[jillybean]

I am very aware that my play of the hand has room for improvement.
Please tell me your plan. This obviously wasn't the auction but I don't want to derail the thread with critque of the bidding.


The lead ♦Ace

---

[P_Marlowe]

Ace of diamond and what was the card to the 2nd trick?

[jillybean]

n=skq9872hd96ckqj97
oops, that was my code

sorry, sorry, multitasking adhd

[mw64ahw]

Trump, lead low trump to A, take J♠, K♦ discarding a heart, 3♣ and let's see what comes back

[P_Marlowe]

mw64ahw, on 2026-March-19, 13:38, said:

Trump, lead low trump to A, take J♠, K♦ discarding a heart, 3♣ and let's see what comes back

As long as the Ace of hearts lives, you dont need to discard the heart quickly.
The question is, if you should try to go for the club ruff, or rely on dropping the
ten of clubs.

I think assuming, that you can play 3 rounds of diamonds, and 2 rounds of
hearts without running into a ruff is better, which would indicate, that going
for the club ruff is the way to go ... i.e. playing the King of clubs at the
2nd trick, but I am not very good at those things, and I may have made the discard
myself at the table, ...,

[mikeh]

Spoiler

Ruff,Herat to the ace, pitch a heart on the diamond, club.

By preserving the spade holding you threaten a cross ruff. The fact that you probably won’t be playing to ruff more than one club doesn’t matter. The OPPs don’t know this. Well the defender with 10xx(x) in trump will hope you are ruffing twice in dummy, lol.

Most players will fly with the club ace when you lead a stiff from dummy. Stronger players will duck unless their club Ace is short.

Against an average player, if west plays low smoothly, insert the 9 and then run the king through east later. No guarantees but if someone you consider average or worse ducks the club ace as west, reconsider your view of them. If you decide that west would be up to ducking without any twitching, play the king and hope for the black suits to break evenly.

[jillybean]

mikeh, on 2026-March-19, 17:05, said:

Spoiler

Ruff,Herat to the ace, pitch a heart on the diamond, club.

By preserving the spade holding you threaten a cross ruff. The fact that you probably won’t be playing to ruff more than one club doesn’t matter. The OPPs don’t know this. Well the defender with 10xx(x) in trump will hope you are ruffing twice in dummy, lol.

Most players will fly with the club ace when you lead a stiff from dummy. Stronger players will duck unless their club Ace is short.

Against an average player, if west plays low smoothly, insert the 9 and then run the king through east later. No guarantees but if someone you consider average or worse ducks the club ace as west, reconsider your view of them. If you decide that west would be up to ducking without any twitching, play the king and hope for the black suits to break evenly.

Yes, RHO popped with the Ace. Stronger player will hold up, not fearing dummy ruffs with top trumps?

[mikeh]

jillybean, on 2026-March-19, 20:39, said:

Yes, RHO popped with the Ace. Stronger player will hold up, not fearing dummy ruffs with top trumps?

There are many reasons why it’s often best to duck in these situations but much depends on the auction and how west constructs declarer’s hand. I’m assum8ng that declarer showed both spades and clubs. So if west has Axxx(x) his ace can’t be ruffed out. If he has Axx and 10xx in trump, the ace can’t be riffed out without establishing a trump trick for the defence.

More frequently, there is the issue of what declarer plays from something like KJ109x. Against players who can duck but can’t do it in tempo, when they play low smoothly, declarer may play the Jack, intending, should it lose, to run the king (or equivalent) through east.

Good defenders will see the issue as soon as dummy appears. Most declarers (edit, thx JB) will spend at least a few seconds planning the play before calling for a card. Good defenders use that time as well. With the stiff club in dummy, he can see that declarer is going to lead that club fairly soon (unless his clubs are at most one loser) so west should have made up his mind two tricks before he is faced with the problem.

[jillybean]

mw64ahw, on 2026-March-19, 13:38, said:

Trump, lead low trump to A, take J♠, K♦ discarding a heart, 3♣ and let's see what comes back

This was the line I took

[jillybean]

mikeh, on 2026-March-19, 20:56, said:

There are many reasons why it’s often best to duck in these situations but much depends on the auction and how west constructs declarer’s hand. I’m assum8ng that declarer showed both spades and clubs. So if west has Axxx(x) his ace can’t be ruffed out. If he has Axx and 10xx in trump, the ace can’t be riffed out without establishing a trump trick for the defence.

More frequently, there is the issue of what declarer plays from something like KJ109x. Against players who can duck but can’t do it in tempo, when they play low smoothly, declarer may play the Jack, intending, should it lose, to run the king (or equivalent) through east.

Good defenders will see the issue as soon as dummy appears. Most defenders will spend at least a few seconds planning the play before calling for a card. Good defenders use that time as well. With the stiff club in dummy, he can see that declarer is going to lead that club fairly soon (unless his clubs are at most one loser) so west should have made up his mind two tricks before he is faced with the problem.

At the top level you can rely on your opponents bidding, not so in the rest of the pool (but that doesn't mean I should not try to construct opponents hands).
What they should have is as important as what they do have.

For instance the auction on this hand, I assumed 3H was a splinter

---

"Most defenders will spend at least a few seconds planning the play before calling for a card" FYP
I do spend the time both before and after the OL trying to visualize the hands and plan the play, it works better than when I'm on auto.