[awm]

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The lead is the ♦4 from West. Declarer calls low from dummy. East flies ace and returns ♦3, West playing the ♦6 and dummy's jack winning the trick. What's your plan from here?

[straube]

I'll try to set up hearts first and see if the Jx falls. This risks going down when spades behave, LHO has the HA and RHO has the AQ of clubs. It can also be frustrated if they take the HA and knock out my spade entry before I can unblock.

If the Jx doesn't fall, I'll try to run spades. The hand can fall apart on me and then I go down 2.

Do I win?

[dellache]

I'd play [3] a ♥ to the King :
1. West won't probably be able to duck that if he has the Ace. Now if he takes it, according to 1st trick, Diamonds are not 2-5, and we can almost conclude that East is 12-14 Balanced. Now we'll make because East is marked with Jx+ Jx+ Axxx AQx+ : Spade finesse leads to 5+1+3 tricks.
2. So East has the Ace and [3] I'll probably score my ♥King. I'll now play [4] the ♥Q. What happens ?

[Fluffy]

I also think playing on hearts is the way to go, I would play RHO to be 2344, of done properly we can endplay east with the third heart. win ♥K and play the queen, cash ♠A and both diamonds discarding 1 club and 1 heart from dummy, go to dummy with ♠K and play a heart.

If spades are 3-3 we need LHO to have ♣Q wich is likelly on the bidding

[awm]

At the table, declarer won the second diamond and played a heart to the king (which held). He then played three rounds of spades, LHO showing out on the third round. Then he played a fourth spade, RHO winning the jack and returning a diamond. He cashed his last spade and diamond for eight tricks. However, this forced dummy to come down to three cards, the ♣KT and a heart. Declarer then played his top heart, RHO winning the ace (LHO's jack falling). RHO then cashed the ♣A and a very small heart for down one.

Declarer was playing for RHO to hold ♥Ax doubleton, which is certainly a possible holding. But it seems like continuing with a second heart at trick four can hardly hurt, and it pays off dramatically here when LHO has ♥J9 tight. It seems like everyone is trying the winning line.

[bluecalm]

First I ask how do they lead and bid. Because if the lead is standard and bidding is standard then it looks like RHO is 4-4-3-2 and my plan is to collect 5spades, a heart, 3 diamonds and a club for an overtrick.

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At the table, declarer won the second diamond and played a heart to the king (which held)

So 9♥ felt to this trick ? It seems like quite an important information.
It's unlikely that LHO played the 9 from A9 in my opinion because for all he knows partner can still have QJx.
With that assumption I really want to play a heart now to see the distribution of the suit.

[Fluffy]

bluecalm, on 2011-March-09, 02:27, said:

First I ask how do they lead and bid. Because if the lead is standard and bidding is standard then it looks like RHO is 4-4-3-2 and my plan is to collect 5spades, a heart, 3 diamonds and a club for an overtrick.

I though for a while about this also, but look that RHO's ♦3 continuation is only consistent with RHO having exactly 4 diamonds.

[cherdano]

bluecalm, on 2011-March-09, 02:27, said:

First I ask how do they lead and bid. Because if the lead is standard and bidding is standard then it looks like RHO is 4-4-3-2 and my plan is to collect 5spades, a heart, 3 diamonds and a club for an overtrick.

Where I am from, the standard lead from Txx or xxx in partner's suit is the lowest card.

[bluecalm]

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Where I am from, the standard lead from Txx or xxx in partner's suit is the lowest card.

I dunno, maybe it's even "expert standard". I just ask how they play
It's true that returning card doesn't look like 3 of them at all so there is probably not much to fish out for.
Anyway, if the 9 is falling to the heart it seems to me that problems disappear.