[Cyberyeti]

Complete fantasy Rainer, you really do not see the issues here, W will not discard a diamond whatever he's doing.

It is entirely possible you will misread the ending, you assume he blanked the spade ace, unfortunately he started with a spade more and a club less than you thought (this was 1960, 4225 might overcall), you need to bang out all the trumps to give you the best chance of reading it, and in fact ruff a club at trick 4, unless E falsecards at trick one, you will know the accurate club count.

[rhm]

Cyberyeti, on 2018-December-28, 14:07, said:

Complete fantasy Rainer, you really do not see the issues here, W will not discard a diamond whatever he's doing.

It is entirely possible you will misread the ending, you assume he blanked the spade ace, unfortunately he started with a spade more and a club less than you thought (this was 1960, 4225 might overcall), you need to bang out all the trumps to give you the best chance of reading it, and in fact ruff a club at trick 4, unless E falsecards at trick one, you will know the accurate club count.

Your suggestion does nothing to resolve the ambiguity.
At trick ten you will have to decide whether ace of spades or the king of clubs has been blanked. In fact a good defender can see what is coming and will blank early.
There is almost no difference.
You gain little by ruffing a club, unless the club ten comes down doubleton or East shows out, both quite unlikely.
From my experience I am pretty sure that on the run of five immediate hearts 99% of all tournament players will give up diamonds at the table if they have less than 3.
It is also my experience that running your suit immediately wherever possible and not touching side suits is a winning strategy. This keeps good defenders in the dark.
I do not share your presumptions

Rainer Herrmann

[Cyberyeti]

rhm, on 2018-December-29, 03:51, said:

Your suggestion does nothing to resolve the ambiguity.
At trick ten you will have to decide whether ace of spades or the king of clubs has been blanked. In fact a good defender can see what is coming and will blank early.
There is almost no difference.
You gain little by ruffing a club, unless the club ten comes down doubleton or East shows out, both quite unlikely.
From my experience I am pretty sure that on the run of five immediate hearts 99% of all tournament players will give up diamonds at the table if they have less than 3.
It is also my experience that running your suit immediately wherever possible and not touching side suits is a winning strategy. This keeps good defenders in the dark.
I do not share your presumptions

Rainer Herrmann

No, ruffing the club if E has 1086 he will most likely have played 68, if he has 86 he will almost certainly have played 86, and of course it's not impossible he'll just have 6 and the position will be completely resolved. He needs to give a true card here as he wants partner to know how likely a second one is stand up

[The_Badger]

And here is the actual hand from the magazine:-

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[Cyberyeti]

So in fact any of the sensible lines of play work, but to make you work for it, W hs to apply the Q to the first round of diamonds, and you will survive even if you don't duck with correct play from there.