[jallerton]

---

West leads ♣A, 2,3,5
West switches to ♦Q on which East plays the 7.

E/W play standard signals (high encouraging).

What's the best line?

[lamford]

I would play for West to be something like ♠x ♥KTxx ♦QJTxx ♣AKx and win the diamond in hand and run the queen of hearts. Assuming it is covered by the king and ace, and East follows, I would go back to clubs, as I think a second heart is fatal. Assuming West wins the queen of clubs and persists with diamonds, I rise with the king, cash the jack of clubs pitching a spade, ruff a diamond, and play a spade to the ace, ruff another diamond, and play a top spade. If West ruffs I am still home as I will overruff dummy's five of hearts and then score the ♥J8 en passant. This seems to be proof against spades 5-1 and hearts 4-1 which must be the biggest risk.

[mikeh]

At mps, I think it clear to advance the heart Q at trick 3.

At imps, however, this may lose. I suspect there may be other losing lies, but certainly they can beat you on this line if LHO is 2=4=4=3 without the heart K. I think it requires a spade switch by RHO and then, when we drive out the club K, a spade continuation by LHO. I don't think we do any better by attacking clubs early, since LHO then leads another diamond, and we are wrong-sided.

edit: I think I was wrong here. Certainly they can't beat us by 2 rounds of spades if LHO was 2=4=4=3, since we win the second spade, play a diamond to the K, ruff a diamond with the 9, play a trump to the 8, cash the club, ruff the last diamond, and LHO is couped in the 2 card end game.

But my head began spinning as I pictured 2=4=3=4! Now, we can't ruff the last diamond, because LHO can overruff.

Which gets me back to the lead of the heart 9 at trick 3. Now, if they defend as suggested, we get to ruff the last diamond with the Q!!! No overruff. Which means that I still think the line I write below is basically correct, altho for a reason I didn't see at the time. end edit

I see several possibilities, but suspect that ATT I'd be unable to resolve the odds within any realistic time line, so here goes what I think I would do in real life.


Advance and run the heart 9, playing the 8 under it.

If it loses to the 10:

If they lead back a minor, I am cold.

Say they lead a club...LHO wins and plays what? A diamond? Win in dummy, ruff a diamond high, lead the heart 7. Unless RHO has K10 on trumps, we pull trump and claim 10 winners, 3 spades, 3 trump, 2 diamonds, a ruff and a club.

If they play a diamond, win, play a club. LHO wins and leads a spade? Win in dummy, ruff a diamond high, and pull trump with the aid of a finesse or two: we still have a small spade left in dummy to get back to our KQ.

If RHO switches to a spade: win in dummy. Play a club, to LHO.

If he was 1=4=5=3 or so, then he can't return a spade to attack my communications.

Say he plays a diamond. Win, ruff one high and advance the heart 7, planning to pull trump and claim.

So let's give him 2=4=4=3.

He exits a spade after winning the club. Now I can't ruff a diamond, pull trump and end in hand to enjoy the spade. So I have to ruff 2 diamonds and coup him.

Win the 2nd spade in hand, play a diamond and ruff a diamond high. Lead the heart 7 to the Jack and cash the club then ruff another diamond. We have played 11 tricks, and lost 3 of them, but we are in hand with a heart tenace over LHO. Edit: we don't ruff the diamond, the 1st time, with the Queen...we ruff with the 7 or the 6 or, if we had led one of those early, then the 9. We need the Q for the last ruff to avoid an overruff when LHO is 2=4=3=4.

If the early heart lost to the K, we are cold....we may need a variation of the play outlined above, but I won't waste time writing it out.

I think this line caters to just about everything other than K10 of trump on my right.

Leading the heart Q would almost certainly work. It prevails against just about everything that my line does.....except, as best as I can see, the 2=4=4=3 LHO hand, and even then in the real world the vast majority of RHO's would woodenly return a minor at trick 4. Firther edit: see above for my revised thinking

[lamford]

mikeh, on 2014-August-29, 12:16, said:

Leading the heart Q would almost certainly work. It prevails against just about everything that my line does.....except, as best as I can see, the 2=4=4=3 LHO hand, and even then in the real world the vast majority of RHO's would woodenly return a minor at trick 4.

