[Cyberyeti]

How do you think this should be played ? IMPs

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The lead is the ♠6, playing 4th highest, lowest from Hxx, 2nd highest from 3-5 small, top of doubleton.

[fbuijsen]

I play the ♠3. If E takes the ♠K and a spade back, I play the ♣5 to the ♣J. If that holds, I can make my 9th trick in diamonds.
If it loses to the ♣Q, spade, and spades turn out to be 5-2, it's a bit harder, but it's probably still safest to try to develop the 9th trick in diamonds.

It trick 1 runs to my ♠Q, I can play on hearts (A, K, T).

[Cyberyeti]

fbuijsen, on 2014-July-08, 02:24, said:

I play the ♠3. If E takes the ♠K and a spade back, I play the ♣5 to the ♣J. If that holds, I can make my 9th trick in diamonds.
If it loses to the ♣Q, spade, and spades turn out to be 5-2, it's a bit harder, but it's probably still safest to try to develop the 9th trick in diamonds.

It trick 1 runs to my ♠Q, I can play on hearts (A, K, T).

Spoiler

the spade runs to your Q, you clear the hearts, (I'm not going to reveal who wins until others have tried it) they play another spade, now what ?

[manudude03]

Run the spade round to the queen and lead the jack of clubs. If it holds, we can clear the hearts. If it doesn't, we still have an entry with the ten of clubs. We can't afford to clear the hearts immediately as we're squeezed on the 5th heart.

edit: that doesn't work, defence has 5 tricks. I guess I agree with fbuijsen's line and we will have to hope the club finesse works.

[Cyberyeti]

manudude03, on 2014-July-08, 03:22, said:

Run the spade round to the queen and lead the jack of clubs. If it holds, we can clear the hearts. If it doesn't, we still have an entry with the ten of clubs. We can't afford to clear the hearts immediately as we're squeezed on the 5th heart.

edit: that doesn't work, defence has 5 tricks. I guess I agree with fbuijsen's line and we will have to hope the club finesse works.

Spoiler

Actually it does kinda work, just not how you thought.

If you lead the J♣ and they duck you're home with 4 hearts 3 or 4 clubs and 2 spades, so they have to win, you now have 2 entries to dummy, if they clear the diamonds, you have to take the heart finesse the right way, any other return you cash the clubs and give up a spade then 2 diamonds, they can't profitably attack hearts and you score 3 spades, 2 hearts, 3 clubs and a diamond.

[gszes]

With proper defense this hand needs a lot of luck to make so the
question is go for the luck or hope for an error?? If a high level
game it is probably better to go for the luck. So it seems like
best is

trick 1 duck and see what happens in the end we will need the club
finesse because we will squeeze our hand on the run of the hearts
so down 3 is a real possibility but making vulnerable with a 5050
shot is certainly a good trade off.

If rho wins and switches to a dia the same club finesse will net us
nine tricks via 3s 2h 3c 1d

if rho wins and returns a spade we have 3s and 2h and it seems the best thing to do
is take that same club finesse since if it wins we then can switch to diamonds for
our 9th trick.

If trick 1 rides to our Q best might actually be heart A followed by running the
heart J---if rho has the Qxxx they may easily decide to duck to keep us from
winning our 5th heart (it is very difficult to take the heart here with no
clear cut way of defeating our contract). If the J holds (we now have 3 heart
tricks) and if we can score 3s and 3 clubs we have nine so I would play a small
club toward the T (to keep more mystery in the hand (who knows qxxx might even duck
and now we would have 3c 3h and 3s by switching back to spades.

If rho wins the heart Q and returns a spade we are back to hoping for 4h 3c and 2s
with the opps winning at most 2d 1s 1h but we risk down 3. when we take the club
finesse since we had to unguard spades and or dia to be able to hold AKJ of clubs
in the end postion.

[whereagles]

gut feeling: ♠A, club to the jack. Then proceed to force spades and a diamond out.

[Cyberyeti]

whereagles, on 2014-July-08, 08:51, said:

gut feeling: ♠A, club to the jack. Then proceed to force spades and a diamond out.

Spoiler

J♣ loses to the Q, you win the diamond they play back, no chance now given that the hearts don't run, you lose at least 3 diamonds a club and a spade

[Fluffy]

Did I squeeze myself again? oh no...

[Cyberyeti]

Fluffy, on 2014-July-11, 06:14, said:

Did I squeeze myself again? oh no...

Yeah, this is the complication of the hand, I'm still not sure if the club finesse is better than the heart finesse.

[Fluffy]

So leading ♣J at trick 2 sounds best, they will have a hard time to duck a diamond while keeping comunications open.

[Cyberyeti]

Fluffy, on 2014-July-11, 06:37, said:

So leading ♣J at trick 2 sounds best, they will have a hard time to duck a diamond while keeping comunications open.

What actually happened was very unfortunate.

At some point W revoked discarding a diamond from Hxx then realised she should have followed suit, so she HAD to duck and keep communications open as she had a small diamond on the table.