[GreenMan]

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Lead: ♣5

I seriously butchered the play on this one. Upon reflection I believe should duck the first club, win the second, and play ♦K, then at the next opportunity play a ♦ to the 9. This keeps lots of chances open for the ninth trick.

[Codo]

I would duck the first club surely.
Later I am not sure about the diamonds.


I guess, I try with 3 round of spades. If they break, I have seven tricks in the back and will play a diamond to the king. If this holds, I give up a heart and I am home. If it does not hold, I try to finesse in diamonds through the dangerous opponent.


If they do not break, I will go for diamonds. If the layout as it is in the given hand, I would be quite sure that opening leader has 5 clubs and 4 spades, so I would surely manage the red suits correctly.

[gszes]

GreenMan, on 2013-February-23, 23:39, said:

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Lead: ♣5

I seriously butchered the play on this one. Upon reflection I believe should duck the first club, win the second, and play ♦K, then at the next opportunity play a ♦ to the 9. This keeps lots of chances open for the ninth trick.

trick 1 duck a club
trick 2 win the club A
trick 3 low dia toward the Q. If lho started with Ax Axx Axxx AJ J the hand is over
as we now have 3d 3s 2c 1h.

Assuming rho wins the dia A our LOP will greatly depend on if we get a club return or not
Assuming a club return

trick 4 win
trick 5 dia K of J drops hand is over
trick 6 dia if lho started with jxx we are now 75% if they return a spade and 100% if they return a
heart (3s 2h 2d 2c) after cashing last club
If rho wins the second dia and returns a heart I would rise with the heart A finish off the
diamonds and hope one opp has spades stopped and the heart K (vienna coupe gets you
a good forum write up while finesse is hohum) or spades naturally come home for 4 tricks.

Assuming rho wins the 2nd diamond and does not return a club (we will assume 52 split unless
carding convinces us otherwise). if rho returns a heart
trick 4 rise with the A (if rho has the heart K we are in no danger)
trick 5 dia K
trick 6 dia if lho wins and clears clubs we we will have to decide whether to play rho for the heart
K or play on spades for 4 winners (4s 2d 1h 2c) or (3s 2d 2h 2c) personally I would cash my last
diamond and do the vienna coupe play again to try and get a good write up.
if rho wins hand is over 2h 2d 3s 2c

note the above 2 lines also work if lho has the spades stopped and rho has the heart K as we play the heart J
if the spades fail rho can win but we have 2h 3s 2d 2c

last but not least if dia q holds trick 2
I would hate to go down when rho hold jxx of dia so another dia intending to finesse if this hold the hand is
over (3d 2c 3s 1h)
if lho now wins the J and clears clubs rho showing out (OUCH) (rho might easily have ducked with Axx)
we now have to decide if rho began life with the dia A or lho did and it is not an easy decision.
if rho started with dia A we can fall back on the vienna coupe play when rho wins the dia A and returns a heart
however if lho began with the dia A we are down. So we will probably avoid the dia play and just hope we can
win 2c 1d 4s 2h with spades cooperating and rho holding the heart K. Note that it does no good to try and
throw rho in with the 4th spade to force a heart lead as all they have to do is return the heart K to keep you from
winning 3h 3s 1d 2c.
A difficult hand but one that has lots of good play to make it