[FrancesHinden]

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You get the 3 of hearts lead, fourth highest. You put in the Queen, which holds and you discard something from hand.
When you advance the 10 of spades, East shows out, discarding a heart.
Eventually West will win a trump and return another trump.

What is your plan?

[mikeh]

Are the opps honest characters, and does anyone show me the heart 2 fairly early?

LHO presumably has 8 or 9 majors, and RHO 7 or 8 minors.

I would have pitched a diamond at trick one.

On the 4th spade, I pitch a club from dummy.

Then I play the top clubs and the heart A and then ruff a heart. If the club Q dropped, I have 12 winners: 5 spades, 2 hearts, 2 diamonds and 3 clubs.

If the club Q hasn't appeared, I pitch a club on the heart A, ruff a heart and play my last trump. I will have A9 J in hand opposite KJ10 diamonds in dummy. I will then try to figure out if someone has been squeezed or whether to take the diamond hook. I expect to play for the squeeze: by this position, I will have a very good idea of the shape...someone will have shown me that heart 2, almost for sure, plus RHO is a priori, as of trick 2, favoured to hold length in both minors.

I sort of suspect there is a better line but, if so, it hasn't occurred to me, and this is close to as sophisticated as I get as declarer

Edit

It is possible to set up a criss-cross squeeze, but I don't think that it is superior to the above.....on the 4th spade, pitch a club as above, then cash a top club, the diamond K, the heart A, pitching a club, ruff a heart and cash a trump, reducing to J10 A in dummy and A J9 in hand....and guess which Q has been stiffed, assuming that the Queens are in the same hand, or that one (or both) were doubleton all along.

It seems sexier to play for a criss-cross, because they don't come up often, but I don't think it is a good line.

[gszes]

trick 1 win Q and pitch a club
trick 2 run spade T
trick 3 win spade return in hand
trick 4 spade
trick 5 spade pitching a dia
trick 6 club to A
trick 7 club K (assuming the Q has not fallen or the hand is over
trick 8 heart A pitching last club
trick 9 lead last club and ruff getting count on club suit.
trick 10 last trump pitching heart T
now decide how to play the dia based on a virtually exact count on the hand good luck

[Hanoi5]

I throw a club on the Heart Queen. Throw away a club on the spades, Diamond Ace and another Diamond to the King, discard a diamond on the Heart Ace, and ruffing diamond finesse if no Diamond Queen has appeared. I'm no using the clubs much, but I win when the Diamond queen is with East or seocnd or singleton with east.

[rhm]

Assuming that West has both majors East has seven or more cards in the minors, West five or less.
When in doubt play East for both queens and come down to the following ending:

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Play your penultimate trumps and discard the ♥T unless it is high.
West is very unlikely to hold more than three diamonds.
If anyone at any time discards a diamond you are home, because you can play diamond from the top and take the ruffing finesse if West shows out and otherwise the queen will drop in three rounds.
For example if East had three small diamonds originally and kept them in the above ending only a world class defender would consider hanging on to his small diamonds and blank the queen of clubs.
So in the above ending if nobody has discarded diamonds there is a lot to be said to simply take the ruffing finesse if the queen does not drop.

Rainer Herrmann

[Fluffy]

leftie risked a heart lead, he is scared of diamonds. This can be because he has the queen or 3 or more small, perhaps doubleton but less likely, but I think we can rule out a singleton.

This makes ♣Q like 90% to be in our right, and ♥10 a valuable card.

simply run trumps reaching this:

♠-
♥A10
♦KJ6
♣AK

♠A
♥-
♦A95
♣J95


Rightie made 5 pitches from a presumed 0535 shape or something like, 2 clubs and 3 hearts?, opponents are then under non simultaneous double squeeze since only leftie guards hearts now. This line requires a lot of reading, but I think it can survive anything.

[PhilKing]

Interesting. Tom Townsend followed the Mike/Gsgazes line, but I prefer the RHM and Fluffy lines.

Could it possibly be that I am a result merchant? (though I did reject the Hanoi line, which works on the lie).

[mikeh]

PhilKing, on 2013-November-25, 17:07, said:

Interesting. Tom Townsend followed the Mike/Gsgazes line, but I prefer the RHM and Fluffy lines.

Could it possibly be that I am a result merchant? (though I did reject the Hanoi line, which works on the lie).

I followed a line quite different from that suggested by gszes, so which (presumably unsuccessful) line did Townsend follow?

[Fluffy]

I would say that Tom didn't pitch a diamond at trick one, I fail to see the use of it.

[PhilKing]

Fluffy, on 2013-November-26, 00:32, said:

I would say that Tom didn't pitch a diamond at trick one, I fail to see the use of it.

You are correct.

[PhilKing]

mikeh, on 2013-November-25, 18:26, said:

I followed a line quite different from that suggested by gszes, so which (presumably unsuccessful) line did Townsend follow?

But it only differed on the first card.

Yours. He eventually lost to ♦Qx with the hand counted.

[Fluffy]

If my read about leftie being scared of diamonds is right, it means diamond queen is 'short' most often, and simply ruffing a diamond in hand is a strong alternative.

[mikeh]

Fluffy, on 2013-November-26, 10:54, said:

If my read about leftie being scared of diamonds is right, it means diamond queen is 'short' most often, and simply ruffing a diamond in hand is a strong alternative.

I liked your line but I really don't understand why you think that LHO was 'scared of diamonds'.

The auction given suggests, at least to me, that declarer sees no chance of buying a dummy that makes grand good, while expecting to have some play for 12 tricks, and no desire to provide a roadmap for the defence.

There is a decent inference that declarer has some shortness.

I don't pretend to know how every expert reacts to this sort of auction, but I know that I strain to be aggressive. Hence the lead of a heart away from the K makes nothing but sense to me, given that my options will be, I assume, a club or a heart. I can't imagine a diamond lead from any holding consistent with the two hands we see.

I suppose some would choose a passive club lead from 2/3/4 small, and some might choose a lead from Qxx(x) but my preference would always be a heart.

I am surprised to see that I would lose to Qxin diamonds, since that means, I think given my stated line, that LHO counted out for 4 card diamond length, along with his known and presumed major length.

That seems to imply 0 or 1 club, and with 1 I'd expect the lead of the stiff rather than the underlead of the heart K.

If RHO held at least 3 diamonds, and the club Q, I was making, and if LHO held Qx in diamonds, I was again making, since I had, cunningly or stupidly, reduced myself to A9 in diamonds and had no entries to hook rho.

[JLOGIC]

Not sure if I'd have the guts to follow the rainer/fluffy line but it seems correct.

[FrancesHinden]

PhilKing, on 2013-November-25, 17:07, said:

Interesting. Tom Townsend followed the Mike/Gsgazes line, but I prefer the RHM and Fluffy lines.

Could it possibly be that I am a result merchant? (though I did reject the Hanoi line, which works on the lie).

To be fair to Tom, he didn't have the opportunity of taking a ruffing diamond finesse, because he was in 6NT by the balanced hand.
He took an inference from the club plays at the table that turned out to be invalid.