[nige1]

Another instructive deal from Eastbourne (Pivot Teams).
You, South, declare 6♠.
LHO leads ♦6 and RHO plays ♦T..
What next?

---

[pescetom]

Off the top of my head:
- cash AK♦
- ruff small ♦ low
- cash A♣ discarding ♥5
- small ♣ ruff low
- small ♦ ruff J
- small ♥ to A...

But in that case you wouldn't be asking

[Cyberyeti]

 pescetom, on 2019-August-21, 15:22, said:

Off the top of my head:
- cash AK♦
- ruff small ♦ low
- cash A♣ discarding ♥5
- small ♣ ruff low
- small ♦ ruff J
- small ♥ to A...

But in that case you wouldn't be asking

You're playing to make 6 not 7, but it doesn't look like W has 5 diamonds which is where this costs, although he may have 1.

If this diamond lead is stiff, you need to lead a SMALL diamond from hand, and subsequently ruff one then pitch the heart on the club A.

[KingCovert]

I'll echo what Cyberyeti has to say on this, we're playing to make 6, not 7. First thing I'm asking is what leads my opponents play, could easily be 3rd/5th, which tells me that I should be ruffing high on the 3rd round of diamonds. Making 6 on any non 4-0 break. If I wanted to play for 7 anyways.

The best line of play is probably to cash the A♥ and then exit a heart towards the Q♥.
If this works, and Cyberyeti is right, well West can't give himself a diamond ruff. This would also establish 2 discards of your losing diamonds through the Q♥ and A♣ and allow you to collect every trump break.
If this fails, well, you take the same line of play for a diamond ruff and discarding your 4th diamond on the A♣, you've lost your chance at making 7 sometimes, in exchange for a clearly superior line of play at teams.
If this fails AND Cyberyeti is right, and West gets a diamond ruff, I fail to see the line of play that will succeed here. It's just always going down? Unless West has exactly 1 spade? Seems like a low percentage lie to play for.

I may well be wrong? Feedback would be appreciated.

[Cyberyeti]

 KingCovert, on 2019-August-21, 17:13, said:

I'll echo what Cyberyeti has to say on this, we're playing to make 6, not 7. First thing I'm asking is what leads my opponents play, could easily be 3rd/5th, which tells me that I should be ruffing high on the 3rd round of diamonds. Making 6 on any non 4-0 break. If I wanted to play for 7 anyways.

The best line of play is probably to cash the A♥ and then exit a heart towards the Q♥.
If this works, and Cyberyeti is right, well West can't give himself a diamond ruff. This would also establish 2 discards of your losing diamonds through the Q♥ and A♣ and allow you to collect every trump break.
If this fails, well, you take the same line of play for a diamond ruff and discarding your 4th diamond on the A♣, you've lost your chance at making 7 sometimes, in exchange for a clearly superior line of play at teams.
If this fails AND Cyberyeti is right, and West gets a diamond ruff, I fail to see the line of play that will succeed here. It's just always going down? Unless West has exactly 1 spade? Seems like a low percentage lie to play for.

I may well be wrong? Feedback would be appreciated.

The line I suggested works (leading a small diamond at trick 2), the only decision to make is if W follows to the third diamond whether you ruff low (losing to E having a doubleton) or high losing to a 4-0 trump break.

[KingCovert]

 Cyberyeti, on 2019-August-21, 17:29, said:

The line I suggested works (leading a small diamond at trick 2), the only decision to make is if W follows to the third diamond whether you ruff low (losing to E having a doubleton) or high losing to a 4-0 trump break.

That seems significantly more likely to go wrong than my suggested line? Where is your heart loser going on a 4-0 break? You can't get rid of it on the A♣, because it just turns into a diamond loser?

EDIT: I'm sorry, this is just wrong. You MIGHT have a natural trump loser, but you won't have a diamond loser in your line, that much is true. Still seems like a low percentage play that you'd only take if someone was asking you this question in this forum.

[johnu]

 Cyberyeti, on 2019-August-21, 17:00, said:

You're playing to make 6 not 7, but it doesn't look like W has 5 diamonds which is where this costs, although he may have 1.