I can't see anything wrong with your line, certainly not against plausible layouts which fit in with the auction. I think that declarer is still making, however, if he runs the queen of hearts and blows to a stiff king. If East wins the stiff king of hearts, and returns a spade, say, we win with the ace, not the eight, even if East returns a low spade, and we return a club to the queen and king. West continues diamonds again, but we rise, cash the jack of clubs pitching a spade, ruff a diamond (there are other winning lines) and now finesse the eight of hearts. If that holds we are home, but I agree that we lose out to KT doubleton with East, extremely unlikely as West with x xxx QJTxxx AKx would just overcall 2♦, and otherwise he has four hearts. It seems that I am almost sure to make on this line, although I must confess that your line is almost sure to make as well. And surely everyone listening to the auction will lose two trump tricks when East has ♥KT.

One later thought is that West won't be 2-4-3-4 or East would be 4-4 in the minors and would bid 1NT over XX, rather than bid 2C.

[FrancesHinden]

mikeh, on 2014-August-29, 12:16, said:

Leading the heart Q would almost certainly work. It prevails against just about everything that my line does.....except, as best as I can see, the 2=4=4=3 LHO hand, and even then in the real world the vast majority of RHO's would woodenly return a minor at trick 4. Firther edit: see above for my revised thinking

Leading the heart Q and following Lamford's original line also loses when RHO is 5224 with 10x of hearts because he can ruff in high on the third round of diamonds and give his partner a spade ruff. The alternative line proposed picks this layout up as well.

[lamford]

FrancesHinden, on 2014-August-30, 09:00, said:

Leading the heart Q and following Lamford's original line also loses when RHO is 5224 with 10x of hearts because he can ruff in high on the third round of diamonds and give his partner a spade ruff. The alternative line proposed picks this layout up as well.

My line similarly fails to this layout because East will score the ten of hearts when I try the trump coup. I now think running the nine (or the seven) is better than running the queen.

[wanoff]

FrancesHinden, on 2014-August-30, 09:00, said:

Leading the heart Q and following Lamford's original line also loses when RHO is 5224 with 10x of hearts because he can ruff in high on the third round of diamonds and give his partner a spade ruff. The alternative line proposed picks this layout up as well.

At least Lamford's line had the virtue of being concise.
♥Q was the obvious start but he got a bit carried away after the cover. Wouldn't you just ruff a diamond, finesse trumps again and claim, knocking out the club at some point.
Usually in these situations, Q or 9 is 50/50 except here ♥9 can lose to 2434 with stiff 10 offside. But with this shape the K won't be offside.

[lamford]

wanoff, on 2014-August-31, 02:35, said:

At least Lamford's line had the virtue of being concise.
♥Q was the obvious start but he got a bit carried away after the cover. Wouldn't you just ruff a diamond, finesse trumps again and claim, knocking out the club at some point.
Usually in these situations, Q or 9 is 50/50 except here ♥9 can lose to 2434 with stiff 10 offside. But with this shape the K won't be offside.

Yes, I think you are right, playing the club early allows them to play a spade, and then they can beat me as in Frances' line. I now think running the queen is better after all, as running the nine fails when West has ♠none ♥Kxxx ♦QJTxx ♣AKxx, because, if you blow to a stiff 10, then you sustain an immediate spade ruff. There is no downside, as far as I can see (although I have said that before) to running the queen, and no gain to running the nine. Come to think of it, the layout I suggest is quite likely, given that West did not switch to his "singleton" spade at trick two. Low to the ace will win against ♥KT with East (or singleton K with six spades), but fails on normal layouts such as ♠x ♥KTxx ♦QJTxx ♣AKx with West.

And note that East would do well not to pass 1SXX with ♠JTxxxx. His partner would have to find the heart lead to save the second overtrick.

[jallerton]

Thanks for the replies.

At the table, my partner took the high percentage line of winning the ♦ switch in hand, and lead ♥Q, K, A and then a club to the Q and K. LHO switched to a spade, won with the ace. Now declarer needing just one ruff in hand played ♦K, and another ♦. Then triple bad news: ♦ were 5-2; declarer's RHO had been dealt ♥10 and was able to ruff in front of declarer; and LHO ruffed the♠ return.

A team-mate came up with various winning lines, all of which worked on the actual layout, but could not cope with various other live possibilties.

