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A play problem


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I was kibitzing this board in the main club. While it seems like a B/I level play problem, none of the declarers in a spade contract managed to take 8 tricks legitimately (one managed on a serious misdefense).

 

[hv=d=w&v=b&n=s9h75dqj862caq842&s=sat6432hakt8dt4ck]133|200|Scoring: IMP[/hv]

 

West deals and opens 1. After two passes, south balances with 2 and plays there.

 

The lead is the Q (standard leads). Plan the play.

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Yes.. this does not look easy to me too.

 

I would have played: win the Heart A, play the club K to the A, cash the club Q discarding a diamond, play a heart to K and try to ruff a heart with the Spade 9. If it gets overrufed, there are pretty good chances that the remaining trumps will now divide 3-2 and I will have 4 spade tricks. So 4 spades, 2 hearts and 2 clubs make the total to 8.

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Yes.. this does not look easy to me too.

 

I would have played: win the Heart A, play the club K to the A, cash the club Q discarding a diamond, play a heart to K and try to ruff a heart with the Spade 9. If it gets overrufed, there are pretty good chances that the remaining trumps will now divide 3-2 and I will have 4 spade tricks. So 4 spades, 2 hearts and 2 clubs make the total to 8.

That's the way I would play it too.

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Every declarer who played this actual hand in spades (and there were eight of them) took the following line:

 

Win a top heart. Cash the club king. Cash another top heart. Ruff a heart.

 

Of course, the hearts are 5-2 (LHO did open a heart after all). So RHO overruffs this. One RHO was friendly enough to return a club, but the others played diamonds. Even though trumps were initially 3-3, the net result was losing three trumps, one heart, and two diamonds at each table.

 

The lines given here will all work (the actual hand is pretty friendly). Playing on diamonds at trick two might even yield an overtrick if opponents don't manage to defend quite right (LHO has AK so there will be no heart through).

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