[Fluffy]

Individual, unknown opps

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LHO leads ♦2 (third and 5th),RHO plays ♦10

[han]

Win and diamond back, hoping that RHO has J10 tight of diamonds and the AK of spades. If I play 5 hearts first LHO can later overtake and win 2 diamonds, 2 spades and 1 club. If I play a diamond directly they can only get 4 tricks.

[gnasher]

That works against ♦108 doubleton too.

[han]

Yes, but J10 is a lot more likely, as LHO would probably have led a high one from AQJxx.

[cherdano]

gnasher, on 2012-August-30, 05:58, said:

That works against ♦108 doubleton too.

LHO might find the play of the ♦J on the second round.

[rhm]

han, on 2012-August-30, 05:01, said:

Win and diamond back, hoping that RHO has J10 tight of diamonds and the AK of spades. If I play 5 hearts first LHO can later overtake and win 2 diamonds, 2 spades and 1 club. If I play a diamond directly they can only get 4 tricks.

And going down several when this is not the case?

If you are going to assume that diamonds are blocked, which is reasonable, an improvement seems to me to go to dummy with a heart and play a spade from the table intending to insert the ten if RHO plays low.
Will RHO go in if he holds ♠KJxxx, cash the diamond and play back a spade? World class defense but I doubt it will happen.
Most mediocre players will duck even with ♠AJxxx.
Meanwhile RHO is likely to play high with ♠AKxxx and the same solution applies.

Rainer Herrmann

[MrAce]

gnasher, on 2012-August-30, 05:58, said:

That works against ♦108 doubleton too.

Andy...i am not saying anything

[rhm]

gnasher, on 2012-August-30, 05:58, said:

That works against ♦108 doubleton too.

MrAce, on 2012-August-31, 03:44, said:

Andy...i am not saying anything

I do
First, the ♦2 seems to have been dealt twice.
Second, this assumes LHO would play the ♦7 from ♦AQJ7x with no outside entry.
From LHO perspective the ♦7 would only make sense if you assumed declarer would return a suicidal low diamond from ♦K98xx.
Interesting, but hard to stomach.

Rainer Herrmann

[han]

rhm, on 2012-August-31, 02:35, said:

And going down several when this is not the case?

If you are going to assume that diamonds are blocked, which is reasonable, an improvement seems to me to go to dummy with a heart and play a spade from the table intending to insert the ten if RHO plays low.
Will RHO go in if he holds ♠KJxxx, cash the diamond and play back a spade? World class defense but I doubt it will happen.
Most mediocre players will duck even with ♠AJxxx.
Meanwhile RHO is likely to play high with ♠AKxxx and the same solution applies.

Rainer Herrmann

I have three comments. Most importantly, playing a low diamond from hand at trick 2 is much more elegant. Second, it seems very likely to me that RHO has the AK of spades and J10 tight of diamonds. Third, if RHO has something like AKJxx xxxx J10 xx, you will be down while the contract was cold. On the spade play, RHO wins, cashes his diamond and exits a heart.

[rhm]

han, on 2012-August-31, 05:02, said:

I have three comments. Most importantly, playing a low diamond from hand at trick 2 is much more elegant. Second, it seems very likely to me that RHO has the AK of spades and J10 tight of diamonds. Third, if RHO has something like AKJxx xxxx J10 xx, you will be down while the contract was cold. On the spade play, RHO wins, cashes his diamond and exits a heart.

Sorry, but your defense does anything but defeat the contract.
Declarer will cash hearts and the club tops ending in hand and exit in spades, clearly indicated, when RHO (♠AKJxx ♥xxxx ♦J10 ♣xx) follows to four rounds of hearts.
This defense does not even work if LHO had the ♠J because LHO gets hopelessly squeezed on the run of the hearts. If LHO keeps all his spades you can exit in clubs.
The contract can be defeated double dummy on the above layout and my spade line only if RHO switches to clubs immediately without cashing the diamond jack.
But this is double dummy, the least of my worries at the table when I am in such a precarious contract!
I congratulate my opponents when they defend worthy of Belladonna (assuming I do not get suspicious that they cheat), but it happens rarely.

We have different views on this deal what is more likely to be successful. I usually consider elegant what is most likely to be successful.

Rainer Herrmann

[han]

My comment was wrong also because if they could beat it by hopping up with the spade and cashing the diamond, they could also beat it if I play a diamond by cashing one spade before exiting in hearts.

So, going to dummy and then playing a spade cannot cost. Is it clear that we should insert the jack when RHO plays low? Assuming that LHO has AQxxx of diamonds, it seems hard for him to have a top spade for his 2S bid. But on the other hand I agree that ducking the spade with AKxxx is very unlikely. So I am not certain whether your line is an improvement, and I think that both lines will work.

[lowerline]

Fluffy, on 2012-August-30, 03:33, said:

Individual, unknown opps

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LHO leads ♦2 (third and 5th),RHO plays ♦10

With ♦AQxxx in West and ♦JT in East, it is likely East has ♠AK.

I win the first trick, cross to the table in ♥ and play a spade up. Suppose East wins, cash his ♦J and exits with a ♥.
After the run of the ♥, it is ♣Axxxx opposite ♠QT♦9♣Kx. The one that discarded two spades is guarding the clubs. If that is East you can throw him in with clubs and he has to bring your ninth trick in spades. If it is West you can only win if he started with the ♠J (cashing top clubs and throwing East in with spades).

Steven

[han]

But if east returns a heart instead of cashing the diamond, then you still have to play a diamond yourself. Say that east now returns a club.

You cash the third heart pitching a diamond to get a count on the hand. If east guards clubs, you pitch a spade and a diamond on the hearts and exit a third club to endplay east. If west guards clubs you have to guess who has the jack of spades. If west has the spade jack you can come down to Q10 tight of spades and a threat on west, and exit with the spade queen. If east has the spade jack you come down to Q109 of spades and no threat, and also exit with the spade queen.

The spade guess seems 50-50.

If however you don't go to dummy but elegantly play a diamond from hand immediately, then they cannot destroy your communications and you don't have to guess who has the spade jack? I must admit I didn't think about this until just now.

[MrAce]

han, on 2012-August-31, 06:28, said:

My comment was wrong also because if they could beat it by hopping up with the spade and cashing the diamond, they could also beat it if I play a diamond by cashing one spade before exiting in hearts.

If you read the hand they can never defeat you with your original defense (post 1) when RHO has JT tide ♦ and AK of spades, regardless of who has the longer clubs or ♠ J

[Fluffy]

On this hand RHO had ♠AKJxx ♥xx ♦J10 ♣QJ10x

[han]

Thanks for posting the full hand Fluffy. How did you play and what are your thoughts?

[Fluffy]

I led a diamond, and declarer run hearts, then my partner won ♠K and played a diamond himself too quickly, I overtook to play a club hoping he had ♣K wich gave declarer his 9th trick, but if I didn't I think my partner would be endplayed later since he had to discard 4th club or ♠J already. Later I found the hand was always makeable playing a diamond, and found it interesting enough so decided to post it.

Only relevant info missing is that on BBig standard leads are 3rd&5th against NT, but many people lead 4th anyway so you are never so sure.