[lamford]

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IMPs. West leads the two of hearts (fourth best) to East's king and East returns the eight of hearts. Plan the play.

[MrAce]

Winning in dummy and playing ♣ to T (or to Q)

This freezes W to lead any red suit or clubs. He has to play spades if he wins. Rest pretty much depends on our read on spades. If AJ off side we will need other ♣ honor to be with E.

Trying to make 2♥+2♠+2-3 ♣ +2-3 ♦

EDIT: If W wins club and plays small ♠ I am running it to my hand I think. This allows me to make 3 ♠ tricks when J is on.

[lamford]

MrAce, on 2016-October-24, 09:10, said:

Winning in dummy and playing ♣ to T (or to Q)

This freezes W to lead any red suit or clubs. He has to play spades if he wins. Rest pretty much depends on our read on spades. If AJ off side we will need other ♣ honor to be with E.

Trying to make 2♥+2♠+2-3 ♣ +2-3 ♦

EDIT: If W wins club and plays small ♠ I am running it to my hand I think. This allows me to make 3 ♠ tricks when J is on.

OK. You play a club to the ten and it holds, but the defender is competent. What next?

[Kaitlyn S]

lamford, on 2016-October-24, 10:08, said:

OK. You play a club to the ten and it holds, but the defender is competent. What next?

I guess I came late to this party!

I would have led a club to the ten also.

I originally thought the following line is 75%: Play HQ and another heart throwing a diamond from dummy. West must play a spade to stop me from getting my ninth trick (which include two spades which I'll promote.) I let it ride to the S9, giving me 9 tricks if West has the SJ.. Worst case, East wins the SJ and returns a club. I finesse the CQ. If it wins, it's my ninth trick, otherwise I am down.

Why isn't it 75%? Because in the cases where East has the CK and the SJ which I counted as winning cases, East wins the SJ on the second spade trick and I only score one spade trick!

Sadly, I don't have entries to get all the spade tricks I'm entitled to. (I presume I am playing against strong defenders where my S9 always wins when I lead it.) So the only way I can get two spade tricks for sure is to lead the S9 and a spade to the king. This gets me up to eight, and there are many chances for a ninth.

If my SK wins, I try a club to the queen. Worst case, it loses and West either has to cede the ninth trick or expose the spade situation. If he had a low spade to lead, I have a nasty guess. I think it really is a guess as West would have preferred a heart with H-J972 over S-Axxx or S-Jxxx where x<9. On the other hand, with S-Jxx East might have thought the winning defense was to win the first spade and return another club, so I'm going to try the S10

Case 1: East wins the SJ and cashes the SA. I've lost four tricks and have to guess which card to keep. West's three spades and four hearts make the 3-3 clubs better than 50% IMO so I keep the C8. (Also, even a good West will sometimes win a doubleton CK, and if East didn't play the CJ, West doesn't have four.)

Case 2: East wins the SJ but West has the SA. Dang - got another one wrong! Now I can try to drop the club, and when it doesn't work, try the diamond finesse. If East returns a diamond, I can play the D9 and still guess when West has the D10.

Of course, East may follow with the CJ when I lead a club to hand. Now I'm in good shape if East wins the third spade but can't cash the fourth; West has 4423 or 4414 (if East fails to cash both spades, great defense, I'll pay off to that!) so I cash the club and if the last club isn't good, I play DA, D to DK, and West is squeezed.

Case 3: They won an early trick with the SJ and return another club. Finesse the CQ, and if it wins, promote spades. If it loses, West has to lead spades so promote spades, and if they give you an opportunity to try both clubs and diamonds, take it, otherwise determine by the spade count whether the club is likely to drop (again, if East didn't play the CJ, it probably is.)

Case 4: They let the S9 win but take the SK with the SA. This isn't bad for you since it lets you try for a third spade trick if the SJ falls. On a club return, finesse the queen, which has to lose to give you a problem, and West has to lead a spade to give you a problem. So win SQ (J drops gives you 9), try to drop the club, and finesse the diamond, unless the spade distribution is such that cashing two diamonds and throwing West in will work.

[nige1]

lamford, on 2016-October-24, 10:08, said:

OK. You play a club to the ten and it holds, but the defender is competent. What next?

Continuing Mr Ace's line: run ♠9, perhaps. If that wins, try a ♠ to ♠Q.

[lamford]

nige1, on 2016-October-24, 11:47, said:

Continuing Mr Ace's line: run ♠9, perhaps. If that wins, try a ♠ to ♠Q.

It loses to the jack of spades, and a diamond comes back.

[nige1]

lamford, on 2016-October-24, 11:56, said:

It loses to the jack of spades, and a diamond comes back.

finesse ♦j. Duck if LHO covers with ♦Q, then duck

[lamford]

nige1, on 2016-October-24, 13:12, said:

finesse ♦j. Duck if LHO covers with ♦Q, then duck

That I think is right. The jack holds, and you can play a spade and are home. If you play the ace of diamonds and a spade, West will win and play a diamond, and the king of clubs and queen of diamonds are both wrong, so you may well go off, although you still have an endplay if you read it.

[MrAce]

Sorry, I totally forgot this topic. But Nige1 did just fine for me.
Good job Nige1!

[gszeszycki]

defense is HARD the backs of the cards constantly confound the defense. I really do not want rho on lead if possible right now because I have a lot to do and not many entries to work with. At trick 3 I would try a low spade toward the 9. Rho will not win the J (unless they also have the ace or get the heck out of that game asap). This means it suddenly becomes possible to set up 3 spades due strictly to guile at no expense to entries. The second benefit is it starts to cloud the issue for the defense since it appears we have the spade ace (even if w wins the J). If w does win the J they may try something heroic (like a club or dia) which will at worst give us back our spade trick and maybe give us a significant advantage (if they return a club). If the 9 holds does anyone wish to guess what the position of the outstanding spade honors are?