[WesleyC]

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West leads the ♣J. Plan the play!

[helene_t]

Heart to the Queen. If it loses win club return in hand. Spade spade and ruff a spade.

[rhm]

 helene_t, on 2015-March-05, 03:08, said:

Heart to the Queen. If it loses win club return in hand. Spade spade and ruff a spade.

What if the queen wins?
You may now not have the entries to establish spades.
Also West may be of sterner stuff. He could return a low trump to attack your entries to the spades.

It is a possible line, but certainly not foolproof.
I am more inclined to win in hand and play on spades immediately. Also not foolproof, but it seems to exhibit good odds.

Rainer Herrmann

[ezyang]

If hearts split 2-2 you have an easy ten tricks, even with diamonds off-side (without fussing about spades). But if they're not, you still have chances. Since E is the danger hand you should win on the board and finesse the HQ. If it loses, you still have time to catch hearts 2-2 or jettison a diamond loser by finessing a spade.

[benlessard]

if the Qh hold you simply play on spades.

To go down you would need

a 5-1 spade break or...

trumps AJx-----x and he return trumps at T3
spades 4-2 without Q falling if the T fall you have a guess.
ace of D off side
West having at least 3 clubs otherwise he get endplayed.

This look like 98% to me.

Playing spades first is clearly more risky.

[WesleyC]

Well done everyone!

Although Ben's 98% seems optimistic, starting with a heart to the Q and then playing on spades definitely feels like the best line.

At the table West held [♠Qxx ♥x ♦Axxxx ♣JTxx]] so a similar line was necessary. Somewhat surprisingly, every declarer (including a couple of fairly strong players) went down...

Rhm's idea of playing spades straight away feels very slightly worse. Because you will likely need to use a dummy entry to lead towards the Q anyways, doing so early protects against some (unlikely) layouts where the short trump holding has access to a ruff.

[rhm]

 benlessard, on 2015-March-07, 18:11, said:

if the Qh hold you simply play on spades.

To go down you would need

a 5-1 spade break or...

trumps AJx-----x and he return trumps at T3
spades 4-2 without Q falling if the T fall you have a guess.
ace of D off side
West having at least 3 clubs otherwise he get endplayed.

This look like 98% to me.

Playing spades first is clearly more risky.

If East has AJx in hearts and an opponent holds Qxxx in spades how do you make when the trump queen holds? Trouble of playing a trump to the queen at trick two is that this costs a needed dummy entry
Also all reasonable lines win when the ace of D is onside. So we start with the assumption that this is not the case and that we may have two trump losers.

Rainer Herrmann

[WesleyC]

 rhm, on 2015-March-09, 05:01, said:

If East has AJx in hearts and an opponent holds Qxxx in spades how do you make when the trump queen holds? Trouble of playing a trump to the queen at trick two is that this costs a needed dummy entry
Also all reasonable lines win when the ace of D is onside. So we start with the assumption that this is not the case and that we may have two trump losers.

Ben's 98% is extremely optimistic - I'd guess a Heart to the Q is closer to 90%. East holding ♥AJx and an opponent holding ♠Qxxx is one layout you can't pickup.

However, your line probably won't succeed then either. Assuming you start with the ♣A and play ♠A, ♠K and a 3rd round of spades to ruff (East discarding a club). Presumably, you cross in clubs to ruff the 4th round of spades (East discards another club). Now when you cross to the ♣Q to enjoy the spades, you need East to have started with 5 clubs and West to have started with 3 - an unlikely layout.

What's worse it that not drawing trumps risks going down on some layouts where the other suits are very favourable.

For example, if West holds:

[♠xx ♥Jxx ♦QTxxxx ♣JT]

They decline to overruff the 3nd round of spades and instead pitch a club.

Or

[♠xx ♥Jx ♦Qx ♣JTxxxx]

They overruff the spade and give partner a club ruff.

None of these cases are individually very likely, but added together I think they make it clear that you should be drawing trumps on this hand.

[mrt2000]

How about win the opening lead in hand and lead a ♥ to the K. If that scores, play a second ♥ covering E's card. If E wins the 1st ♥ and returns a low ♦ try the K from hand. Assuming W wins and they cash a second ♦ then finesse E for the ♥J.

[gnasher]

How about this: win in hand, ♠AK, heart to the queen. If that loses, use dummy's three entries to set up and cash a spade. If the first heart wins, play a club to the king and ruff a spade.


Some of the cases where this loses give LHO a hand that might have acted over 1♥. eg xx x AQxxxx J10xx or xx Jx AQxxxx J10x might have bid 3♦, and Qxxx x AQJxx J10xx might have doubled 1♥.

[benlessard]

Quote

Ben's 98% is extremely optimistic - I'd guess a Heart to the Q is closer to 90%. East holding ♥AJx and an opponent holding ♠Qxxx is one layout you can't pickup.

Yes your right i was estimating on how tough returning trumps from AJx is that I forgot that H could be x--AJx and its not cold.

Also Its better to cash the A of club before the spades. It may endplay west.

[benlessard]

Andy line is interesting, you could lose a 2 undeserved trump tricks +2D.

So I think that we need to compared

S 2-4 no Q is falling
H Jx-Ax or Jxx-A
D Axxx---QJ or JT or Qxx(x) maybe Mxx(x)

vs the cases where the extra entries allow you to setup the S.

S 2-4 or 4-2 no Q is falling
H AJx-x or x-AJx
D west got DA.

This is before coffee so im sure im forgetting something.

[WesleyC]

Maybe I'm wrong, but isn't the only advantage of gnasher's line getting an extra entry to dummy when LHO has AJx of hearts AND they work out to take the Q and return a heart before spades are ready to ruff. Otherwise the number of entries is the same?

[benlessard]

Your right the Ks is gone. This mean it doesnt help us when its x--AJx so it cannot be the right line.