Unfavorable at IMPs. West leads the ♦3, third/low, to East's queen.
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jen raise!
#1
Posted 2012-November-02, 02:45
Unfavorable at IMPs. West leads the ♦3, third/low, to East's queen.
Kaya!
#2
Posted 2012-November-02, 04:52
The lead and the lack of them competing to 3♦ marks ♦Jx3-QTxxx. LHO doesn't have ♠AK or 6 so those are splitting 5-2. Neither player has a singleton heart and RHO probably isn't 2254, with which he may have had the values for a takeout double. So the shapes are likely 5233 opposite 2353.
Most of the time I think I'll need the ♣A onside and to guess LHO's doubleton trump honour. There's a small extra chance by playing spades first. Say I play a ♠ to the T and A/K. Now if they don't switch to clubs I can win the diamond return (say), play another ♠ to LHO's top honour, win the return (or the second ♣ if necessary), ruff the diamond in dummy and play the ♠Q, discarding a ♣ when RHO ruffs in. He's endplayed even without the ♥K, as his trump switch would set up an entry with dummy's Q to play towards the ♣K. This gains as long as hearts break 2-3, regardless of how the honours are split. If something goes wrong (RHO has two ♠ honours to the A/K/J, or they switch to a ♣) I'll try and guess LHO's doubleton ♥ honour. I think the HCP split is more likely to be 8-14 or 9-13 than 10-12.
The alternative is to play RHO for ♥KJx and to eventually be able to force them to lead clubs. Maybe ♦A, ♥Q and K, ♦K, ♦ruff, ♥TA, ♠ to T. If RHO wins J and unblocks the other honour - unlucky. Otherwise one of them will be forced to play a club, even if you need to discard once on their winner. I prefer the first line of playing a ♠ at trick two. Possibly I'm missing a way of combining the two lines.
Most of the time I think I'll need the ♣A onside and to guess LHO's doubleton trump honour. There's a small extra chance by playing spades first. Say I play a ♠ to the T and A/K. Now if they don't switch to clubs I can win the diamond return (say), play another ♠ to LHO's top honour, win the return (or the second ♣ if necessary), ruff the diamond in dummy and play the ♠Q, discarding a ♣ when RHO ruffs in. He's endplayed even without the ♥K, as his trump switch would set up an entry with dummy's Q to play towards the ♣K. This gains as long as hearts break 2-3, regardless of how the honours are split. If something goes wrong (RHO has two ♠ honours to the A/K/J, or they switch to a ♣) I'll try and guess LHO's doubleton ♥ honour. I think the HCP split is more likely to be 8-14 or 9-13 than 10-12.
The alternative is to play RHO for ♥KJx and to eventually be able to force them to lead clubs. Maybe ♦A, ♥Q and K, ♦K, ♦ruff, ♥TA, ♠ to T. If RHO wins J and unblocks the other honour - unlucky. Otherwise one of them will be forced to play a club, even if you need to discard once on their winner. I prefer the first line of playing a ♠ at trick two. Possibly I'm missing a way of combining the two lines.
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