[Phil]

Kibbed this in the MBC last night:

South opens 1D and West overcalls 3C. You end up in 5D. KC is led - plan the play

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[bid_em_up]

This may seem like a strange question, but did East actually follow to the club K?
Or did he pitch or ruff?

[Trumpace]

Defend!

Spoiler

I am guessing east had the ♦Qx and a ♣ void

...

[karlson]

If west has stiff ♦Q/J I can make without much difficulty with an elopement/trump coup. Win either the first or second club, ♥Q,♦A,♦hook,♠KA,♥AK,♠ruff,exit and claim.

If trumps are 3-2 it looks like there should be a simple squeeze possibility against east, but I think the defense can always break it up by shifting to a spade when they're in.

It doesn't seem cost to duck the first trick in any case. I doubt that east will have difficulty finding the shift, but you never know.

[gnasher]

If West has a stiff Q or J of diamonds, you can simply use your two entries to dummy to take two trumps finesses.

If they're never going to switch to spades, you can make on a double squeeze with spades as the pivot: duck trick one, win the club continuation, lose a diamond to East, win the heart return in hand, and cash the rest of the diamonds, throwing a club and a spade. With hearts 4-4 there are also guard squeeze possibilities, which again can be broken up by a spade switch from either side.

There's a possibility of a strip and endplay if East has the only spade guard and ♥Jxxxxx/10xxxxx: win the lead, lose a diamond to East somehow, win the return in hand, cash the rest of the trumps, end up in dummy with ♠9 ♥K9, with East down to ♠Q ♥Hx.

I doubt if any of these is what Phil had in mind, though.

[Phil]

East did not follow to the first club - he pitched a heart.

[Phil]

OK, I'll add in the EW hands now:

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Any takers?

[rhm]

Phil, on Jun 5 2009, 10:52 PM, said:

OK, I'll add in the EW hands now:

Dealer: ????? Vul: ???? Scoring: Unknown

♠ xx ♥ Txx ♦ Qx ♣ KQJTxx ♠ QJTxx ♥ Jxxxx ♦ J9x ♣

Any takers?

[rhm]

[quote name='Phil' date='Jun 5 2009, 10:52 PM'] OK, I'll add in the EW hands now:

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Any takers? [/QUOTE]
Any takers? [/QUOTE]

What about ducking the [cl]?
What this all ends up with is backwash squeeze against East.

Let us look at the main line a [cl] continuation at trick 2 and this time East discards a [sp].
Cash the [he] queen
Play a trump to the ace.
Play 2 ropunds of [sp]
Play 2 rounds of [he], discarding [cl]
ruff the last [cl]
Now endplay West with a trump.
West wins perforce and returns a [cl]
Dummy discards a [sp] and East is backwash squeezed.

Rainer Herrmann

[Phil]

[quote name='rhm' date='Jun 6 2009, 09:15 AM'] [quote name='Phil' date='Jun 5 2009, 10:52 PM'] OK, I'll add in the EW hands now:

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Any takers? [/QUOTE]
Any takers? [/QUOTE]

What about ducking the [cl]?
What this all ends up with is backwash squeeze against East.

Let us look at the main line a [cl] continuation at trick 2 and this time East discards a [sp].
Cash the [he] queen
Play a trump to the ace.
Play 2 ropunds of [sp]
Play 2 rounds of [he], discarding [cl]
ruff the last [cl]
Now endplay West with a trump.
West wins perforce and returns a [cl]
Dummy discards a [sp] and East is backwash squeezed.

Rainer Herrmann [/quote]
It's really a knockout squeeze I think:

1. Duck the club (Spade pitch by E)
2. Spade shift (good as anything), win in dummy.
3. Play a club. If East ruffs, he ruffs air, so win the Ace. East can pitch either major.
4-5. Unblock [he]Q, cash [sp]K
6. [di] to dummy
7-8[he]AK pitching clubs.
9. Now a diamond duck to the bare Q.
10. A club and East is toast.

[xcurt]

It's an N-1 position so it isnt a knockout. The ending is an elopement or suit establishment dilemma for east. To get there you need to enlist west to adjust the hand pattern (to move your ruff in dummy from clubs to spades) and to do that you need to rectify the count and strip west. A nice combination of elements.

[Phil]

By the way, it seems winning the 1st club, stripping the hand and endplaying West in the same fashion as suggested should lead to the same ending - with Trick 1 transposed with trick 9.

But this isn't the case - do you see why?