[pclayton]

Here's a 3♦ contract I played the other day. See how you do.

Scoring: IMP

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RHO opens 1♣, you choose to double and LHO raises to 2♣. Pard passes and RHO reraises to 3♣. Your 3♦ ends the auction.

LHO leads the ♣2 (3/5) and RHO wins the K.
At T2, RHO shifts to a small diamond. You can't see any reason to hook the ♦, so you play the A and K and the Queen falls on your left.

One hurdle has been crossed. How do you continue?

[Winstonm]

Low spade to the 9. I have to build 2 spade tricks while avoiding 2 heart losers so I will play RHO for 3325 with something like:

Axx, Q10x, xx, AKxxx

Of course, other hands are possible but as I have no time for discovery I think this is the best bet and is fairly consistent with the auction, leaving LHO with:

Q10x, Kxx, Qx, Jxxxx

[HeartA]

#1, be careful to reserve C5. I would play SK and trick #4.

[hatchett]

I mostly agree with Winstonm's line, although we don't need to play LHO for the ♠T if the majors are 3-3. Low to ♠J is sufficent ...hoping LHO has the Q and RHO the A. Spade K first doesn't work if RHO has the ace, as expected, as RHO can switch to hearts (the ten if he has it) and develop two heart tricks to go with the two spade tricks.

If you start a low ♠ towards the J and LHO goes in with the Q he can't attack successfully if RHO has HTx ♥.

If LHO plays low on the ♠ and RHO wins the Ace, and plays a heart we duck (unless it's the K or Q) , win whichever major they play next and play a third round, hoping that suit is 3-3.

Low to the spade 9, works when LHO has QTxx ?? Qx JTxxx

Whatever, a low ♠ towards dummy must be the right start and then hopefully take the right view whether to play the 9 or J.

[Winstonm]

Jlall, on Dec 3 2006, 06:12 PM, said:

Winstonm, on Dec 3 2006, 05:01 PM, said:

Low spade to the 9.  I have to build 2 spade tricks while avoiding 2 heart losers so I will play RHO for 3325 with something like:

Axx, Q10x, xx, AKxxx 

Of course, other hands are possible but as I have no time for discovery I think this is the best bet and is fairly consistent with the auction, leaving LHO with:

Q10x, Kxx, Qx, Jxxxx

This seems right except for one thing 1 thing. It seems like you should play a spade to the JACK, why should LHO have the spade ten? Even if he does have the spade ten, it costs nothing to play low to the jack and if he doesn't you will still make. If LHO hops queen and leads back a heart you win, SK, RHO wins and the heart suit is frozen if he has the ten. So the defense does best to duck and let RHO win the SA, but then he can lead back the HT as a surrounding play. We counter this by putting in the jack. Now whichever major LHO leads back we set up a discard for the other major suit.

Well, low to the Jack can work as long as LHO has the Q...but what about a hand such as: A10x, 10xx, Qx, Jxxxx? Low to the jack loses 3 spades, 1 heart, and 1 club.

Seems to me low to the 9 is better as that caters to LHO holding either A10x or Q10x but loses to Qxx. Low to the 9 would also work if this unlikely holding occured: Q10, KQxx, xx, AKxxx

But I will defer to the guy with WC(x2) behind his name as my RUCCGx1 (Runners Up in Club Charity Game) doesn't carry quite the same weight.

[pclayton]

I love this hand. I got it wrong, by the way, but I had some fun replaying some of the variations in my mind.

The heart suit is interesting. What you can't do is lose the ♠ lead to RHO for a surrounding play early. If LHO wins the 1st spade, a heart lead can't hurt you. Note that if we held the ♥8 (or 7 in some layouts), the suit is frozen from the 1st lead, and it doesn't matter who we lose the lead to. With the unprotected 9 opposite the AJx, its only frozen after the suit is led from your left, but not from your right.

The fact we don't hold the ♠10 adds a bit of a wrinkle. If RHO has both the ♠AQ, we are going down, unless RHO has the ♥10 too. So the hand has an added complexity (and guess).

Kelsey had a section in Logical Bridge Play called "Placing the Lead", and I think this hand would fit in nicely. To make a better illustration, imagine the spade suit is K9x opposite JTxx. For reasons already stated (mostly by JL), if LHO wins the 1st spade, we are safe from a ♥ attack. If RHO wins and shifts to a ♥, by losing the lead to LHO, we fork him; if he continues hearts, we win and play a 3rd round for a ♠ pitch. If he exits passive with a club, we have a choice of establishing a heart or a spade for #9. Note that the initial lead of the ♠K accomplishes the opposite of what you need.

By the way, if RHO ducks the ♠A (!), all we need to do is play a ♠ back to the K.