[awm]

Scoring: MP

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After two passes, east opens with 1♣ (five card majors, 3+♣). South makes the perhaps questionable decision to overcall 1♠ and north raises to 2♠ with opponents passing.

The opening lead is the ♠3, and dummy's ♠6 is covered by east's ♠9. Plan the play.

[matmat]

i put down my hand and claim 8 tricks

wait
no
that won't work

my plan is to tap myself out.
heart, heart, heart ruff, diamond, heart ruff (assuming righty shows out, if not i pitch a club i think)

i hate play problems

[pclayton]

With a combined 19, I'm a little surprised the opponents aren't bidding more. It seems likely to me that LHO doesn't have 4 hearts or a decent spade stopper.

RHO seems to have heart length and spade length, yet LHO didn't raise clubs either. if RHO is 4=4=2=3 he can't be a flat 15-17. Its beginning to smell like RHO is a 4414. All of this is circumstantial however.

It also seems like RHO has the ♠QJ9(x) as well.

It seems to me that ruffing hearts is a losing approach, since I can't effective lead up to my high diamond in hand. I'll start with ♦A, ♦ toward hand. If RHO ruffs, he is ruffing a loser with a master trump. If the ♦ wins, I'll exit a ♦. I'm guessing LHO wins and pushes a 2nd trump. I win and ruff the 4th diamond if RHO overruffs it causes me no pain.

If RHO ruffs the diamond and exits a high trump. I think I'm still OK, but I haven't worked it all out.

With this approach, I take 4 spades in hand and 2 red AK's.

[Fluffy]

♥K, ♥A, ♥ruff,♦K.

At this point cass the alst top spade catching RHO's J or Q adn cross to ♦A to propote dummy's 10 ruffing the 4th heart with your 8.

[awm]

While I'm not sure what the percentage line is for this hand, I'll mention that:

(1) It was possible to make, double dummy.
(2) The making line is not in any way unreasonable.
(3) None of the lines posted so far will make assuming opponents defend accurately.

[Fluffy]

what its left is to play for everything 3-3 making 3♠+2♥+3♦, is it?

[awm]

Here's the actual layout:

Scoring: MP

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On Matt's line, east will discard his second diamond on the fourth round of hearts, leaving declarer unable to score the diamond king and thus one trick short.

On Phil's line, after winning the third diamond, west will cash the club king and continue clubs. After three rounds of clubs, east will exit with the ♠2. At this point declarer can duck, allowing the opponents to pull trumps and leaving him with a diamond loser, or rise with an honor and attempt to ruff the fourth diamond, only to be overruffed by east.

On Fluffy's line, the second top trump will not drop an honor. When he returns to dummy and leads the last heart, east can ruff high and play a club to west's king. West then pulls the last trump from both declarer and dummy with his good jack, leaving several rounds of clubs to cash.

The working line is closest to Matt's: win the lead, king of hearts, heart to ace, ruff a heart, two rounds of diamonds ending in dummy and lead the last heart. This leaves east with no option to prevent declarer scoring two hearts, two diamonds, and four trumps.

Which line is the best single-dummy? Hard to tell. The "right" line will work any time the long hearts are with west, and will also work if the trumps are Qxxx (west) J9 (east) or xx (west) QJ9x (east) or xxx (west) QJ9 (east). Phil's line works when the trumps are QJ9(x) (east) or if diamonds break 3-3. Fluffy's line works when trumps are Qxxx (west) J9 (east) or xxx (west) and QJ9 (east) and also gives opponents a lot of chances to misdefend. Obviously the odds of various shapes are hard to calculate because of the inferences from west's non-bid, but the "right" line actually seems pretty good.

[pclayton]

On my line the defense gets a little complicated since West has to pitch on the 4th club. I've played with it, but the defense will still prevail if they defend right.

By the way, I stand by my analysis. Its unusual that West's honor dispersion is such that he can't make a negative double in spite of holding a 6 count and 4 hearts. I would have also lead the K♣ rather than a trump from Jxx, which is a bit odd.

[han]

I think the winning line is the intuitive line that I'd expect most of us would take at the table. I haven't thought about the alternatives suggested and whether they are improvements.