diamond early (low to 7), draw 2 trump, and play four hearts to discard a diamond. Ruff a diamond. Hope someone is 2-2-3-6. Of course, if West has S-Jxxx you have to hope for a diamond miracle. If both opponents follow to 3 hearts, you still can try to pin the ♦10 if West won the [d]7 with an honor.

With no great conviction, I'm going to guess line #4 is the best and that's the one I'm going with.

EDIT to add: Cross posted with Mr. Ace. His new information makes my line less likely but since I tried it. I saw both opponents follow to three hearts and it's too late! I no longer have the entries to play for doubleton ♦10 (not to mention that West can give me a nasty guess by leading a diamond upon winning the first diamond.) So I think I have failed.

[MrAce]

I had 5♠+4♥+1♦ top tricks = 10
Needed 2 more.

I decided I need miracle in ♦ suit. If I can make 2♦ tricks, that brings me to 11 tricks but then again I may be able to make 6 spade tricks instead of 5, which requires 3-2 ♠.
Making 2 ♦ tricks needs someone holding KQ tide ♦ or Tx doubleton ♦ or HT doubleton with East. So diamonds being 3-3 would not do any good for me. I needed them to be 4-2.
I ruffed the lead and played small ♦ towards J74 and inserted the 7.
West took with Q and played K of diamonds, rescuing us from a very important decision.
I won with the A and cashed Q and K of trumps in this order. Everyone followed.
Now I ruffed 2nd ♣
Went to ♥ T and ruffed 3rd ♣
Cleared the last trump and claimed.


W had

J93
954
KQ
AQ843


Problem is, I have no idea whether I would get it right had W not played ♦K after Q. If he has KQxx I needed to play ♥J from dummy. If tide KQ as it was, I needed to cash A.

[MrAce]

Kaitlyn S, on 2016-November-02, 10:24, said:

I see a few possibilities.
1. Play East for ♦10x a la Shyams..rd 7.
2. Play East for ♦K10 or ♦Q 10. This has lower odds unless West was a passed hand.
3. Play East for ♦10xx and try to guess West's distribution to endplay him. West must have at most 2 spades. You need to play for a distribution that will allow you to make when West gives you a club trick (either by a dummy reversal or by having East helplessly follow to four hearts.) Since you need to strip hearts, I don't think the reversal works so West has to be 2-2-3-6 or 2-2-4-5. Draw 2 trump and take 2 hearts, lead a diamond to the 7. Oh wait, there's a bonus here! If West wins a doubleton honor... oh nuts, West has to be 2-2-2-7, not much chance.
4. Give up a diamond early (low to 7), draw 2 trump, and play four hearts to discard a diamond. Ruff a diamond. Hope someone is 2-2-3-6. Of course, if West has S-Jxxx you have to hope for a diamond miracle. If both opponents follow to 3 hearts, you still can try to pin the ♦10 if West won the [d]7 with an honor.

With no great conviction, I'm going to guess line #4 is the best and that's the one I'm going with.

EDIT to add: Cross posted with Mr. Ace. His new information makes my line less likely but since I tried it. I saw both opponents follow to three hearts and it's too late! I no longer have the entries to play for doubleton ♦10 (not to mention that West can give me a nasty guess by leading a diamond upon winning the first diamond.) So I think I have failed.

No you did not fail. when you played line#4, W wins diamond 7 with Q and plays K. I think you would make it easily like I did after this.