[Stephen Tu]

imps

---

Lead: CK.
What's the best line?

[FelicityR]

Stephen Tu, on 2017-April-23, 22:16, said:

imps

---

Lead: CK.
What's the best line?

Difficult little hand. Thank you Stephen for posting it. I'm inclined to ruff the ♣ in dummy and lead the ♥J at trick two, hoping that the ♥A is with West, and the ♠A is with East.

I hope to score 3 ruffs with the small♠s, AK♦, ♣A, ♥K and ♠K. By playing a ♥ at trick 2 you hope to set up an additional entry in your hand to ruff in dummy. I feel it's best to get the entry problem sorted out at trick 2 before the opponents get wise to what you are hoping to achieve. You are also trying to put West back in to lead once again into the strong hand.

[rhm]

FelicityR, on 2017-April-24, 03:43, said:

Difficult little hand. Thank you Stephen for posting it. I'm inclined to ruff the ♣ in dummy and lead the ♥J at trick two, hoping that the ♥A is with West, and the ♠A is with East.

I hope to score 3 ruffs with the small♠s, AK♦, ♣A, ♥K and ♠K. By playing a ♥ at trick 2 you hope to set up an additional entry in your hand to ruff in dummy. I feel it's best to get the entry problem sorted out at trick 2 before the opponents get wise to what you are hoping to achieve. You are also trying to put West back in to lead once again into the strong hand.

If you have to hope that the ♠A is with East, isn't it better to ruff trick one and play a spade from dummy?
You have to restrict the number of tricks the defense gets in trumps to three if you want to have a decent chance.
This means you can afford spades 4-2 if the spade ace is onside and spades 3-3 if not.
Not drawing at least 2 rounds of trumps if the trump ace is onside and otherwise 3 rounds is unlikely to work against best defense.

Rainer

[FelicityR]

rhm, on 2017-April-24, 05:11, said:

If you have to hope that the ♠A is with East, isn't it better to ruff trick one and play a spade from dummy?
You have to restrict the number of tricks the defense gets in trumps to three if you want to have a decent chance.
This means you can afford spades 4-2 if the spade ace is onside and spades 3-3 if not.
Not drawing at least 2 rounds of trumps if the trump ace is onside and otherwise 3 rounds is unlikely to work against best defense.

Rainer

As I readily admit, Rainer, I am not an expert myself, and I can see from your forum profile that you have an excellent reputation. With a poor trump suit, and a longer side suit in ♦ I was worried about losing control of the hand. But from a technical point of view, even though the trump suit is poor you indicate that it is best to tackle it first to reduce the likelihood of the opponents scoring their trumps separately. This I understand. Thank you.

[SteveMoe]

Hmmm, the opponents have 21 HCP and were silent. With shape they don't need more than 4-5 HCP to act over 1N, so LHO is likely balanced.

I expect neither E nor W to be more distributional than 5332 with 4432 much more likely. If they are likely to be balanced, then the possibility that they can score their trumps separately diminishes. I like the dummy reversal line. Ruff the ♣ lead, Finesse ♦, ruff ♣#2, ♦ to Ace, ♣A, ♣ruff. If all that has survived, I play the ♥J from dummy intending to duck if not covered. Now they have tough continuations.

If the ♦ finesse fails, the danger hand is not on lead. We can handle most any continuation, having mitigated the threat to the ♠K for one more round.

If we go after ♠, all the defense has to do is shorten dummy (lead ♣) each time they are in with a trump. In 3 tricks, ♠ will be N:xx opposite S:Kx. We've lost control of the hand. If they had overcalled or doubled the transfer bid, I'd be more inclined to draw trumps early.

[nige1]

Stephen Tu, on 2017-April-23, 22:16, said:

imps
Lead: CK.
What's the best line?

---

A guess:
Ruff the opening lead and take the ♠ finesse..
If ♠K wins, then ruff a 2nd ♣ and take the ♦ finesse.
If ♦J wins, then lead another trump.

[rhm]

nige1, on 2017-May-05, 01:32, said:

A guess:
Ruff the opening lead and take the ♠ finesse..
If ♠K wins, then ruff a 2nd ♣ and take the ♦ finesse.
If ♦J wins, then lead another trump.

If ♦J wins, ruff a third club, before playing dummies last trump.
If this passes of and both opponents follow to a second round of trumps, you have made the first 5 tricks and the defense has no more than 3 trump tricks.
The defense is unlikely to get another 3 tricks out of the remaining 8 tricks, as you are in control of all the side suits and the defense will have to broach hearts eventually.
It might be slightly better to take the diamond finesse first and then the spade finesse.

Rainer Herrmann

[rhm]

deleted

[vadugu]

Opening lead win in Hand discarding H8 from dummy ruff a club and float the HJ you will have fair chance of making 8 tricks