[FrancesHinden]

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West twitched slightly over 1S.
West leads the King of diamonds, which is from Ak or KQ asking for count. East plays the 3, standard count.
West switches to the 8 of clubs. You decide that having the CQ onside would not be a bad thing, and play low. East wins the queen and plays a club back to West's ace.
West switches to a low heart. You run this round to the queen in hand.
You play the jack of diamonds. West plays low not entirely smoothly, you ruff and East plays the DQ

Plan the rest of the play.

[lamford]

I would play East for something like ♠Qxx ♥Txxx ♦Qx ♣Qxxx and cash the ace of spades and run the 10 or 8, planning to ruff out the king of hearts. I don't think they can beat me earlier by knocking out the king of clubs, as I can still ruff out the king of hearts and run the 10 or 8 of trumps on the first round.

[mikeh]

I am going to cash the heart A, pitching a diamond, and run the spade 10.

If LHO follows low, I ruff a heart in hand, ruff a diamond with the Ace, and repeat the trump hook.

If LHO shows out on the first trump (I am suspicious of his defence and can't rule out 0=5=6=2), I ruff a heart in hand, and RHO has no choice but to pitch a club. Then I ruff a diamond high (again, he has to pitch a club, but he started with 5 so my King is still going to hold up), and lead a spade to my 9, then back to the king of clubs, and I am in dummy in a 2 card end game with my KJ of spades sitting over his Qx.

IOW, I play for RHO to hold the spade Q, and I don't think they can beat me. I lose to the stiff Q on my left, but I don't think that is the real threat on this hand, with the table action and the defence.

[rhm]

There are two ♦3

Assuming one of them was the ♦2, West heart switch is strange.
Maybe he had no club exit card left.
He did not switch to trumps, so probably has the ♠Q or possibly a singleton trump.
He did not switch to a low diamond, fearing declarer has the queen.

I back my judgment and play West for six diamonds and two clubs. Now I play ace of hearts and if the heart king does not drop I ruff a heart.
I presume West is not good enough to drop the heart king prematurely, in which case I will know how many trumps he has.
If he does I will congratulate him to his fine defense.

Rainer Herrmann

[mikeh]

rhm, on 2013-November-25, 04:29, said:

There are two ♦3

Assuming one of them was the ♦2, West heart switch is strange.
Maybe he had no club exit card left.
He did not switch to trumps, so probably has the ♠Q or possibly a singleton trump.
He did not switch to a low diamond, fearing declarer has the queen.

I back my judgment and play West for six diamonds and two clubs. Now I play ace of hearts and if the heart king does not drop I ruff a heart.
I presume West is not good enough to drop the heart king prematurely, in which case I will know how many trumps he has.
If he does I will congratulate him to his fine defense.

Rainer Herrmann

I drew the same inferences about the minors as did you: however, I think he would have switched to a trump with the stiff Q.....it would take great visualization to see that that was less dangerous than a heart away from the K.

Meanwhile, the main reason I rejected the attempt to ruff the hearts was that he twitched over 1♠. I think he has an oddball hand, and I wouldn't play him for Qx Kxx AK8xxx Ax.

Say that LHO counts out to be 1=4=6=2, how are you continuing? I assume you ruff a diamond high and take the first round trump hook.

If LHO counts out as 0=5=6=2, you again ruff high, take two hooks in spades, and end up in the trump coup position.

If LHO counts out, either accurately or by way of a fine play of the heart K on the third round, as 2=3=6=2, I assume you simply play spades from the top, playing for 2-2, and thus being able to eventually ruff your last diamond low.

Thus your line seems better than mine in that you gain on Qx Kxx AK8xxx Ax, and lose only to a great defence from x Kxxx AK8xxx Ax.

Depending on the opp, I'd say that almost all the time it is more likely that LHO chose 1♦ on the 2=3=6=2 than that he played the heart K prematurely.

Does that make sense to you, or have I missed something?

[FrancesHinden]

They aren't the sort of opponents who would open 1NT on Qx Kxx AKxxxx Ax, not least because they are playing weak NT.