[daveharty]

I moderate a "play and discuss" table every week in the Beginner/Intermediate Lounge, and this hand came up recently:

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West's double showed a single-suited (6+) hand. West leads the diamond 7 to East's nine and your ten. This is a common scenario, with declarer needing to go after TWO sources of tricks in order to fulfill the contract; here, spades and clubs. In which order do you attack those suits? If you choose the wrong order, the defense will be able to set up diamonds before you get to nine tricks. Is it just a guess? How do you proceed?

Advanced+, please hide your answers.

Spoiler

Think about what you can control. If LHO has both the spade king and the club ace, you don't have much of a chance, because he will be able to set up the diamonds while still retaining an entry. On the other hand, if RHO has both cards, anything you do will succeed. So the important case is where LHO and RHO each have one of those cards.

EDIT: Changed South's heart holding to make this an intermediate problem. Much harder as originally posted.

[vuroth]

I'm not advanced, but I'll spoiler my thoughts, to be polite.

Spoiler

This seems like a counting problem to me.

Attack clubs first. Once we're back in, start counting west's hand very carefully.

Presumably he started with 6 diamonds. Assuming he has that, the KS and the AC, we need to either make him discard enough diamonds that he's no longer a threat, or to bare the king of spades.

If west throws 2 diamonds at some point (assuming east started with 2), it's safe to let him in with the KS. If he plays 6 non-diamonds, then either the ace of spades will drop the king, or east is no longer on my xmas card list.

[vuroth]

Based on daveharty's spoiler, looks like I'm wrong anyways.

[Cyberyeti]

This is a more difficult problem than it first appeared.

Spoiler

What I'd have liked to do is lead a heart to the ace and finesse the spade, knocking out the entry in the danger hand first, unfortunately, on winning the K♠ W leads his second heart and E cashes 3 more hearts when in with A♣
This would be the right solution if S had ♥J, but not sure I see this without it

[jjbrr]

Spoiler

I'd attack clubs first. Later I can rely on a spade hook or I can endplay lefty or something

[manudude03]

Spoiler

club to the King, we will need the king of spades onside anyway with accurate defence (see cyberyeti's post)

[Hanoi5]

Spoiler

I think it's still a guess. If I had better hearts or if I had won the first trick in dummy I'd know the right play for sure, but as it is I don't think entering dummy with a heart for the spade finesse is a good idea for I could lose and have another heart played against me and that suit cleared up before I have my 9 tricks.

[BunnyGo]

Spoiler

I'll knock out the club A. If I was wrong and East wins it, he'll play diamond back (anything else is easy), and if West wins...then I haven't gone wrong yet. If West ducks the diamond, then I can either play all my top tricks in clubs and hearts and try for an endplay of West, or I can play to drop the stiff K.

If West wins the A of diamonds and clears the suit, then I'll just play top clubs, heart to the K, spade A and another spade.

[daveharty]

Mea Culpa! I had intended to alter the hearts so that it was purely a matter of controlling the "danger hand" entries. It's a lot harder as it actually came up at the table. For future answers, just pretend South has KJx of hearts; as it turned out, the only way to make the hand was to play it that way anyway. Sorry, this was really supposed to be an intermediate at best problem.

[rduran1216]

Someone who knows hwo to hide can fill me in.

play a heart to dummy and hook a spade, if it wins, go after clubs, if RHO covers with the K, win the Ace and switch to clubs, making 3 clubs 2 diamonds, 2 spades, and 2 hearts

[jjbrr]

 rduran1216, on 2011-August-04, 15:10, said:

Someone who knows hwo to hide can fill me in.

Before your message, type [spoiler*] without the *; after your message, type [/spoiler]

[pio_magic]

My take

Spoiler

The only finesse I have to take into the danger hand is in spades. Even if I am not happy to open ♥, I need to play to the K and lead Q♠. If it holds, I play to the A♠ and lead ♣ to the K, assuming W has the A. (If he ducket the Q♠, kudos to him ). Then a Club to the QJ (assuming W had ducked) and he now is likely to take the trick. Assuming now he plays ♦A and ♦, I may be able to cash two clubs and have 2♠, 2♥, 2♦ and 3 ♣. If ♣ are 4-1, W may have the single A

If the ♠ finesse loses to the K, and ♦ are played, I play A♠ and ♠ to the Q, and ♣ to the Q.
If E ducks, I play J♣ and hope they are 3/2. 2♥, 2♠, 2♦ and 3♣ again.

Not convinced of myself though