[mikeh]

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Playing imps against competent opps, you reach 4H on the given auction: 4C catered to South having made a conservative bid of. 3N because he is marked with a not so good heart suit and north could hold a weaker and shorter holding, making slam unwise. As it is, South signs off.

East leads the heart 9. You win in dummy and play a club to the king, won by east who returns another trump, west following to both trump leads.

Plan the play.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

I will give it a try, be friendly:

we have 3 certain loosers 1C (already gone), 1S, 1D (unless QJ drops),
the plan has to be, to maximize the chances to make the king of spades.

Trumps are 32.
I would draw trumps, ruff 1 club, cash AK in diamonds, exiting in diamonds,
but keeping the Ten as an entry, hoping that the 3rd round of diamonds get
won by East, and that East has no clubs left, i.e. that he started with 3 clubs
at most. ... Maybe one can even ruff clubs twice, even if this means, that we
dont have any trumps left at the time we are exiting in diamonds.
The AK in diamonds would than be used as entries to play clubs.

with kind regards
Marlowe

[mikeh]

Well done. Your second line is superior once both follow to the third round of clubs. Ruffing the last club does exhaust you of trump but, assuming diamonds are 3-2, three rounds of that suit reduces both opps to nothing but spades. If east wins, you can claim…if west wins you have a spade guess, but even that is better than breaking spades yourself. If diamonds are 4-1, you need additional luck (only 1 diamond loser and being able to win a 4th round diamond exit in dummy and find the spade ace onside. Btw, once trump show as 3-2 and clubs as 4-3, the odds of a 3-2 diamond break (a priori 68%) grow up a lot, plus surely east would have led a stiff spot if he had it, somewhat further improving the odds a tiny bit.