If this diamond lead is stiff, you need to lead a SMALL diamond from hand, and subsequently ruff one then pitch the heart on the club A.

Additionally, the opening lead was the lowest outstanding diamond. You should ask the opponents what their lead conventions are. Do they lead low from odd, or traditional 4th best, or something else? It also helps to know the opponent on lead. Are they solid citizens who wouldn't dream of leading a misleading spot card, or do they mix it up. If West has a singleton diamond, you either ruff low or overruff if West ruffs.

If West follows 3 times in diamonds, do you ruff high, losing to 4-0 trumps (~10% a priori), or low, losing to a possible overruff? (~15% a priori, but need to consider lead agreements and the spots on the 2nd diamond play).

[nekthen]

Kudos to West for leading the lower card of a doubleton and kudos to Cyberyeti for finding the only way to go off in a cold contract?

The T♦ is an interesting choice...

If you take it at face value East has QJT87 and West 96

I assume that all the pips are shown correctly?

[Cyberyeti]

 KingCovert, on 2019-August-21, 18:03, said:

That seems significantly more likely to go wrong than my suggested line? Where is your heart loser going on a 4-0 break? You can't get rid of it on the A♣, because it just turns into a diamond loser?

EDIT: I'm sorry, this is just wrong. You MIGHT have a natural trump loser, but you won't have a diamond loser in your line, that much is true. Still seems like a low percentage play that you'd only take if someone was asking you this question in this forum.

It's VERY VERY low odds to go wrong. You clearly are not thinking straight.

You have 2 diamond losers and one heart loser.

One will go on the ♣A when you get to dummy with ♠J

In my line you will lose one diamond and ruff the other, while the heart goes on the club ace.

For it to go wrong, you need either the diamond lead to be lowest from 5 and to get overruffed, or to choose to cater for that then find trumps 4-0.

The fact that the diamond lead is the lowest outstanding diamond, and people often will lead a trump against a slam unless there's a good reason to lead something else makes the 6-1 break much more likely than the straight odds.

Your line has a similar problem, what are you going to ruff with if E takes ♥Q and plays another ?

[johnu]

 KingCovert, on 2019-August-21, 17:13, said:

The best line of play is probably to cash the A♥ and then exit a heart towards the Q♥.
If this works, and Cyberyeti is right, well West can't give himself a diamond ruff. This would also establish 2 discards of your losing diamonds through the Q♥ and A♣ and allow you to collect every trump break.
If this fails, well, you take the same line of play for a diamond ruff and discarding your 4th diamond on the A♣, you've lost your chance at making 7 sometimes, in exchange for a clearly superior line of play at teams.
If this fails AND Cyberyeti is right, and West gets a diamond ruff, I fail to see the line of play that will succeed here. It's just always going down? Unless West has exactly 1 spade? Seems like a low percentage lie to play for.

I may well be wrong? Feedback would be appreciated.

If West led a singleton and East has ♥K, then East will give West a diamond ruff and you are down at trick 4.

If West has ♥K you are correct that playing ace and a heart sets up ♥Q. How do you cash your heart winner? If hearts are 5-2 and West has the doubleton, the heart winner will be ruffed for down 1. If East has the doubleton, they will ruff, declarer overruffs. Now you have to ruff your losing diamond in dummy. You need 2 rounds of diamonds to cash, and then have the same options as Cyberyeti's line, if West follows, do you ruff with ♠J or ♠2? If you ruff high and East started with 4 trumps, you promote a trump trick for East and are down. If West led low from 5, East can overruff if you ruff low.

Suppose you draw trump before cashing ♥Q. You are OK if trumps break 2-2, but if trumps are 3-1 and the hand with 3 trumps only has 2 hearts, they can ruff your winner.

[johnu]

 nekthen, on 2019-August-22, 02:26, said:

Kudos to West for leading the lower card of a doubleton and kudos to Cyberyeti for finding the only way to go off in a cold contract?

The T♦ is an interesting choice...

If you take it at face value East has QJT87 and West 96

I assume that all the pips are shown correctly?

I wouldn't put any money on what card East would play with solid diamonds.

