[jschafer]

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Playing Fantunes at MPs you get this colourful auction and the 9♥ is led. What is your line?

[cloa513]

Win with the Jack of Hearts (I assume 5-0 break), play the KC, no doubt after one spade round then win a heart round , cash the QC, rough a spade, cash the clubs to ditch the diamonds of course opponent with 5 hearts will ruff but has to either give ruff sluff, set up diamonds or exhaust hearts and then you take the chance on the diamonds running

[Fluffy]

I win ♥A and will play a club, I await more news from the first 2 tricks.

[TWO4BRIDGE]

Fluffy, on 2010-October-28, 06:01, said:

I win ♥A and will play a club, I await more news from the first 2 tricks.

Same.
Then let's say they take the Cl Ace and switch to Sp.
They win the first and lead a 2nd Sp.
Crossroads.
I'm worried about the 4-1 trump split.
I think Ill pitch a Diam from dummy on the 2nd Sp.
.... That way retain enough Hts in dummy so I can eventually draw trumps ending on board to run the rest of the tricks in Clubs....
.... as long as the Cl are no worse than 4-2.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The risk of trying to set up Diam instead of Cl is a 4-1 Diam split.
In that case you won't have the needed transportion to cash the good Diam after drawing trumps.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The latter may give up an overtrick if the Diam are 3-2 and the Q drops ... or is onsides.

[Free]

♥J. Did everyone follow? If yes I'll play ♣K. If opps play ♠s I plan to ruff the 3rd one in South.

EDIT: just noticed it's MP, that makes it less clear...

[mikeh]

If RHO follows, we have, it seems to me, two main options.

1. Test the trump...win trick one on the board and trick 2 in hand, or vice versa. If trump are unexpectedly 3-2, draw trump and play on clubs. The main risk to this is that they duck 2 rounds of clubs, and diamonds are 4-1 offside...now we get held to 5 trumps and 2 winners in each minor. The main gain is that if LHO is truly an idiot....lacks 4 trump...we may make an overtrick...they win an early club and clubs come home...5 trumps,4 clubs and 2 top diamonds.

2. win the first trump in hand and play on clubs. They may get a club ruff if clubs are 5-1 and we may now have to find the diamond Q onside (unless the stiff were the 9). This line, which involves pitching on the second spade, to take the tap in our hand, means eschewing the possible overtrick, but seems to me to be the best line for 10 tricks.

Given that we are doubled, the overtrick is essentially meaningless even at mps. I go with line 2.

If trump are 5-0, then having won in my hand, I will take time to consider my options...I have'n't spent the time that I would at the table so while I think I know the line I would take, I'm not posting it until and unless I read that trump are 5-0 and have reviewed my options.

[barryallen]

There has to be something to this X, which I can only see manifesting from ruffing. My guess would be that the lead of the ♥9 would be suit preference for one of the minor suits? My choice would be to lead the ♠J at trick 2, to try and disrupt the communication!

[bucky]

So what had happened?

[wank]

barryallen, on 2010-October-30, 07:13, said:

There has to be something to this X, which I can only see manifesting from ruffing. My guess would be that the lead of the ♥9 would be suit preference for one of the minor suits? My choice would be to lead the ♠J at trick 2, to try and disrupt the communication!

people don't lead trumps to get ruffs in a side void, suit preference or no suit preference.

i would expect the lead to be from 5 low

[jschafer]

Trumps were 3-2, LHO doubled on nothing pretty much. If you draw two rounds of trumps you would have had an overtrick, not that it matters much at MPs (though it was only a shared top now, making 10 tricks!). Was just curious if the potential overtrick was worth the slight risk of them not misdefending (not ducking ♣) AND the ♦ splitting badly.