[FrancesHinden]

dburn wants to know how to play AQ98 opposite 5432. Funnily enough I had exactly that suit combination yesterday, but I thought I had a different problem.

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West leads the jack of hearts, and East encourages.
Plan the play.

[lamford]

FrancesHinden, on 2011-February-13, 16:33, said:

dburn wants to know how to play AQ98 opposite 5432. Funnily enough I had exactly that suit combination yesterday, but I thought I had a different problem.

---

West leads the jack of hearts, and East encourages.
Plan the play.

I shall have a go; without much confidence. I can think of two lines, winning the heart with the king and finessing the club queen. If that wins, cash the ace of clubs and if they are 3-2 claim, if they are 4-1 cross to the ace of spades and try to pass the nine of diamonds. You succeed if they are 3-3 (with East not having HHx) or East has Hx. If the club queen loses you win the next heart, cross to the spade and run the nine of diamonds again. You need hearts 4-4 now and a favourable diamond lie, or a very favourable diamond lie with hearts worse.

The other line was to win with the king of hearts and run the nine of diamonds straight away. Assuming that loses to East and he plays back a heart, you win cross to the spade and finesse the ten of diamonds. If you lose a second diamond trick you will need the club finesse and the hearts 4-4.

It looks far too complicated and I feel the second line is better; I am pretty sure that low to the nine of clubs is wrong, anyway! Interesting problem.

[AlexJonson]

I wondered about ducking, winning the heart Ace and playing a diamond towards the nine.

[whereagles]

Me too, and that's what I play. Plan to make with diamonds 3-3 or lose 2 hearts, 1 diamond, 1 club. If LHO has 4 diamonds, I'll probably go down, though.

[CSGibson]

yeah, and if you duck the first trick and they switch to a spade? good luck untangling it all.

[lamford]

CSGibson, on 2011-February-14, 18:00, said:

yeah, and if you duck the first trick and they switch to a spade? good luck untangling it all.

Ducking will rarely gain as well, only some of the time the hearts are 5-3.

[CSGibson]

lamford, on 2011-February-14, 18:07, said:

Ducking will rarely gain as well, only some of the time the hearts are 5-3.

Ducking the first trick only gains if hearts are 6-2.

Right now you have 2 hearts, 2 spades, 2 diamonds, and a club. You can go after clubs for 2 tricks or diamonds. I like a combination of the two - cash the ace of clubs, and see if anything interesting happens (i.e, an honor drops from E or W). If an honor drops (something other than the K with E), then cross to hand with a spade and play a club up. If nothing interesting happens in clubs, cross to hand with a spade and run the 9 of diamonds.

[lamford]

CSGibson, on 2011-February-14, 18:20, said:

Ducking the first trick only gains if hearts are 6-2.

Right now you have 2 hearts, 2 spades, 2 diamonds, and a club. You can go after clubs for 2 tricks or diamonds. I like a combination of the two - cash the ace of clubs, and see if anything interesting happens (i.e, an honor drops from E or W). If an honor drops (something other than the K with E), then cross to hand with a spade and play a club up. If nothing interesting happens in clubs, cross to hand with a spade and run the 9 of diamonds.

I am not so keen on cashing the ace of clubs, as we might have to lose two diamonds and two hearts, and I do not want West to cash the king of clubs which he might astutely do.

[dburn]

Would duck the first heart, win the second and play a diamond towards the nine. What happens, and how quickly?

[whereagles]

CSGibson, on 2011-February-14, 18:00, said:

yeah, and if you duck the first trick and they switch to a spade? good luck untangling it all.

1. I'm not dead yet.
2. Unless RHO is dealt like ♠QJT, he's bound to continue hearts.

[Wackojack]

dburn, on 2011-February-14, 19:35, said:

Would duck the first heart, win the second and play a diamond towards the nine. What happens, and how quickly?

Presumably if east makes the "clever" play of small from Qx, (or small from Qxx for that matter). Then when you regain the lead with K♥ and say all follow; then you have to assume that east has ♦Qxxx and now you go back to the club problem. Picking up on the "how quickly?" question, would you make a different assumpion and play for east to have Qx or Qxx and continue with the AK if east hesitated slightly? Maybe east with Qxxx was napping.

[FrancesHinden]

dburn, on 2011-February-14, 19:35, said:

Would duck the first heart, win the second and play a diamond towards the nine. What happens, and how quickly?

LHO continues hearts quickly (as others have said this may not happen, but I think it would at the table).
RHO plays low without a care on the first diamond.
LHO wins with the queen and switches to a spade to RHO's jack.

[whereagles]

Now take spade and play a club to the queen. If this holds, I'm more or less home. If not, I can test diamonds later.

[AlexJonson]

FrancesHinden, on 2011-February-15, 14:08, said:

LHO continues hearts quickly (as others have said this may not happen, but I think it would at the table).
RHO plays low without a care on the first diamond.
LHO wins with the queen and switches to a spade to RHO's jack.

This is now quite interesting, a good thing in itself I think.

I'm going to win the spade, though I would love to duck it - that's too hard for me.

Now I'll play the top diamonds.

[Wackojack]

FrancesHinden, on 2011-February-15, 14:08, said:

LHO continues hearts quickly (as others have said this may not happen, but I think it would at the table).
RHO plays low without a care on the first diamond.
LHO wins with the queen and switches to a spade to RHO's jack.

It looks like west's spade switch was based on having 5 hearts and only a possible entry in spades. Thus it looks a strong possibility that east has ♦ Jxxx and thus 3 spades which we know includes the Jack. If this is so we cannot enjoy the long (3rd) diamond without losing the lead twice when our 2nd top spade will be knocked out. Assuming all this are we are back to trying to make 3 club tricks losing the lead only once? If west's distribution is 4523, (as we think it is?) then our chances improve. Continuing this assumption east can be endplayed if 3343 and precisely ♠QJ10. I dont think we can rely on that. So I vote play club to lowest cover. I fear this logic will be rubbished by other posters though.

[FrancesHinden]

This is obviously a good problem, because we've spit into 3 different lines from 3 different posters. And none of them are the line I took at the table (I didn't play a diamond to the 9). We'll probably have to give up soon because there's becoming too much information, but try the following:

whereagles, on 2011-February-15, 14:32, said:

Now take spade and play a club to the queen. If this holds, I'm more or less home. If not, I can test diamonds later.

Spoiler

You're home.

AlexJonson, on 2011-February-15, 14:44, said:

This is now quite interesting, a good thing in itself I think.I'm going to win the spade, though I would love to duck it - that's too hard for me.Now I'll play the top diamonds.

Spoiler

RHO discards a heart on the ace of diamonds. You're in some trouble, although not off yet double-dummy

Wackojack, on 2011-February-16, 12:11, said:

It looks like west's spade switch was based on having 5 hearts and only a possible entry in spades. Thus it looks a strong possibility that east has ♦ Jxxx and thus 3 spades which we know includes the Jack. If this is so we cannot enjoy the long (3rd) diamond without losing the lead twice when our 2nd top spade will be knocked out. Assuming all this are we are back to trying to make 3 club tricks losing the lead only once? If west's distribution is 4523, (as we think it is?) then our chances improve. Continuing this assumption east can be endplayed if 3343 and precisely ♠QJ10. I dont think we can rely on that. So I vote play club to lowest cover. I fear this logic will be rubbished by other posters though.

Spoiler

RHO wins the jack of clubs and continues with a low spade