[antonylee]

Pairs (sectional).

---

Your thoughts after the ♣J lead?

[phoenix214]

Win three rounds of clubs, discarding the diamond loser and hoping for Ax in H onside.

[MrAce]

deleted

[ggwhiz]

Win in dummy, heart to the king (winning?) unblock the club and play low to the spade queen, take a pitch and play a heart.

I need both major suit aces right and no bad splits but can't think of anything better without getting a slow play penalty.

[Stephen Tu]

I win in hand and lead a spade up immediately. Opening leader might help out by going up with ace of spades afraid of club pitches. If not, lead up to heart and hope your third club doesn't get ruffed or that it gets ruffed by the hand with three trumps. If Rho has SA, play for hax onside.

[MrAce]

ggwhiz, on 2016-June-12, 08:38, said:

Win in dummy, heart to the king (winning?) unblock the club and play low to the spade queen, take a pitch and play a heart.

I need both major suit aces right and no bad splits but can't think of anything better without getting a slow play penalty.

What is your gain, if any, compared to the line of Phoenix? Except that you can now go down 1 extra.

[MrAce]

Stephen Tu, on 2016-June-12, 08:53, said:

................................................ If Rho has SA, play for hax onside.

Does not work, especially if LHO has only 3 spades.

Assume you played ♠ to K and it lost to A and RHO played another ♠, what do you do? And I give you Ax ♥ onside.

Your best line will be to try to pitch a ♠ on 3rd ♣. I give you that too, nobody ruffs. Now you play ♥ from dummy and win with K and play small ♥ which knocks down the A. Now RHO plays 13th♣ for promotion but you play loser on loser and discard your ♦ while LHO discards his last ♠. RHO plays spade for promotion again.

[Stephen Tu]

MrAce, on 2016-June-12, 13:06, said:

Does not work, especially if LHO has only 3 spades.

Assume you played ♠ to K and it lost to A and RHO played another ♠, what do you do? And I give you Ax ♥ onside.

Your best line will be to try to pitch a ♠ on 3rd ♣. I give you that too, nobody ruffs. Now you play ♥ from dummy and win with K and play small ♥ which knocks down the A. Now RHO plays 13th♣ for promotion but you play loser on loser and discard your ♦ while LHO discards his last ♠. RHO plays spade for promotion again.

I think implicit in the line stated is the hope that there is no trump promotion. Sometimes RHO has HAx and 3 clubs only, there is no 13th club for the promo. Or maybe RHO has the 4th club but only 2 or 3 spades so the loser on loser works and no promo in spades.

Obviously against many distributions you just aren't going to make it. Is there another line that has better chances when RHO has SA?

[MrAce]

Stephen Tu, on 2016-June-12, 13:46, said:

Obviously against many distributions you just aren't going to make it. Is there another line that has better chances when RHO has SA?

Yes, 3 rounds of clubs immediately discarding a ♦ and play ♥ from dummy for Ax. Now they can not afford the promotion.(unless W has doubleton ♠ which is less concern than he is holding 3, after all East could have opened 3rd seat 1♠ with 5 of them and 9-10 hcp) RHO can try playing 13th club when you drop his ♥A but you simply discard a ♠ on 13th club.

Having said all of this, at the table I would probably play a ♠ to K at T2. You make a good point about W getting worried about pitches, though good opponents would have given the count by east.

[iandayre]

Yes, I will focus on the play first as declarer. After that, I will think that N bid too much. Pushing for marginal games at pairs is a losing strategy. 3 will often go down when partner is minimum.

[antonylee]

Dunno, next time opener will have QJx KJxxxx Ax Ax (arguably a worse hand) and game would look decent.