I like MikeH's line which is quite an unusual looking play. The early deep finesse is effectively knocking out the danger hand's entry before he can do any damage with a spade ruff. On the bidding ♥10 is his only plausible entry.

One could argue that LHO had the opportunity to switch to a spade at trick 2, so a stiff spade is unlikely. All I can say is that he did hold a singleton spade and chose not to switch to it at that point.

[wanoff]

jallerton, on 2014-September-13, 12:44, said:

At the table, my partner took the high percentage line of winning the ♦ switch in hand, and lead ♥Q, K, A and then a club to the Q and K. LHO switched to a spade, won with the ace. Now declarer needing just one ruff in hand played ♦K, and another ♦. Then triple bad news: ♦ were 5-2; declarer's RHO had been dealt ♥10 and was able to ruff in front of declarer; and LHO ruffed the♠ return.

I like MikeH's line which is quite an unusual looking play. The early deep finesse is effectively knocking out the danger hand's entry before he can do any damage with a spade ruff. On the bidding ♥10 is his only plausible entry.

The line in post 7. also knocks out the ♥10 early and beats xx Kxxx QJx AKxx

[lamford]

wanoff, on 2014-September-14, 02:55, said:

The line in post 7. also knocks out the ♥10 early and beats xx Kxxx QJx AKxx

Indeed. I think the mistake declarer and I made was to play a second club too soon.

[gszes]

What is the downside of winning the dia switch in dummy and laying down the
heart ace followed by a heart to the Q? I fail to see where we are any worse
off if hearts were to break 50 and this lop eliminates a ton of possible messy
situations like doubleton heart T and spade shortness (even a void). It is
sort of a safety play since we only need to ruff one diamond we can always do
that and still finesse lho in case they began with 4 hearts to the T? thoughts?

I admit this tosses the idea of overtricks right out the window but how many times have
you won a match merely due to overtricks?

[lamford]

gszes, on 2014-September-14, 06:43, said:

What is the downside of winning the dia switch in dummy and laying down the
heart ace followed by a heart to the Q? I fail to see where we are any worse
off if hearts were to break 50 and this lop eliminates a ton of possible messy
situations like doubleton heart T and spade shortness (even a void). It is
sort of a safety play since we only need to ruff one diamond we can always do
that and still finesse lho in case they began with 4 hearts to the T? thoughts?

I admit this tosses the idea of overtricks right out the window but how many times have
you won a match merely due to overtricks?

The problem with this line is that it fails when hearts are 4-1. West wins the second heart and continues with pretty much anything, and you cannot make it. And if West has a singleton spade, say, x KTxx QJxxx AKx, even playing low to the ace on the first round of trumps is fatal.

[gszes]

lamford, on 2014-September-14, 08:24, said:

The problem with this line is that it fails when hearts are 4-1. West wins the second heart and continues with pretty much anything, and you cannot make it. And if West has a singleton spade, say, x KTxx QJxxx AKx, even playing low to the ace on the first round of trumps is fatal.

trick 1 lose club
trick 2 win dia in dummy
trick 3 heart ace
trick 4 heart to Q losing to K
trick 5 anything:) singleton spade maybe win in dummy
trick 6 dia to hand
trick 7 club Q loses to K but now what?
last tricks will be 2h 1 dia ruff 1c and 2s taking the trump finesse
after ruffing dia and other dia loser goes on spade Q

If however lho ducks the 2nd round of hearts to maintain trump control x KTxx QJxxx AKx
will set the hand but must other distributions will not

[lamford]

gszes, on 2014-September-15, 14:01, said:

trick 1 lose club
trick 2 win dia in dummy
trick 3 heart ace
trick 4 heart to Q losing to K
trick 5 anything:) singleton spade maybe win in dummy
trick 6 dia to hand
trick 7 club Q loses to K but now what?
last tricks will be 2h 1 dia ruff 1c and 2s taking the trump finesse
after ruffing dia and other dia loser goes on spade Q

If however lho ducks the 2nd round of hearts to maintain trump control x KTxx QJxxx AKx
will set the hand but must other distributions will not

I didn't notice you wanted to win the diamond switch in dummy but it makes no difference. When you play ace and another heart, West wins and exits with a spade say, and now if you play a club to the queen, he just exits with a trump and you are a trick short. Playing ace and another heart is also fatal if West even if West is 2-4-4-3. He must then play the small trump (or cash the king of clubs first).