Just a small trap

[antonylee]

[hv=pc=n&s=sk98654hat92dt5ca&n=sat3h53daqj72c753&d=s&v=n&b=15&a=1sp2dp2hp2sp3sp4sppp]266|200[/hv]

A slightly aggressive sequence gets you to 4♠ in a Swiss teams (yes, 2♦ was GF); you get the ♣K lead.

[iviehoff]

No one has commented in a whole day. I think that's because it's a bit messy and hard to know exactly what's best, and things can go wrong whatever you do if the defence can work it out. (And I'm not even considering if trumps are 4-0.)

 

[completely edited an earlier mistaken post]

 

I've been looking at 2 lines. One is to try and establish the diamonds sufficiently before finishing drawing trumps, so the SA can be kept to draw the last trump (I'm not even thinking about 4-0 trump breaks). The trouble with this line is that you may have to lose both a diamond and a trump, so they can drive out the HA and then force you to ruff with that carefully preserved SA before you finish drawing trumps.

 

The other line is to duck a heart immediately and aim to ruff two hearts on table. I have a dilemma here. If you ruff the second heart with SA, now you are at risk of losing two rounds of trumps to Q & J, if they are sitting over the K. So you could ruff the second heart with the 10, and if you got an over-ruff that would be OK as it wuold replace a natural trump winner. But you'd like to ruff the first heart with the 10 in case hearts are 5-2, so any overruff is with an honour. Well maybe you just have to ruff low on the 3rd round of hearts and just hope the overruff isn't with a singleton trump.

 

In this line, if W returns a trump at trick 2, that's mostly fine, because mostly you'll pick up a trump honour, and can now limit your trump losers to 1. The problematic line is when E wins the ducked heart and returns a trump, and W plays an honour and forces you to play dummy's A. Now if E has a heart doubleton and has the other two trumps, he can overruff you and return another trump and leave you with a heart loser when the diamonds misbehave. I think that's a risk you just have to live with, it isn't as bad as the risk in the first line. So I think ducking a heart at trick 2 is the better line.

Edited November 28, 2013 by iviehoff

[Zelandakh]

Not sure I buy this ivie. If running the ♦T loses and RHO returns a heart you are not really worse off than had you ducked a heart at trick 2. If it wins though you are feeling very good. So it is surely right to run the ♦T but this does not commit you to a plan of establishing diamonds.

[iviehoff]

Not sure I buy this ivie. If running the ♦T loses and RHO returns a heart you are not really worse off than had you ducked a heart at trick 2. If it wins though you are feeling very good. So it is surely right to run the ♦T but this does not commit you to a plan of establishing diamonds.

It must be right for the defence to hold up the DK to the second round. So it is only when you win the second finesse you can breathe a sigh of relief. But you are right, there is no cost to starting on the diamonds, because you are only worried if they attack hearts, and if they do that you can try and ruff two hearts instead, and in some cases when you suffer an overruff you'll be able to go back to the diamonds.

[Zelandakh]

Once the ♦T wins, ducked or not, you do not need a second diamond finesse and can simple ruff a heart.

[gszes]

I do not mind at all losing 1 d/h/s

trick 2 lead a low spade toward the T if lho plays low or shows out

guarding against a 40 trump break in either hand. While the play will vary

depending on the defense and if trumps break 40 the overall plan

is to duck 1 heart winning the second and take the dia finesse.

 

We should be able to handle anything the defense does though

they might make the hand interesting if they wait until the second dia to take the

K from Kx and trumps break 40:)))))))))))))))))))))))) ouch get out of this game fast