[lamford]

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European Team Ch. IMPs.

I am not privy to all the explanations here, but you are in 5H on the lead of the T♦ to the ace and a club shift to dummy's jack. When you lead a heart, the three appears. Your go.

[alok c]

10♥

[lamford]

 alok c, on 2016-June-24, 14:25, said:

10♥

Nice reasoning ...

[johnu]

1♠ really showed < 4 spades? It sounds like North is pretty distributional, so 6+ diamonds, 4+ spades, at least 1+ club, and 1+ heart. If only 1 heart, you have 2 heart losers. So, assume 2 hearts. If you finesse, you either lose to the queen, and lose 2 trump tricks, or lose to the ace, and a club return is trumped by the queen. So, play the ♥K.

[shyams]

 johnu, on 2016-June-24, 14:58, said:

1♠ really showed < 4 spades? It sounds like North is pretty distributional, so 6+ diamonds, 4+ spades, at least 1+ club, and 1+ heart. If only 1 heart, you have 2 heart losers. So, assume 2 hearts. If you finesse, you either lose to the queen, and lose 2 trump tricks, or lose to the ace, and a club return is trumped by the queen. So, play the ♥K.

An added reason to play the King is that if ♥ are Qx with North and singleton A with South, playing the ♥10 won't work in all hands where North had a singleton club. South can win his trump ace and give North a club ruff.

[nige1]

 lamford, on 2016-June-24, 12:48, said:

European Team Ch. IMPs.
I am not privy to all the explanations here, but you are in 5H on the lead of the T♦ to the ace and a club shift to dummy's jack. When you lead a heart, the three appears. Your go.n

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A close decision. After swithering, I now rank

• Rise with ♥K, playing RHO for ♥A3 precisely. RHO did cue-bid 3♥. Also, if ♣s are 5-1 this may be your only chance. Apart from the danger of a ♣ ruff, you need dummy's trumps for ruffing.
• Run ♥4: Playing RHO for ♥Q3 (with at least 2 ♣s); or ♥AQ3. RHO's ♣ switch is ominous but if North has ♥Qx and 2+ ♣s, then he might have sussed out the position. Or he might be worried about dummy's ♠s. If you intended to run dummy's ♥, perhaps, at trick 3, you should have cashed ♠A, discarding your last ♦, before leading a trump, so that you can ruff ♣(s) in dummy, catering for bad round-suit breaks.

[PhantomSac]

Depends on the level of the opp but I can't imagine a club shift with Ax of hearts

[alok c]

 lamford, on 2016-June-24, 14:44, said:

Nice reasoning ...

From the 3♥ bidding by NORTH,It appears he is asking south to bid 3nt with a Heart stopper as most likely he is holding a 7 carder ♦ suit.

[fourdad]

Missing 21 HCP. Playing N for AKQ of D, based on the opening lead and QC for returning the club. Giving S KJ of spades for his bid.
Only AQ of hearts is missing and I would play S for AH for his 1S freebid.

[msjennifer]

in the absence of any explanation for the alerted 1S bid ,I shall run the 4 .

[johnu]

 msjennifer, on 2016-June-25, 12:18, said:

in the absence of any explanation for the alerted 1S bid ,I shall run the 4 .

If you click on the 1♠ bid in the bidding diagram, it says <4 spades

[miamijd]

Tough choice.

North probably has 4s (south has 3 or less, and if South had 2, North, with 5, probably would have shown spades at some point). North has shown up with at least 1c. The question therefore is whether he has 5 or 6 diamonds. If he has 5 diamonds, then he is 4351 or 4252, and your best chance to make the contract is to play low from your hand, hoping that South has a void or the stiff Ace. If North is 4252, it's 50-50, but if North has 4351, you have to hook the Q, so that tips the scales toward the finesse.

On the other hand, if North has 6 diamonds, then you have to hope he's 4261 (if he's 4162, you have no chance, as South has the AQh). In that case, your only chance is to rise with the King, because if South has the stiff Ace, he'll just give North a club ruff with North's Q.

It would be nice to know what North's 3H bid meant. It would also be nice to know what South would bid with good 5-card diamond support. Would he really start with 1s? Or is that more of a 1nt bid? I would normally expect the latter.

If I had to guess, I would play North for 6d, because I would have expected South to show diamond support on the first round with 5 of them, either with 2d, 3d, or 2h. So without any great amount of confidence, I would play the Kh.

What actually happened?

[lamford]

 PhantomSac, on 2016-June-24, 23:12, said:

Depends on the level of the opp but I can't imagine a club shift with Ax of hearts

It is Italy v France in the European Championship, so the level is competent ...

[lamford]

 miamijd, on 2016-June-25, 15:34, said:

Tough choice.

<snip> if North has 6 diamonds, then you have to hope he's 4261 (if he's 4162, you have no chance, as South has the AQh). In that case, your only chance is to rise with the King, because if South has the stiff Ace, he'll just give North a club ruff with North's Q.

What actually happened?

Lauria played as you did, and rose with the king. North was 4-2-6-1 with Ax of hearts.