PhilKing

Don't. It's irrelevant because East is never underleading the ace (see trick 1), but he always has it (West can hardly have QJxxx AK Axxx xx).

Because it just did not seem very interesting. None of the active defences had any appeal when compared to a club. The Kxx false card is pretty common where I come from, but whatever.

Why bother eliminating?

That sound pretty simple. You are missing two points: 1. The title says it is an elegant hand 2. And the statement Short of a miracle or a defensive revoke, how do you proceed? Obviously the hand is cooked. If forced to guess, I would say we have Qxx spades, which requires a more elegant solution (though East can duck after we eliminate and play a diamond to the jack with Axxxx). Yours gains nothing over the bovine diamond to the jack without bothering to cash any winners line.

Can't I just establish a diamond?

5♠ shows a good hand with, of all things, SPADES. My wife had this exact auction in the ladies trials 15 years ago. She had 8 solid spades. Her partner alerted it as a "fit non jump" and bid 6 hearts slowly on AJxxxxx hearts. Five Spades was making on the nose. On this hand, just bid 6♥ without tipping a potential winning lead.

Just bid 5♦. This has more than one way to be legitimately right, and makes it super-hard for the opponents to judge even when we are wrong.

I think we have a winner - get the straightjacket and rev up the generator. I think we have a new resident for room 5!

North 253%. I just kept adding to his tally with each comment he made.

Don't like Meckstroth's choice, but I guess I should wait and see what others think. What do I know?

Fortunately there is a third chance. Partner switches to a club, we notice we have a singleton spade and switch to it.

This sounds sensible, but op lost me when he said declarer was not Helgemo.

Exactly! I was doing the same thing from the other extreme. However, I never even came up with a crazy suggestion. :(

Yes he did. Have another look at posts 4, 12 and 19. As Gordon points at, David completely contradicts himself in post 12, but when Gordon asked if there was a country where most respond 2♠ with both majors and David stated, without any justification whatsoever, that England is such a country. I was replying to his post, not yours. Why you would think it discourteous that I have not waded through the entire thread is quite baffling. Although a quick flick through did turn up one post with which I agree:

I have reread the thread. Not a single poster has recommended a slam try.

"Not universal" hmm. I've no idea why that is relevant to my assertion that Bluejak was wrong. He implied that is was normal to respond 2♠ with both majors in England. Given that I have played over quarter of a million hands and have seen it happen once, I beg to differ. Perhaps I should reread the entire thread, but since I am regretting opening it in the first place, that ain't gonna happen.

My first instinct was to just play a low diamond from table at trick two. Having looked at this again, I still like it. East is unlikely to rise the the occasion.

Mr Ace was only kidding with me a bit for cherry-picking. But I can't think of anything polite to say about the raise to 2♥. If their partner also uses WMWPC (wooden Milton Work point-count), they could stop in 2♥ with play for six clubs: ♠Axx ♥Jxxxx ♦x ♣Qxxx and game is cold opposite: ♠Qxx ♥xxxxx ♦Q ♣xxxx The opponents failure to bid marks them both with balanced eleven-counts. And that's not even cherry-picking - partner has two wasted queens.

I need one more double from someone who appreciates the spade suit in order to fulfill my prediction of a two to one vote in favour of 1♥.

You are simply wrong. It is unusual, although I have seen it happen once, but that was Zia.

As it happens Hamstroth's two worst boards in the last set were down to the opening leads ...

1st hand - don't really get why North didn't double 1NT. 2nd hand - where do I start?

Er, given that my answer was "depends how good declarer is" you can take my answer as "no". Unless you meant "is there any declarer you would defend this way against" in which case the answer is possibly "yes". Back to the drawing board.

Declarer's stiff king may be in spades rather than hearts ... South has: ♠K ♥Kxx ♦Qx ♣AJ8xxxx So we should just continue hearts. Diamond king also works on this layout. Heart is necessary if South has: ♠K ♥Kxx ♦Qxx ♣AJ98xx Though that looks like a possible 2NT bid.

Depends how good declarer is.