[inquiry]

Scoring: IMP

you reach 6NT through an auction best not mentioned, still it is a reasonable contract.

T1. C9-A-5-2
T2. D2-5-Q-3
T3. C4-S2-CQ-C3

Take it from there.

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[aguahombre]

no, i am too dumb to see the problem, but am going to float a spade anyway

[Fluffy]

the problem is ♥5-1 and diamond king offside since anything else I can cope with.

I still don't see anythign better that diamond finese now, if it hold we just duck a club and voila!, risking something else thinking that LHO ducked the diamond seems a bit odd.

EDIT: Ok just confirmed clubs aren't 4-2 O_o will rethink later

[gnasher]

If LHO has five hearts and ♦K is right, we have a double squeeze except that we can't rectify the count. If I give up a spade now, they can play a heart back, and the squeeze won't work because I haven't cashed the minor-suit winners. Some possibilities:

(1) I can try to cater for RHO's ♠H10x(x) by running ♠8 immediately. If that loses to LHO's honour and a heart comes back, I cash the remaining hearts, to reach:

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The last heart makes him unguard one of his Kx suits, so I throw a club and finesse in the other suit.
However, East can thwart this plan by playing his high spade at trick four, so it requires a misdefence.

(2) If RHO has ♠KQ, it's easy to squeeze him - finesse diamond, cash hearts, keeping ♣Kx and ♠AJx until I've seen what his final discard is.

(3) If LHO has ♠KQ, I can take a diamond finesse, then cash the minor suit winners, throwing a heart. That will squeeze LHO down to ♠KQ alone. I won't know that until I've cashed three hearts, but that's OK. This is the ending:

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The third heart squeezes RHO out of his fourth spade as I throw my club, and then I duck a spade.

I can't use the line (3) approach to cater for ♠H10 on my right - when I lead the spade from dummy, RHO plays his honour, and I can't duck because he still has a club winner.

From an artistic point of view I like line (3), and I'd play that against very good opponents. Against weaker opposition a spade at trick two will probably work - these second-hand-high plays seem to be harder to find against a slam.

[gnasher]

My previous post took a while to write, and it contains some interesting endings, so I'm not going to change it. Also, I believe it to be a correct analysis of the best way to play on ♣6 lead.

However, all the lines I suggested are inferior to this one:

(4) Cash the top hearts, throwing three spades. Then take another diamond finesse, coming down to A - A A87. If RHO has thrown a club, give up a club. If he has two singletons left in the other suits, cash the aces and exit with a low club. If he has a doubleton and a void left in the other suits, do the same, but make sure to cash the ace of the void suit first.

Next time, perhaps you could put the lead in bold, to make it easier to appreciate its importance?

[dellache]

It's odds on that the ♦K is on, and the main problem is to cope with 5-1 Hearts, West having them. I can always endplay East in that case : we reach A -- A K87 and just need to guess which pointed suit East may have voided (cash the Ace in this suit first).

I will play a second diamond finesse (scoring the Jack hopefully ) and just cash 4 Rounds of Hearts. The best East can do is play the ♦King the second time with Kxxx, and void himself in Spades. I need to watch everything carefully.

[inquiry]

The first problem is declarer misplayed. After the diamond hook won (assuming nothing funny there), five rounds of hearts ensures 12 tricks (5♥, 3♦, 3♣, 1♠). I didn't show the auction because it was, well, strange. The play up to the first three tricks was as given here (mistake). The hand can be made as dellache suggest with a vulnerable stopper squeeze on EAST. The key ending is as he suggest, something like this (or give East both ♠K and ♦K or two spades...

Other hands don't matter. In this ending, cash spade ACE, east has to keep three clubs or else give up a club, so he comes to one diamond. Now cash diamond ace and exit a club. IF he has two spades, you cash the diamond ACE (position is symetrical). Needless to say declarer who missed setting up the long heart, missed the vulnerable stopper squeeze (hehehe, no it wasn't me.. )

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