[pescetom]

MP

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Your plan to make 6♠ North on a lead of ♣A?

[experts please use a spoiler at first]

[jillybean]

I am not even going attempt this. I can't do these problems on paper, I need to see the play.
I have to ruff the club, it looks like I will need to hook East in a red suit.

[mikeh]

pescetom, on 2026-July-15, 08:57, said:

MP

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Your plan to make 6♠ South on a lead of ♣A?

[experts please use a spoiler at first]

I begin by barring the club lead. Sorry for not hiding that in a spoiler

[mikeh]

jillybean, on 2026-July-15, 09:32, said:

I am not even going attempt this. I can't do these problems on paper, I need to see the play.
I have to ruff the club, it looks like I will need to hook East in a red suit.

It’s often just a matter of practice. It can be very difficult, but it’s necessary in order to become a better declarer. Begin with small steps. Picture a line of play for the first two or three tricks…then mentally look at what your hand and dummy.looks like and whether you think you’re on the right path. As you get more used to this, you’ll hopefully be able to visualize further and further ahead. That’s how, for example, one can realize that a promising line may trap you in the wrong hand at an important juncture.

Don’t worry if there are hands where this seems impossible. I’m a pretty good declarer but there are some hands that are too difficult for me and still more hands where it’s impossible to visualize very far because one doesn’t have enough information about the opponents’s holdings. These hands are sometimes referred to as ‘scrambles’, where one is sort of feeling one’s way trick by trick, preferably rethinking everything one trick at a time until, with luck, you know enough to make reasonable projections. Find a book on declarer play problems and practice. It’s like any other skill…it seems impossible but diligence should show you that it isn’t truly impossible. Even getting just a bit better will help your declarer play a lot…and although defence is even harder, the same applies there.

[pescetom]

 mikeh, on 2026-July-15, 09:39, said:

I begin by barring the club lead. Sorry for not hiding that in a spoiler

Corrected, thanks.

[P_Marlowe]

jillybean, on 2026-July-15, 09:32, said:

I am not even going attempt this. I can't do these problems on paper, I need to see the play.
I have to ruff the club, it looks like I will need to hook East in a red suit.

I am not good either, but a recipe for trump contracts

#1 decide the main hand
- hand with the most trumps, this would be the North hand
- if the number of trumps is equal, take declarers hand

#2 Count the looser in the main hand
You have 0 in clubs, 3 in diamonds, 3 in hearts, 1-2 in spades => 7-8 loosers, you can afford 1
1 diamond looser is covered via Dummies King, another by having JT9 in the suit
this leaves 1 in diamond, ..., avoiding this diamond looser will be a finesse (one way or the other)
all 3 heart loosers are covered by Dummy, this leaves 0 in heart.
1 looser can be avoided with a finesse, the 2nd will show up with spades not breaking 3-2

If you take stock, you have 1 diamond looser (finesse), 1-2 spade loosers (finesse 1), this makes it
2-3 and you can only afford 1.

#3 Also you should make a habit of counting entries, as it is you have the heart suit that provides 3 entries
to dummy, and the trumps on the other side, i.e. entries are not an issue. (I usally blow this part.)

#4 The next decision is to decide, if you should draw trumps or not.
If you dont need trumps to get rid of loosers, you should draw trumps.
Our analysis mentioned finesse to avoid loosers, it did not use ruffs, in short you dont need trumps to avoid
loosers.
Now you should only make a finesse, if there is no better option, but the finesse is quite often the best solution,
last resort, ..., ob. timing matters.
For timing you can use the "EDF" rule for ordering (EVI in German)
E - <missing the english name> ("Expass")
D - Distribution ("Verteilung)
F - Finesse ("Impass")

#5 The next step is to decide, if the opponents thread to ruff our side winners, this involves analysing the lead.
Is the lead expected, e.g. they lead their fit suit (no ruff threaded) and or a side suit, e.g. a suit bid by us
... singleton probability raises.

Avoiding loosers in a single suit is now a problem, how to handle a specific suit, in our current scenario we have
a 6-2 fit. The 6-2 favours taking the finesse immediate, a 5-3 break favours cashing a top honor first.
If you deem the risk of enemy ruffs high enough, you may draw trumps from top.

[pescetom]

P_Marlowe's line would make here.

I actually find it hard to see how to go down, but several did, hence the post.
Quite possibly EW conceded less information in the auction.
I can imagine some of our intermediates blowing ♦K to take the spades finesse, but maybe there is more.

[pescetom]

Here is the full layout.

MP

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