[Mbodell]

Scoring: MP

Bidding is SA w/ opponents silent:
1♠-2♦
3♣-3♦
3nt

Opening lead ♥3.

---

[Quantumcat]

win the king, AD, overtake the q of hearts (assuming the opps dont lead low from all small cards) play diamonds, lose one (assuming no nice 3/3 break), win the club return, finesse the ten, cash hearts and diamonds. (i am a beginner so dont make fun of me if this is bad :-))

[fan13027]

Take the ♥ lead in hand with Q or K. Play Ace of ♦ from hand. Return to dummy with a small ♥ from the hand to J. Play the rest of the ♦'s. If ♦J does not drop, you give it out, and regain lead with whatever. Return to dummy with ♥ Ace and cash the rest of your winners.

[Quantumcat]

but if the hearts are 4-2 you will only win 3 hearts?

[rogerclee]

quantumcat shoots, scores!

[fan13027]

Quantumcat, even if ♥ and ♦ splits are against you, you take 3♥ 5♦ and your 2 black Aces for a total of 10 tricks = 3NT+1. If the splits are better you may have 1 or 2 overtricks

EDIT: After some further thought ....

Cover ♥ lead with ♥9 from dummy. If RHO does not drop ♥T you just scored an extra ♥ trick. Otherwise take trick in hand with ♥K or Q. If dummy wins, you lead small ♦ to Ace and return to dummy with ♥'s, or if you take trick in hand, then lead ♦A and return to dummy with ♥'s. Either way, the ♥A and J in dummy give you 2 returns to dummy, which is what you need should the ♦J not fall.

[kgr]

fan13027, on Nov 6 2008, 10:41 AM, said:

Quantumcat, even if ♥ and ♦ splits are against you, you take 3♥ 5♦ and your 2 black Aces for a total of 10 tricks = 3NT+1. If the splits are better you may have 1 or 2 overtricks

EDIT: After some further thought ....

Cover ♥ lead with ♥9 from dummy. If RHO does not drop ♥T you just scored an extra ♥ trick. Otherwise take trick in hand with ♥K or Q. If dummy wins, you lead small ♦ to Ace and return to dummy with ♥'s, or if you take trick in hand, then lead ♦A and return to dummy with ♥'s. Either way, the ♥A and J in dummy give you 2 returns to dummy, which is what you need should the ♦J not fall.

...only 1 re-entry to dummy if you let ♥9 win the first trick

[FrancesHinden]

I can't decide.
I really want to know about LHO's lead style.
What would he lead from 3 low? doubleton?
If the 3 is either a singleton or promises an honour, then I go with QuantumCat's line. But this line does actually risk going off if LHO has led from xxx of hearts.

[FrancesHinden]

fan13027, on Nov 6 2008, 09:29 AM, said:

Take the ♥ lead in hand with Q or K. Play Ace of ♦ from hand. Return to dummy with a small ♥ from the hand to J. Play the rest of the ♦'s. If ♦J does not drop, you give it out, and regain lead with whatever. Return to dummy with ♥ Ace and cash the rest of your winners.

note the form of scoring

[ASkolnick]

If you want to be greedy

Win KH.

Play AD. Overtake QH with AH.
Drive out JD.

Win return, finesse the 9 of hearts.

[Mbodell]

FrancesHinden, on Nov 6 2008, 03:22 AM, said:

I can't decide.
I really want to know about LHO's lead style.
What would he lead from 3 low? doubleton?
If the 3 is either a singleton or promises an honour, then I go with QuantumCat's line. But this line does actually risk going off if LHO has led from xxx of hearts.

Yeah, I don't know this defender well enough. I know they play forth best leads, and think that they'd lead low from x, xxx, Txx, xxxx, Txxx but not xx or Tx. I also think they'd tend to lead hearts most of the time based on the auction unless they had a very clear other lead.

Results:

Spoiler

LHO has Txxx of hearts and RHO has Jxxx of diamonds. If you take Quantum Cat's line then RHO wins the 4th diamond and exits with the K of spades and you can actually take 12 tricks on the layout (5 diamonds, 4 hearts, 3 black tricks). Figuring out how you get 3 black tricks left as an exercise to the I+ players.

It was a tricky hand for me (actually I was dummy so for partner) though because a priori playing diamonds from the top will get you all 6 tricks ~54.5% of the time and playing hearts where you overtake an honor and play from the top will work out for 4 tricks that same ~54.5% of the time and finessing the T will work 50%. But figuring out how the opening lead effects all of those odds and knowing you are playing MP not IMPs was tricky.