[helene_t]

Let's say you got a diamond lead

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Hand 20 from last year's Venice Cup was cute, I thought.

Hearts or clubs could split, of course, but what extra chances do you have on a passive lead?

[FelicityR]

From the title, Helene, I am visualising a situation where both ♥s and ♣s don't break, but where a defender with ♥Jxxx is thrown in with either the fourth club ♣ or the ♠A to lead into or up to or into the ♥Q10. It needs good timing and card-reading. I would start by leading up to the ♠Q. When that (presumably) holds, cash three rounds of ♣s, four rounds of ♦s, two rounds of ♥ and then make a decision who to throw in.

Maybe there is a better line but I have only looked at this quickly.

[helene_t]

You are probably right that it's best to start with a small spade towards the queen. If it doesn't hold we may a rectified the count for a clubs-hearts squeeze, and if it does hold, it may be reasonably safe to assume that North has ♠A.

Another option is a Morton's Fork against South, playing her for ♠A as well as ♥Jxxx. We play a small spade from dummy and work towards this 6-card ending:

♠863 ♥K5 ♦J ==== ♠Q ♥AQT6 ♣8

South has discarded a spade on the 3rd club. Both follow to 3 rounds of diamonds.

We now play ♦J. North discards a small spade. This means that North wasn't squeezed in three suits (North could have held ♠A ♥Jxxx ♣J but that wasn't the case) so we throw dummy's club and cash ♥ K and A. We now have

♠863 ==== ♠Q ♥QT

If hearts split, whoever has ♠A will also have a club (North) or a spade (South) to cash, but on the other hand, if hearts don't split, our only chance now is that South has ♠A ♥Jx.

When I wrote this post I didn't realize that we also could have a throw-in against North because if North exits a heart, we can play ♥T from dummy so we cater to both ♥Jxxx and ♥xxx by North.

So maybe not so interesting as I thought - Felicia's plan is best but as it happened it was an inferior plan that worked.

The Japanese declarer got help from opps but the others went down. GIB went down against Shogi and me, also.

[nige1]

Helene_T "Hand 20 from last year's Venice Cup was cute, I thought. Let's say you got a diamond lead. Hearts or clubs could split, of course, but what extra chances do you have on a passive lead?"
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Thank you, Helene_T. Presumably, the layout was something like that on the left. (Rotated to make South declarer). Interesting Morton's fork avoidance-play and fork-strip. In practice, I'd always fail ... unless self-kibitzing.

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[cherdano]

Nigel's layout is also fun on a low spade lead. Declarer has to play low in dummy to set up the Morton's Fork/endplay. If he does play high, East has to return ♠4 - only card to break up the double squeeze.

[nige1]

Paradoxically, if hearts are 5-1 rather than 4-2, declarer has a much better chance of success.

[Fluffy]

I think this is the third place I see this hand , there was one on Bridge Winners where it was discussed at lenght.