[nige1]

PZBS Transatlantic Seniors Cup
I declared 2♥ as North. East led a ♠.
Click next to see how I managed to lose 2 clubs and (potentially)
four trump tricks.

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[mikeh]

Thanks for posting this hand, which becomes more interesting the more I look at it (on a single dummy problem)

I think that playing the spade 9 was a subtle error, although on some layouts it might avoid a spade loser while you lose 2 clubs and 3 hearts. You have to be very lucky to avoid a spade loser: LHO has to have made a poor lead from Hxx(x) or RHO has to have AK in clubs along with QJx(x) in spades. I infer your opps lead low from xx, which is a common treatment in Eastern Europe so I’d think xx is more likely than any other holding, on the auction.

You have limited entries to hand in order to play trumps and you don’t want to create overruff problems. So I’d pop the spade Ace and run the heart 9. Bear in mind that RHO should cover from Jx, but it doesn’t matter. You don’t mind losing 2 tricks in the suit. I can’t see a plausible lie of the cards on which you lose more than 2 trump tricks absent a 5-1 split in either major, so long as you preserve the spade king to get back to your hand.

As the cards lie, there’s no defence after this start.

[nige1]

PZBS Transatlantic Seniors Cup
I declared 2♥ as North. East led a ♠.
Click next to see how I managed to lose 2 clubs and (potentially)
four trump tricks.

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MikeH's line seems better than mine
but I play too much match-pointed pairs
Luckily, I can recover from my inferior line
In this position: cross to dummy's ♦K ;
and discard a ♠ on ♣8
Instead I led a top ♥

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