[johnu]

 KingCovert, on 2019-August-21, 18:03, said:

That seems significantly more likely to go wrong than my suggested line? Where is your heart loser going on a 4-0 break? You can't get rid of it on the A♣, because it just turns into a diamond loser?

EDIT: I'm sorry, this is just wrong. You MIGHT have a natural trump loser, but you won't have a diamond loser in your line, that much is true. Still seems like a low percentage play that you'd only take if someone was asking you this question in this forum.

Actually, this seems like a hand pulled from BBO's excellent (and now free) Bridge Master series, maybe Level 2 or 3.

[cherdano]

 Cyberyeti, on 2019-August-21, 17:29, said:

The line I suggested works (leading a small diamond at trick 2), the only decision to make is if W follows to the third diamond whether you ruff low (losing to E having a doubleton) or high losing to a 4-0 trump break.

Presumably by then I would know which diamond East played in trick two?

[Cyberyeti]

 cherdano, on 2019-August-22, 03:36, said:

Presumably by then I would know which diamond East played in trick two?

Yes but does anybody card correctly against a slam

[cherdano]

 Cyberyeti, on 2019-August-22, 04:10, said:

Yes but does anybody card correctly against a slam

No, but nobody leads low from QJ9xx against a small slam, and East wouldn't play the T from QT at trick one. We only have a guess when East follows with the J or maybe the 9 at trick two.

[Cyberyeti]

 cherdano, on 2019-August-22, 04:16, said:

No, but nobody leads low from QJ9xx against a small slam, and East wouldn't play the T from QT at trick one. We only have a guess when East follows with the J or maybe the 9 at trick two.

If you know your pd would never lead from the K against a slam, you might play the 10 here from Q10, but yes point taken.

[Tramticket]

 Cyberyeti, on 2019-August-22, 04:47, said:

If you know your pd would never lead from the K against a slam, you might play the 10 here from Q10, but yes point taken.

That's quite a big "if". Leading from a king against a small slam is often a good tactic (depending of course on the auction).

[Cyberyeti]

 nekthen, on 2019-August-22, 02:26, said:

Kudos to West for leading the lower card of a doubleton and kudos to Cyberyeti for finding the only way to go off in a cold contract?

Sorry, how on earth do I go off on this layout ?

[nekthen]

 Cyberyeti, on 2019-August-22, 07:11, said:

Sorry, how on earth do I go off on this layout ?

Sorry brain fart.

[KingCovert]

 Cyberyeti, on 2019-August-22, 07:11, said:

Sorry, how on earth do I go off on this layout ?

A heart comes at Trick 3, are you ducking to the Q♥? You're never doing that. Win the Ace, and now what? 4-0 trump break kills you.
West lead their 5th best ♦ and wins the 2nd round of diamonds giving East a trump promotion/over ruff, the ♦ lead was made because West was holding the K♥ (per your agreements) and a void in ♠.
Your line of play can certainly be right, it's a good line of play if you believe that ♦ are breaking 6-1, the question is whether it's the correct to play for the 6-1 diamond break given what you know.

Without revealing anything about the hand, I did look it up yesterday, and I was kind of disappointed to see that the OP recorded the hand wrong, North has 5 hearts and 4 clubs, which is not an insignificant difference.
My line of play is certainly horrible when I have to hope and pray for hearts to break 3-3. The whole point of the line of play was to cater to the singleton ♦ lead that you suggested could be the case, but not to sell out to it... But not for these horrible odds.

I think we should really start to consider the result at the other table here, this is a pretty easy 6♠ to find. The last thing you want to do is go -1030 or -1530 on this board.
After we've heard about our opponents' lead agreements, we've got a choice. Do we think that opposing declarer played for a singleton diamond here?
Are we just chasing ghosts? It looks like an honest lead. If you had a completely unsupported QJ, you basically need partner to hold the K or T.

If you bring home a minus here and your teammates ask you whether you ruffed high or low, and you then tell them that you exited a small diamond at trick two.... They're not going to be happy with you, and rightfully so.
Sometimes, you're supposed to pay to 6-1 breaks. I'm not sure if this is such a hand, but, it's worth considering.