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You are playing against world class opponents…their names will be known to almost all here
After the overcall, you have two options.
You can double, to bring hearts into the picture. And I’ve seen a lot of non-experts do that with this sort of hand. But there are at least two major drawbacks to double.
One is that you haven’t shown close to this strength….you might have say xx AJxx Kxx Jxxx
The second is that it’s going to be very difficult to find a club fit…especially a 5-3 fit…if you double. Doubling then bidding clubs….firstly you may not have a convenient auction and secondly that would tend to be 4 hearts and 6 clubs, less than game force.
Thus you bid 3C….which, over 2D, is in practice game force. There’s time for hearts later, much of the time. Thus, had partner passed over 4D, you’d bid 4H… not perfect, since you have about a king more than this would have as a minimum, but you’ve got your two suits in, in the correct order, and you’ve shown game values.
Over 5C, you’ve got a bit of a guess, but you know the opps are bidding on air, so I think it’s reasonable to hope to buy a stiff diamond in dummy….if not, maybe you’ll buy well anyway.
Your 6C ends the auction…you were half hoping they’d take the save, and you knew what to do to that!
Edit (thanks to pillowski for pointing this out) the lead s the diamond K.
Dummy is not as good as you hoped to see but it’s not terrible.
How do you plan the play?
There’s no point ducking so you win the Ace.
You can guard against RHO holding Jxxx in clubs…play the king then low to the ace, hooking next time if clubs are 4-1 onside. However, if you do that you need something good in spades.
What do you need? If spades are 3-3, then it’s easy. Draw trump and ruff a spade with the heart queen as an entry.
But spades are not usually 3-3…a priori a 3=3 break is 35.5%
Look deeper into the suit….you have AK98x…with the 10 in your hand. So AK of spades…if it draws an honour, you can run the 9, ruffing if covered on your right and otherwise pitching your diamond loser. So, if you bring home the clubs, you make on 3-3 spades or any doubleton honour (QJ tight would be a bonus but basically irrelevant to your line).
So you lead the club King. LHO fidgets, just a little, and plays low, as does RHO.
Does this change your calculations?
You’re not running the 10! But….LHO won’t have a singleton….if LHO has a singleton, she’s ethical enough not to have fidgeted plus a director might adjust if this leads to down one.
Now….we have an additional chance if clubs are 3-2 and someone holds QJxx in spades…..if, when we lay down the club Queen….giving up on picking off Jxxx onside…and the Jack is doubleton….then we play the top spades, ruff, cross to dummy with the third trump and ruff another spade…we have then three spades, one diamond, five clubs and three hearts
Meanwhile, if clubs are 3-2 but the Jack hadn’t dropped, we’re no worse off than we were before.
You decide to trust LHO…cash the club queen and breath a sigh of relief when LHO follows and another when RHO does as well. The Jack is still out there.
Now you could hope that spades are 3-3 or that the hand with short spades also has short clubs….in those cases, one leaves the club Jack outstanding and play spade AK.
If an honour drops, pull the last trump and advance the spade 9…ruffing or pitching…the former if covered, the latter if not.
If no honour appears, you have to decide whether the suit is 3-3 or the hand with QJxx in spades has Jxx in clubs.
You can’t trust their carding….they are likely to play up the line regardless of their holding. They are experts and already know or infer the spade situation.
So you play the top two spades, delaying your decision. Fortunately RHO drops the Jack on the second round, so you pull trump and lead the spade 9, pitching your diamond. Dummy’s 8x of spades are good (the 8 drops the last spade) and you have the heart AK and can ruff the diamond.
Later, be sure to thank partner for the 98 of spades!
