[manudude03]

Here's a hand I recently had which was pretty instructive for me (spots approximated)

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You land in 4♥X after partner made an aggressive raise.
♠T lead goes to the K-A-2 and a small heart comes through. You try the Queen and West shows out.
Take over from here (3D opener will frequently only have 6 diamonds).

[phil_20686]

Is this one of those hands where I need to end play west to shorten my trumps, play something like diamond to the queen diamond ace throwing spade, diamond ruff spade Q spade ruff with the nine and a fourth diamond off table, and now the club K. Now if west has the club ace they have to return something you can ruff and whatever happens you lose only one heart trick to go with one spade and one club?

Hoping for a layout like

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[ahydra]

Phil - that looks a cute line. You're left with

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and whatever West leads, if E throws the club you can ruff and play the H8 to endplay him, or if he ruffs you overruff and play the H4 to endplay him.

If the black aces are swapped, the endplay still works (if E returns a heart, you win as cheaply as possible and immediately play the H4).

Lesson being that to endplay someone you (most of the time) need to leave them with an even number of cards. So the CK endplay comes with 5 cards left, so that East is left with four. And then you endplay him again with two cards left.

ahydra

[manudude03]

Phil's line works (as ahydra said, you don't even need West on OP to hold the ♣A). I made a variation of that play discarding my club on the ♦A and ruffing clubs to shorten my length, ruff a spade ruff a club and then exit a spade to get 2 similar endplays (the first for tempo, second for the trick).

The full hand (now that I've found the hand records):

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