[antonylee]

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Opps stopped in 5♥ after this auction start (after which E/W are silent), but assume you're playing 6♥ at teams on the 6♠ lead to the king. How do you proceed?

This post has been edited by antonylee: 2020-January-09, 14:58

[KingCovert]

Win the Ace, win two diamonds (obviously can't be done if the break is 5-0 though), inspect the diamond break, cash the K of hearts, inspect the heart break. You're allowed to give one diamond ruff to the person with long hearts. One of these suits needs to break favourably, if both don't, well, you can collect JTXXX onside of diamonds I guess.

[mikeh]

I waited a while, but there’s only the one post, so here is my line


Win the lead, cash the trump King.

Assuming both follow, play the trump Queen, claiming if trump are 2-2, almost surely making 7.

If trump are 3-1,pull the last trump and play a diamond towards dummy, covering whatever diamond west plays.

If trump are 3-1,this line guarantees the contract unless east has 5 diamonds.

The keys are not to ruff any spades in dummy too early, and to safety play the diamonds. Of course, this gives up on making 7 when diamonds are 3-2, but this is imps.

If Rho has 4 trump, at trick 3 play a top diamond. Then trump towards the 9, and diamond up, covering west’s card.

If Lho has 4 trump, I haven’t worked out all the variations but I think you need diamonds to behave.

[antonylee]

Indeed, ducking the first round of diamonds (just covering lefty) to preserve communications after drawing 3-1 trumps was the main point here. I had seen this play before in books, but this is the first time I remember seeing it for real.

[Cyberyeti]

antonylee, on 2020-January-10, 03:18, said:

Indeed, ducking the first round of diamonds (just covering lefty) to preserve communications after drawing 3-1 trumps was the main point here. I had seen this play before in books, but this is the first time I remember seeing it for real.

Not sure it's fully necessary here, you only need one discard here (you can lose a black suit trick and ruff one).

What happens if you draw 3 trumps and then cash ♦A.

If both hands follow, you cash the K, unless E had singleton J or 10 or they break, you now cash the Q and ruff the diamonds good with the spade ruff entry to cash the 5th one.

If W has 5 diamonds, play a club to the A and a diamond, if W doesn't split, you have 12 tricks finessing the 9, if he does, duck a club next and you have a club ruff entry to hand to hook the diamond while dummy's trump protects you in spades.

Basically the difference is that you make 13 more often without compromising your chance of 12.

[antonylee]

Indeed, that works well.