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You are in 1N, after rho opened 1 (showing 4+ cards in the suit) and you overcalled 1N on A62 A872 QJ72 AJ

 

The opening lead is the spade 10 and dummy hits with J63 J64 A86 10732

 

You duck the spade and the continuation goes to the K on your right, as you duck again to prevent LHO running the suit if she gains the lead. RHO tanks and leads a low club, and you are pleasantly surprised when your J holds.

 

You now have 4 tricks outside diamonds and you can make if you score 3 tricks in the suit... which should be easy if you could only get to dummy twice to lead towards your QJ72, but of course you can't.

 

So, with only one dummy entry, how do you play this suit for 3 winners, assuming RHO has K 4th?

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Have you tried using the hand template? It makes play problems much easier to understand (and it tells you that were two sixes of spades in the pack)...

 

[hv=d=e&n=sj63hj64da86c10732&s=sa52ha872dqj72caj]133|200|1 1NT P P

P[/hv]

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I can think of an alternative line, although I don't know that it is better.

 

RHO cannot have all of the SK, the HKQ, the DK the club CKQ, and a balanced hand as that makes a strong NT opening (assuming RHO is playing strong NT). We are pretty confident about the SK and the CKQ, and I would expect LHO to lead a diamond if he had the DK, so that makes the heart honours split or gives RHO KQ doubleton. RHO needs at least one heart honour to have an opening bid.

 

If RHO is 2=1=5=5 without a singleton heart honour, it's surprising that LHO didn't lead a heart from KQ10xx rather than a spade from Q109xx.

 

So RHO is either 2=3=4=4, or 2=2=5=4. With 2=4=4=3, the club switch from KQx looks astonishingly unlikely.

 

If I believe all these deductions, I can come to 7 tricks without needing 10x or 9x of diamonds on my left, as long as I can read the heart position.

 

How? Is this a better line?

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How?  Is this a better line?

4-2 with at least one heart honour with RHO is nice - can either endplay RHO in the minors or promote my J for an entry.

 

If are 3-3, though, I don't see a way forward. Promoting a 13th heart still leaves me a trick short/with 1 loser too many.

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I can't figure out how to read the heart position.

Neither can I.

 

But my approach on these hands is always to get as far as I can in working out the layout.

 

p.s. Mike tells us to assume East has four diamonds, part of what my rambling reply was trying to do was ask why East can't have 5 diamonds.

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