[wyman]

---

R/W MP
Lead ♦Q.
PTP.

[mikeh]

I think I ruff in dummy and lead the club J.

What I do subsequently will depend on what they do. For example, if S wins and returns a diamond, I will ruff and lead a spade, with the K now marked on my right....I will be able to ruff 3 diamonds in dummy, and will make on 3-2 majors.

If RHO wins the club....what is he playing? He probably can't play anything but trump.

It gets messy depending on who does what, but with decent breaks, I think the club exit affords maximal flexiblity. I exit the club J because I want to cater to N holding KQ...I think I'd rather he was on lead at trick 2 than his partner, tho I think I can usually handle both.


I should add that I think I will need decent splits no matter what line I adopt. I'm not worried about the form of scoring.....I'm in a contract that will score well if I make and poorly if I fail, so I'll try to make.

[han]

I would ruff and play a spade towards the queen. I will have to do this anyway, so I might as well do it immediately. It is very unlikely that either defender has a singleton spade and north is likely to hold the king.

[wyman]

han, on 2010-December-08, 12:42, said:

I would ruff and play a spade towards the queen. I will have to do this anyway, so I might as well do it immediately. It is very unlikely that either defender has a singleton spade and north is likely to hold the king.

This is what I did. The Q holds. You ruff another diamond I assume. Now what?

[wyman]

mikeh, on 2010-December-08, 11:35, said:

I think I ruff in dummy and lead the club J.

What I do subsequently will depend on what they do. For example, if S wins and returns a diamond, I will ruff and lead a spade, with the K now marked on my right....I will be able to ruff 3 diamonds in dummy, and will make on 3-2 majors.

If RHO wins the club....what is he playing? He probably can't play anything but trump.

It gets messy depending on who does what, but with decent breaks, I think the club exit affords maximal flexiblity. I exit the club J because I want to cater to N holding KQ...I think I'd rather he was on lead at trick 2 than his partner, tho I think I can usually handle both.


I should add that I think I will need decent splits no matter what line I adopt. I'm not worried about the form of scoring.....I'm in a contract that will score well if I make and poorly if I fail, so I'll try to make.

South will win the J with the Q. I am not entirely sure what he will lead back. Any of a low H, JD, or low C would not surprise me.

[han]

If the queen of clubs holds I ruff a diamond, ace of spades, small spade. The opponents probably do best to play a heart. Now I ruff the last diamond and exit with the club jack. I'll go down if south holds a doubleton heart and can ruff the think club. However, this is not possible as he would have to be 2263, 3262, which means north doesn't have a 1D opening.

[nige1]

wyman, on 2010-December-08, 10:46, said:

R/W MP
Lead ♦Q.
PTP.

---

I agree broadly with Han's line. Ruff ♦ lead. ♠ to ♠Q. When that holds, ruff a second ♦, ♠A, ♥A, Ruff a 3rd ♦, exit in ♠.

[mikeh]

han, on 2010-December-08, 13:16, said:

If the queen of clubs holds I ruff a diamond, ace of spades, small spade. The opponents probably do best to play a heart. Now I ruff the last diamond and exit with the club jack. I'll go down if south holds a doubleton heart and can ruff the think club. However, this is not possible as he would have to be 2263, 3262, which means north doesn't have a 1D opening.

if S is 2-2-6-3 isn't N then 3-3-4-3? How is this not a 1♦ opener, assuming it is out of the 1N range?

if S is 3-2-6-2 then N is 2-3-4-4, and, again, how is that not a 1♦ opener (leaving aside the age-old issue of which minor to open when 4-4...in NA, the majority view seems to be 1♦ anyway)?

The basic idea of a spade at trick 2 seems intuitively sound, but when I ran the scenario before posting, I wondered what I would do if N popped the spade K and returned a spade? It's not that I worry about this being ruffed so much as I worry about where I win this and how I continue. If I win in hand and ruff a diamond, I can get to my hand in trump and ruff my last diamond, but now I'm in dummy with Ax void void AJ10xx opposite xx A10x void xx, having lost one trick and with at least 2 more losers on all lies.

It seemed to me that I need clubs to be 3-3 or to have length in the south hand...I need to get back to my hand to cash the top heart before returning to spades. But if N can win the early club and lead a 3rd spade...then I am down whenever S has 2-2-5-4 or 2-2-6-3...he gets to ruff the 3rd spade with the short heart. I'm ok if he is 2=3=5=3 or 2=3=6=2, I think.

That's why I exited the club at trick 2...if clubs are 3-3, I think I'm safe on all 3-2 trump breaks...and I may still be able to recover in some cases when clubs aren't 3-3.

I do admit that if I knew N would duck the spade (why would he...can't he see that we are likely to be 4-4 majors, and that popping and continuing disrupts our entries?), I'd definitely lead a spade to the Q at trick 2.

[MrAce]

Mikeh has a good point imo. Playing ♠ and expecting to win with Q didn't occured to me either. I like his line, the ♣ duck at trick 2.

[mikeh]

MrAce, on 2010-December-08, 16:28, said:

Mikeh has a good point imo. Playing ♠ and expecting to win with Q didn't occured to me either. I like his line, the ♣ duck at trick 2.

As a lawyer, I tend to be a pedant (some would say I'm reversing cause and effect). Leading a spade, expecting to win the Q did occur to me....since I think we'd all agree that N rates to hold the K, but then it occurred to me that this may be problematic against good defence. I'm not sure whether my preferred line operates more or less frequently than Han's...I sort of lost track of the various permutations, but my sense was that it was less frequently always down against best defence.

[wyman]

Thanks, all.

[mikeh]

wyman, on 2010-December-09, 13:14, said:

Thanks, all.

so what happened? what was the lie?

[wyman]

mikeh, on 2010-December-09, 13:21, said:

so what happened? what was the lie?

Everything's fine.
South's hand:

98 / Q95 / QJT632 / Q8

But I managed to bollox up the play. I played a heart back to hand to ruff the 3rd diamond; ace and out a club, won by south. Diamond back ruffed in hand, and now I'm stuck.