[mw64ahw]

Playing 2/1 game invitational

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Could be a tricky one to make.

[pescetom]

 mw64ahw, on 2026-March-12, 03:51, said:

Could be a tricky one to make.

Hence the title...
East leads ♥6, plan your play?

[mike777]

"Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into"


AceH
Small D, don't dither...

[pescetom]

 mike777, on 2026-March-12, 05:12, said:

"Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into"


AceH
Small D, don't dither...

West puts up D9 (East D2) and returns S8 (East will follow)...

[pescetom]

Our auction is likely to be:
1S 2C
2S 3S
4C 4D
4H 4N
6S P

The game plan is less simple.

[Cyberyeti]

Ace of hearts, ruff a heart with the 9, spade to the K, heart ruff high, draw the last trump, diamond

[mw64ahw]

Several possible strategies. My first thought was regarding whether to duck the ♥ and let it run to the 10 or take it with the Ace. The Ace is likely best. I think at the end you need to have run down to the last trump and play to the AJ♣ and take the finesse or not depending on discards.

[pescetom]

mw64ahw, on 2026-March-12, 10:07, said:

Several possible strategies. My first thought was regarding whether to duck the ♥ and let it run to the 10 or take it with the Ace. The Ace is likely best. I think at the end you need to have run down to the last trump and play to the AJ♣ and take the finesse or not depending on discards.

That's what most of the room thought too.
Some others had idyllic expectations about diamonds without KQT9.

[pescetom]

Cyberyeti, on 2026-March-12, 07:20, said:

Ace of hearts, ruff a heart with the 9, spade to the K, heart ruff high, draw the last trump, diamond

In hearts West showed QJ2 and East 765, in spades West showed T8 and East 2.
Now East puts up Q diamonds

[mikeh]

I’ve held off replying because there are a host of issues and you didn’t give us anything resembling the information we’d have at the table. I just don’t understand giving complex play issues, many of which depend on drawing inferences, without telling us everything we’d be entitled to know. Maybe you don’t realize how important this is, but it really does affect how one attacks a complex problem.

First of all, the auction. Maybe you don’t think it matters, and often it won’t. But, for example, did west have an opportunity to double a 4D cuebid?

Then leads. So you say east led the heart 6 and later plays the 5 and 7. Do they play 3rd and fifth or 3rd and low or 4th best? That information affects our reading of shape.

How good are the opps? Most competent players would drop the heart king under the ace with KQJx(x).

Is east good enough to pop the diamond queen from Q10 doubleton? Is he bad enough that he’d lead away from the heart king rather than lead the diamond K from KQ? Yes, I know that such a lead hands us the contract but he couldn’t know that


And so on.

As it is, given that it’s matchpoints and no way do I want to go down 2, I suspect I’ll probably just hook the club…but there are other less likely scenarios that I might work on if I knew what I’d know at the table.

[pescetom]

Yes I do appreciate that, but I prefer to let people ask about things like carding agreements when they recognise the need for the information, I think that is part of the learning process for intermediates.
The initial lead was 4th best.
As for the auction, we supplied a few and more may be forthcoming: mine allowed West to double 4D, but let's assume the auction of mw64ahw in the hand diagram at the top of the page, which does not (it allowed double of artificial 2H instead).
Let's say opponents are experienced but intermediate.
East is good enough to not lead away from hearts King when holding another suit headed KQ or QJ, but not good enough to pop the diamonds Q from QT.

[Cyberyeti]

pescetom, on 2026-March-12, 13:36, said:

In hearts West showed QJ2 and East 765, in spades West showed T8 and East 2.
Now East puts up Q diamonds

And E discarded ? (and the discards they're playing)