[lamford]

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West leads the eight of spades to East's ace and the eight of hearts comes back. Plan the play.

[LBengtsson]

finesse, ruffing finesse, ruff out ♦K, all probability close. I can not see squeeze here. eight ♠ lead suggest ♥K is with west. also look like east also has 6♠ length. so I will go with east with ♦K, so I take ♥A, ♦A, ♦Q and run discarding ♥ or ruff high if east cover and draw trump in dummy, and discard losing ♥ on ♦J. if better line then I am curious???

[mikeh]

This is very close

East pretty much has to switch to a heart even with the King unless he has the diamond King as well, since he ‘knows’ the diamonds are running. And he’s always leading a high spot, since he doesn’t care about fooling west.

So, depending on how good we think east is, we should think about ducking the heart.

If we choose not to do so, then we’ve placed west with that card. We can squeeze west if he has both red kings, but east surely has at least one of them....no 2S overcall plus the 4S bid.

The 4S bid makes me suspect east has the diamond king. In that case, all is well so long as trump behave. The danger hand is west holding something like xxxx Kxxx xx xxx and east AQxxxx xxx Kxxx void

But, unless I’ve missed something, I can’t make if that’s the layout.

I’m not playing for diamonds to be 3-3....if they are, then it’s way more than 50% that east has the king anyway.....4S on xxx in the suit bid to his right seems improbable.

All of this is by way of saying that against the vast majority of defenders, especially if the heart switch was in tempo, I’m popping the heart Ace, diamond to the Ace, run the diamond Queen.

An alternative would be diamond Ace, diamond ruff, back in clubs, diamond Q, but that requires 3-3 diamonds or east to have xx in clubs, neither of which seem likely

Against a strong defender who took a little longer than I’d expect, to switch to a heart, I’d consider ducking. Against a Meckwell or similar, I’d revert to the diamond play, since the heart will be in tempo regardless of his holding.

[apollo1201]

(non-expert answer)

E wouldn’t be giving away the contract, would he? Or is it to convince me to adopt a losing line?

Now we can finesse DK against W, ruff-finesse against E, or play for the drop in 3 rounds, using C9 and 6 as entries (absent a 3-0 trump break). Squeeze is unlikely given my H7 is too small, unless by cashing all my trumps opps might get lost or forget early signals.

S seem 6-4, opps have 13 HCPs. With E having more than W.

A hand like xxxx Kxxx(x) xxx(x) x is plenty enough for a preemptive raise to 3S. Potentially with SQ or HJ as well.

Seems like I’ll grab HA, and play on the ruffing finesse. If E had the HK and believed I was taking a normal finesse or a drop that worked, then congrats!

But I’m pretty sure while I ate and took time to think, several posters will have concluded better than this!

[lamford]

mikeh, on 2021-February-22, 14:27, said:

This is very close

Against a strong defender who took a little longer than I’d expect, to switch to a heart, I’d consider ducking. Against a Meckwell or similar, I’d revert to the diamond play, since the heart will be in tempo regardless of his holding.

Both the defender and the declarer have played for their country and have won the English Premier League. I was not at the table, but I expect the heart switch was in tempo. East would have done any thinking before winning the ace of spades.

If you run the heart if works. If you rise and cash a club, then West shows out, and now you will get the diamond right, as Kx with East is no good to you. West has xxxx Jxxx Kxxxx none.

[nige1]

West leads the eight of spades to East's ace and the eight of hearts comes back. Plan the play.
Both the defender and the declarer have played for their country and have won the English Premier League. I was not at the table, but I expect the heart switch was in tempo. East would have done any thinking before winning the ace of spades.If you run the heart if works. If you rise and cash a club, then West shows out, and now you will get the diamond right, as Kx with East is no good to you. West has xxxx Jxxx Kxxxx none.
+++++++++++++++++++++
Best defence might be to win ♠A and return a ♠. On the actual deal, this deprives declarer of a simple winning option in ♥s. Now, declarer might hope that a defender has ♦K(xx) and try to set up dummy's ♦s.
For example, suppose RHO has ♦Kx and ♣432, as postulated in Paul's hypothetical construction, illustrated above. Declarer can still succeed by winning ♥A, crossing to ♦A, and ruffing a ♦ high. If ♦K appears, declarer crosses to ♣6 and leads a good ♦quack. If RHO ruffs, declarer over-ruffs high. Finally, declarer draws trumps with dummy's ♣9 to enjoy a ♦ winner.

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[gszes]

LBengtsson, on 2021-February-22, 14:12, said:

finesse, ruffing finesse, ruff out ♦K, all probability close. I can not see squeeze here. eight ♠ lead suggest ♥K is with west. also look like east also has 6♠ length. so I will go with east with ♦K, so I take ♥A, ♦A, ♦Q and run discarding ♥ or ruff high if east cover and draw trump in dummy, and discard losing ♥ on ♦J. if better line then I am curious???

A slight improvement would be to cash 1 trump before leading toward the dia A. Once you see the poor trump split it is not too late to reconsider and take the dia finesse instead --- unless you feel east will have 3+ dia and wont be able to ruff the 3rd round.