[olliebol]

Scoring: MP

South reaches 4 spades on a sp lead.tr are 3-1, how do you play?

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I saw this played a number of times and nobody made a good show of it. Its not a hard hand ( i believe) but one that needs a good look and some planning.

[W Kovacs]

K♠, Q♠, small ♠ to the A, A♣, Q♣, small ♥ to the A, K♣ pitching a ♥ from hand, and lead a small ♥.

With a heart return, we get a ruff-sluff, or duck a diamond return to set up a winner in that suit. I doubt there's an overtrick available anywhere.

[plaur]

Is this a beginners hand? First try, and probably wouldnt find anything else at table:

K♠, A♠ AQ♣, Q♠, K♣ pitching small ♥
lead towards Q♥.
LHO overtakes with ♥K and leads back ♥
A♥, ruff ♥ and lead ♦ up to a nasty guess

At least I get 75% (♥K onside, ♦ guess)

[Flameous]

Kovacs, you still have a heart in dummy so you won't be getting any sluffs out of heart return.

Everything in the hand points to elimination but I can't see how to execute it so I'll just take my 75% chance with two finesses. (♦T and ♥K)

♠K, ♠A, Clubs, ♠Q, ♣K throwing ♥, then small heart towards the Q. I'm also making with heart king doubleton behind.

Damn plaur, beat me to it

[plaur]

W Kovacs, on Aug 23 2010, 10:10 AM, said:

K♠, Q♠, small ♠ to the A, A♣, Q♣, small ♥ to the A, K♣ pitching a ♥ from hand, and lead a small ♥. 

With a heart return, we get a ruff-sluff, or duck a diamond return to set up a winner in that suit.  I doubt there's an overtrick available anywhere.

I dont see the ruff-sluff on ♥ return

[olliebol]

Yes what plaur said, though having seen this played nobody took that line in the 8 times i saw it played. So is this a beginners intermediate hand or no?

[Flameous]

lol, what did they do then? I don't really see any reasonable alternatives. Discarded a diamond on the club king or something?

[vuroth]

I guess it seems N/B. I wonder what most people missed - ruffing the heart out before trying diamonds? Or were they all running the queen of hearts as a "finesse"?

[W Kovacs]

Crap, you guys are right. I still have a ♥ in dummy I conveniently forgot about.

At this point I think I need to know who's been pitching on what, to get a count on the opps hands.

[olliebol]

I know looked at the results from this hand about 35 times.

Of all the 35 declarers 3 found the play of testing hearts first and when this goes wrong discarding the losing heart on the club king and guessing diamonds.

All the others mostly discarded a diamond on the club king. Also popular was 3 rounds of trumps ,deblocking the clubs, heart to the ace and discard a heart on the club king and play a heart.

This comes from a no pay tourney, i think now this isnt a beg/ int hand.

[pooltuna]

this line should be pretty good

Spoiler

1 K♠
2 A♠
3 A♣
4 Q♣
5 Q♠
6 3♥insert the Q unless K appears hand is over if it does
7 assume LHO wins and continues ♥ so A♥
8 K♣ pitching ♥
9 9♥ ruffed
10 6♦ insert the Q unless K or A appears from LHO
11 finesse 9♦ on the ♦return

♣♦♥♠

[olliebol]

Works fine pooltuna, btw i asked a good player and he said its no beginners hand but no expert hand also. It falls in to the category advanced according to him. tx for answers.