Best line

[ewj]

I'm not sure this is the most interesting hand to play but what do people think is the best line?

 

I think it's evident from the first couple of tricks here that your opponents are not good players.

 

[hv=pc=n&s=skj8hajda83cakt83&n=s7hkt873dkqjt5cj4&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1hp2cp2dp2np3dp4dp4sp4np5cp6dppp]266|200[/hv]

 

 

So lead is the ace of spades, the other hand playing the 5 or something. Then a small heart switch, jack, queen king, so it's fair to say you're very much in the game...

[ahydra]

The obvious line is: cash the HA, diamond to hand and ruff a heart with the ♦Ace, draw trumps and claim. Actually, one should cash DK first in case you spot a 5-0 trump break, in which case you fall back on the club finesse.

 

Any way of coping with a 5-1 split in hearts? I don't see how unless you can divine it before ever having to try hearts. In this case you have to guess whether to take the club finesse or to play for them 3-3. If it came to this, I would finesse, given that the heart singleton is likely to be with East so he should have longer clubs.

 

ahydra

[winkle]

deleted wrong analysis.

[lamford]

I would cash two rounds of diamonds, with the king and queen, before the ace of hearts. This gives an extra chance that a putative singleton heart is with a doubleton diamond with the clubs coming in. That seems unlikely as with something like Axxxxx x xx Qxxx East would probably have ventured an overcall. West might have xxxxxx Q xx xxxx however, when he would not have done.

[ewj]

Thanks for the replies. My partner took the same line as lamford and found hearts were 5-1. Incidently, the ace of spades led was from a to 7, and so the queen doubleton would now be falling. Don't ask me why nobody bid!