sailoranch Posted November 2, 2012 Report Share Posted November 2, 2012 [hv=pc=n&s=s72hat862dak6ckt4&n=sqt84hq53d87c9873&d=n&v=n&b=5&a=p1d1h1s(5+%20spades)2hppp]266|200[/hv] Unfavorable at IMPs. West leads the ♦3, third/low, to East's queen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twoshy Posted November 2, 2012 Report Share Posted November 2, 2012 The lead and the lack of them competing to 3♦ marks ♦Jx3-QTxxx. LHO doesn't have ♠AK or 6 so those are splitting 5-2. Neither player has a singleton heart and RHO probably isn't 2254, with which he may have had the values for a takeout double. So the shapes are likely 5233 opposite 2353. Most of the time I think I'll need the ♣A onside and to guess LHO's doubleton trump honour. There's a small extra chance by playing spades first. Say I play a ♠ to the T and A/K. Now if they don't switch to clubs I can win the diamond return (say), play another ♠ to LHO's top honour, win the return (or the second ♣ if necessary), ruff the diamond in dummy and play the ♠Q, discarding a ♣ when RHO ruffs in. He's endplayed even without the ♥K, as his trump switch would set up an entry with dummy's Q to play towards the ♣K. This gains as long as hearts break 2-3, regardless of how the honours are split. If something goes wrong (RHO has two ♠ honours to the A/K/J, or they switch to a ♣) I'll try and guess LHO's doubleton ♥ honour. I think the HCP split is more likely to be 8-14 or 9-13 than 10-12. The alternative is to play RHO for ♥KJx and to eventually be able to force them to lead clubs. Maybe ♦A, ♥Q and K, ♦K, ♦ruff, ♥TA, ♠ to T. If RHO wins J and unblocks the other honour - unlucky. Otherwise one of them will be forced to play a club, even if you need to discard once on their winner. I prefer the first line of playing a ♠ at trick two. Possibly I'm missing a way of combining the two lines. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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