[dboxley]

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The bidding is not important aside from the opponents passing throughout. Opening lead C7 which you win in dummy, E playing small. What is your plan?

When you lead a trump, W, who seems reasonable, wins and returns the D9. Does this affect your plan?

[dboxley]

At the table I played a heart at trick two but I just now saw a much better play. Cash the DA and CA, ruff a club with the J and lead a small heart toward the dummy. If W has the stiff ace you can claim and if he has the Ax he must rise and return a heart. Anyway, assuming you played it as poorly as I, what was your plan?

[WesleyC]

Your new line does gain when West has the stiff ♥A, but if East has that card, they will win and return a spade putting you to a guess in that suit before you've had a chance to test the diamonds.

To put it in perspective, LHO has the stiff ♥A 13% of the time and the ♦Q comes down tripleton 22% (although you only actually lose on 1/2 of these because sometimes the spade is onside).

If you think there is a chance that your LHO will duck holding Ax of hearts (you can make it hardest by ruffing with the ♥J and then 'running' the ♥9) then that line does look best.

[Mbodell]

dboxley, on 2015-November-09, 00:04, said:

At the table I played a heart at trick two but I just now saw a much better play. Cash the DA and CA, ruff a club with the J and lead a small heart toward the dummy. If W has the stiff ace you can claim and if he has the Ax he must rise and return a heart. Anyway, assuming you played it as poorly as I, what was your plan?

This suggested line doesn't work out that well when someone has Axx of hearts and a 4th club. Now they can hold up the A to the 3rd round and if you pull trump fully play the club leaving you trapped in the S hand with no way to N. If you see the 3-0 split on trick 1 and end up in dummy I think you now have to take a finesse and play for E to have either the spade K or diamond Q. It might be better, rather than eliminating clubs, to play diamond A then ruff a diamond then attack hearts. You still get put to the guess if E wins A and plays spade, but you set yourself up to try for Q-third of diamond before falling back on spade finesse if that doesn't happen. There are some unlikely squeeze lines as well, but I don't think they are going to be as good as a finesse.

[gnasher]

Mbodell, on 2015-November-09, 01:36, said:

This suggested line doesn't work out that well when someone has Axx of hearts and a 4th club. Now they can hold up the A to the 3rd round and if you pull trump fully play the club leaving you trapped in the S hand with no way to N.

You'd probably be OK if West had three trumps: win the first trump in dummy, ruff a diamond high, and play a second trump. That retains both chances of ♦Qxx and the spade finesse.

If East had three trumps you'd have to give up the diamond chance and just take a spade finesse.

[skivt]

Why not ruff out clubs (high), then diamond AK ruff (high), low heart to dummy? Whatever the trump distribution, still have spade finesse if needed.

[dboxley]

skivt, on 2015-November-10, 09:38, said:

Why not ruff out clubs (high), then diamond AK ruff (high), low heart to dummy? Whatever the trump distribution, still have spade finesse if needed.

That makes when someone has Qxx of diamonds but gives up on the chance to endplay W.