[Cyberyeti]

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W leads ♠10, plan the play

[shyams]

Spade King, the lead a low club from dummy?

If East is void in clubs, we have 4 club tricks.
If East holds ♣Kx, I reckon only a very strong player will consider ducking. So when East wins, I again have 4 club tricks (I play West for Qxx if needed)
If East holds ♣x, it's the same as above. I assume that he would not duck with Kx. Hopefully West is kind enough to win with the Queen (it's easier for West to fool me)

It gets messy when East has ♣Qx --- his play of a small is automatic. I think I am finessing and going down when the clubs split 2-2 with West holding ♣Kx & East holding ♣Qx

[Cyberyeti]

shyams, on 2025-December-02, 10:02, said:

Spade King, the lead a low club from dummy?

If East is void in clubs, we have 4 club tricks.
If East holds ♣Kx, I reckon only a very strong player will consider ducking. So when East wins, I again have 4 club tricks (I play West for Qxx if needed)
If East holds ♣x, it's the same as above. I assume that he would not duck with Kx. Hopefully West is kind enough to win with the Queen (it's easier for West to fool me)

It gets messy when East has ♣Qx --- his play of a small is automatic. I think I am finessing and going down when the clubs split 2-2 with West holding ♣Kx & East holding ♣Qx

also messy if he has KQ

[Huibertus]

Cyberyeti, on 2025-December-02, 08:07, said:

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W leads ♠10, plan the play

My thoughts;

Trick 1 ♠ King, Dummy has the entries to finesse ♠ later on, don't block spades now with no entry position to unblock them later.
Trick 2 start developing ♥.
Once you've made 1 ♥ trick, start on ♣ as 4 of them will bring you to 9 tricks.

If you find out clubs can't be played for 4 tricks, play them for 3 and develop an extra ♥ trick, hoping they can't clear AND cash their ♠ nor have the entry in East to finesse your ♦ Queen after clearing the Ace from dummy.

[Huibertus]

shyams, on 2025-December-02, 10:02, said:

If East holds ♣Kx, I reckon only a very strong player will consider ducking. So when East wins, I again have 4 club tricks (I play West for Qxx if needed)

That'd be a call out to the director due to a 14 card ♣ suit. But otherwise playing a low ♣ from dummy seems a very good plan, yes. I didn't think of it.

[Cyberyeti]

Huibertus, on 2025-December-02, 11:46, said:

That'd be a call out to the director due to a 14 card ♣ suit. But otherwise playing a low ♣ from dummy seems a very good plan, yes. I didn't think of it.

It feels less good when the K goes in from E and a diamond comes back, now you have to guess

[mikeh]

shyams, on 2025-December-02, 10:02, said:

Spade King, the lead a low club from dummy?

If East is void in clubs, we have 4 club tricks.
If East holds ♣Kx, I reckon only a very strong player will consider ducking. So when East wins, I again have 4 club tricks (I play West for Qxx if needed)
If East holds ♣x, it's the same as above. I assume that he would not duck with Kx. Hopefully West is kind enough to win with the Queen (it's easier for West to fool me)

It gets messy when East has ♣Qx --- his play of a small is automatic. I think I am finessing and going down when the clubs split 2-2 with West holding ♣Kx & East holding ♣Qx

Your very strong player had better ‘consider’ ducking while you are formulating your plan before playing to trick one. It’s too late to be ‘considering’ his play at trick two. But strong players do in fact plan ahead and, if caught off guard, will instinctively guess their play rather than telegraph their holding by thinking about it.

As for the best line, this is a complex hand. Fwiw I am not at all sure I’d duplicate this auction. North bid very conservatively over the negative double and south very aggressively over the 3C bid…what would North bid with xx KQxxx Kx Axxx? I’d prefer south passing 2S then North has an easy 3C, and now south bids 3N.

My own approach would be, I think, to win in dummy (since the spade finesse is going to work later) and just play the club Ace. Yes, the 2S bid impacts the odds of a favourable club break, but it’s not as if I’m getting clubs right automatically if I start with a low one from dummy….absent a low percentage 4-0 break. Meanwhile, any 2-2 or stiff honour sees me home. If I can set up clubs right away, they can’t hurt me with a diamond switch because of my 9. Say west wins their club trick and exits a diamond. Now East may win their heart trick (I need a heart trick myself) but they can’t cash more than 2 diamonds regardless of how tge suit breaks.

If clubs are foul…say west has KQx….I’m not down yet.

[Cyberyeti]

For us, 3♣ was the "good" way to bid clubs, 2N and pass 3♣ would have been the bad way, I wished I'd banged down the ♣A.