[nige1]

An interesting deal, similar to this, came up in the Camrose International today.
Both tables reached 6♠. One by South and one by North.
On a ♦ lead, Irving Gordon drew trumps, ending in dummy and
led a ♥ to ♥9, wrapping up 12 tricks for Scotland.
In the other room, the Irish declarer played 6♠ as North
Phil Morrison found the ♣ lead.
Now 6♠ is hopeless, at single-dummy but
How does declarer succeed, at double-dummy on a ♣ lead?

---

[ahydra]

Didn't North have DA, and West 3352? Not that it matters much.

Spoiler

it's all about the heart pips

ahydra

[apollo1201]

Is it because you can transfer the H guard to E by leading the highest H twice from S, and E will also be the only one to guard C after ruffing one in S?

[nige1]

ahydra, on 2019-March-02, 14:04, said:

Didn't North have DA, and West 3352? Not that it matters much.

Spoiler

it's all about the heart pips

Yes. In the actual hand defenders had fewer ♣ options:)
Before asking about the play, I should have presented the East hand as a lead problem but it;s too late now

[paulg]

nige1, on 2019-March-02, 14:43, said:

Before asking about the play, I should have presented the East hand as a lead problem but it;s too late now

No lead is easy against a slam at the Camrose when you know everyone is watching on, except ... when your partner doubles a freely bid grand slam, you have an ace, and your screenmate says that his five spades was a puppet to 5NT to sign off and he doesn't know why his partner has bid seven diamonds.

On this hand, with North denying any club control on the auction, a club was the obvious lead. There was a little danger, but everything else looked worse.

[HardVector]

So, I've looked that this a couple times now, and I don't see it. You imply that double-dummy this can be done, but I can't see it. I can see you can transfer the heart guard to east, but if you do that, there is no entry to the north hand and east sits over all the guards anyway, so a squeeze fails on 2 fronts. So now we go to endplaying west. This was presented as double-dummy, so of course, west will unblock the club suit. Even if not DD, if east leads the J♣, the unblock looks automatic.

Now, if you switch the 8 and 7 of hearts, it makes.

[cherdano]

HardVector, on 2019-March-03, 19:51, said:

So, I've looked that this a couple times now, and I don't see it. You imply that double-dummy this can be done, but I can't see it. I can see you can transfer the heart guard to east, but if you do that, there is no entry to the north hand and east sits over all the guards anyway, so a squeeze fails on 2 fronts. So now we go to endplaying west. This was presented as double-dummy, so of course, west will unblock the club suit. Even if not DD, if east leads the J♣, the unblock looks automatic.

Now, if you switch the 8 and 7 of hearts, it makes.

You are almost there. Say you play HJ early, covered and won in dummy. Now you run your winners, and of course W will unblock in clubs. What does East keep?