[CamHenry]

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Both sides' bids are natural; EW play 4-card majors and a weak NT. 2♥ is natural but could be weaker than 6-9 HCP.

W leads the ♥A and continues with the K. What's the best line? It's apparent that most of the honour strength is with W, so the diamond finesse is likely to fail. If you play on trumps, W shows out on the second round (discarding the ♥4).

If you ask about the discard, the answer is "even cards encourage the suit discarded".

[zenbiddist]

♠A, cross to dummy's ♠J and either:

A) Lead a small club intending to endplay LHO and count more HCPs. He'll set up a pitch for one of the diamonds but I'll still have work to do, OR
B) Lead ♦J, intending to let it run, again endplaying West.

Who are my opponents? If they are bad line A for sure (did RHO play low?). Keen to hear a stronger player's ideas.

[MickyB]

CamHenry, on 2014-November-19, 08:36, said:

If you ask about the discard, the answer is "even cards encourage the suit discarded".

zenbiddist, on 2014-November-19, 12:13, said:

Who are my opponents? If they are bad

They are bad.

[mikeh]

I ruff the second heart, cash a top spade and cross to the spade J, hoping for 2-2, but not being that worried about the 1-3.

I now lead a low diamond, inserting the 9.

I am not out of the woods yet. But even if this loses to the 10, I have reasonable prospects since he is endplayed. I won't go into details, because there are lots of forks in the road depending on what spot cards are played and when. For example, if he switches to a small club, do I play for split honours? I think so, since QJ tight on my right is improbable, but if the diamond 8 had appeared on the first round, I would probably play for Q8 tight on my right and exit the diamond K.

I will probably need to find LHO 1=6=3=3 but that is quite likely since with 6-4 shape, expecting 4 card support more often than not, he might have blasted 4♥ over my 2♠. I mean x AKxxxx A10xx xx looks like a reasonable 4♥ to me, in an effort to shut out LHO and steal the contract (not to mention that a good dummy would make it cold).

An expert would usually switch to a club honour from Hxx or QJx, to give me a losing option but I concur with Micky's assessment that the opps are likely to be bad based on their (unusual) signalling method). Plus it is MPs and most MP opps are, in most fields, bad

[CamHenry]

Thanks all - LHO held x/AKxxx/Axxx/QJx; RHO had Jxx/Jxxxx/Qx/xxx.

The line I took was to draw two rounds of trumps with the AK; I then played a small ♣ from hand and ducked LHO's J. I assumed that RHO would not have both the ♣Q and the foresight to overtake it and play a diamond through; this assumption worked well!

We were the only pair to bid game, though some other declarers made 10 tricks.

[WellSpyder]

CamHenry, on 2014-November-20, 05:49, said:

Thanks all - LHO held x/AKxxx/Axxx/QJx; RHO had Jxx/Jxxxx/Qx/xxx.

The line I took was to draw two rounds of trumps with the AK; I then played a small ♣ from hand and ducked LHO's J. I assumed that RHO would not have both the ♣Q and the foresight to overtake it and play a diamond through; this assumption worked well!

We were the only pair to bid game, though some other declarers made 10 tricks.

I think I've missed something somewhere. Why didn't you lose 1♥, 2♦s and a ♣?

[CamHenry]

WellSpyder, on 2014-November-20, 06:26, said:

I think I've missed something somewhere. Why didn't you lose 1♥, 2♦s and a ♣?

Because LHO, on lead with void/xxxx/ATxx/Q, decided that she didn't want to give up the club position and led a diamond instead.

[zenbiddist]

Sounds like you found an effective line for those opponents, which is the main thing.