Auction goes 1H-1S-3NT with no interference (partner was awful and I had no faith in partner to bid anything but 3NT). Opps are fairly passive though.
Lead is the 6 (4th best standard carding) to the 3,J,K. I play the A Q (good?) with LHO pitching a spade on the Q and RHO ducking. I play the K LHO playing the Q. Go! I actually screwed up the play from here, but opps were no where near good enough to find the killing defense.
cross to Ac then lead some low spade. play east for 2:2:5:4, that'll strip him of them and we can get some nice endplay/opponent squeezing themselves action by either playing him in with a club at some point or having him chuck club cover giving us an extra winner
Yep, as you play the spades RHO is squeezed in 3 suits. He needs to keep the hearts so he has an exit, and needs to keep the clubs and diamonds to guard your winners. Eventually he has to pitch one. So if he only pitches one heart, you have to cash the Ah first to make sure the endplay works. My plan was to run the clubs and let RHO in with the clubs, sure enough this can fail if RHO returns a heart, and LHO unblocks his T forcing me to win a spade and endplay myself in diamonds.
I would've tried to develop a trick with the 5th heart. Your play of the AQ deprived you of a couple of entries.
At trick 2, I'd lead the 3 and finesse with the J
If that wins, try the heart finesse. If not, I play over to the A next time I get in and do the heart finesse. Play the A and a low and eventually develop a trick with the 5th heart.
I could be wrong, but that seems to me more probable than playing for the squeeze (particularly, since as you pointed out, your opponents could've foiled the squeeze). So, how did you end up playing the hand after trick 3?
You opened 1D, LHO overcalled 2N showing 5+H, 5+C, and you get to 3N on the CJ lead. You win the king and hook a diamond, LHO dropping the ten. Plan your play.
What you said in the spoiler is basically what I was assuming. So assuming LHO is 2-5-1-5 and RHO is 4-1-4-4. Cash the Ah first, stripping RHO of the suits. Then take the diamond hook again. When it fails surrender the Kd. RHO has no hearts left, and can't return a club or diamond so returns the spade. Goal then is to let RHO win the last spade. Hopefully RHO isn't so tricky that they will let the 5 win with the 4. I suppose LHO could be 1516 or something, but we can still let RHO win 3 spade tricks.
You opened 1D, LHO overcalled 2N showing 5+H, 5+C, and you get to 3N on the CJ lead. You win the king and hook a diamond, LHO dropping the ten. Plan your play.
If you later play more diamonds at some point:
Spoiler:
they are Kxxx onside
Spoiler:
I'm assuming the diamonds are Kxxx with RHO. say LHO is then 2-5-1-5. Then, RHO has to be 4-1-4-4. We want to pull out the diamonds, and get one of the opps to lead back a club at some point.
So, go down to the hand with the heart, which serves the dual purpose of getting the entry I want, plus stripping RHO. Then hook the diamond, and force him to win the next round with the Kd (unless of course, the diamonds are 3-2, in which case we're all right anyways). If LHO had an awesome falsecard from KT, I'm just screwed. He needs to lead back spades here. I think I win the first spade trick with the A (unless of course, the J is big). Then, lead the Jack, concede 3 spades to LHO and force him to lead a minor back to me. I think this line requires that the 4 of spades is with LHO though, or that RHO will make a mistake when playing the spades.
Last edited by Myrmidon7328; 04-01-2010 at 04:20 PM.
(a) What's partner's hand look like?
(b) Are you bidding on?
edit: r/w MP (if it matters)
Partner has less than 4 hearts, no spade stopper, and probably 6 diamonds or so. Definitely not bidding on despite being red at IMPs. We are probably losing 2 spades off the top, and we would be lucky to only lose one more.
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