[inquiry]

This is a little "nothing hand". The contract (3nt) is completely normal. Both tables got a heart opening lead, but neither declarer claimed the 10 obvious tricks and went on to the next hand (takes 0-5 diamond split offside to stop 10 sure tricks).

Both declarer's tried for 11 tricks, and both managed to win 11 tricks. How would you go about trying to win 11 tricks? I think the star made the better play on this hand than I did. One was psychological based (i think) and one was a technical play.

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[inquiry]

oh well... not much interest... here were the two lines.

Line One (technical)
Realize you have 10 top tricks. If you can correct the count by losing two tricks, you might have a squeeze. So duck first heart, win second in hand and play a club up to the queen. If they don't cash a 2nd club immediately, you play rho for the top club any four plus spades (cash one high spade before running diamonds).

Line Two (pyschological)
They will realize you have 6 diamonds, two hearts, fairly quickly. This being imps, win first heart and play a club up. If rho wins, he might switch to a spade looking for quick tricks.

I played the squeeze line, and ended up with a black suit positional squeeze on north. The star player at the other table won the first heart and played a club up. North won and tried a spade through declarer, giving time to set up a 2nd club trick.

In the long run, line two seems to have the greatest percentage chance of gaining an "impossible" extra trick.

[han]

It took a while before I noticed that east was declarer. I guess this says more about me than about anything else.

Besides being the better line, the line chosen by the star player has the great advantage that it takes no effort. You can play this way quickly and not lose any energy on it.

[gnasher]

At IMPs, I think you should start by making sure of nine tricks, by cashing ♦K at trick two. If North has five of them, you can't afford to mess around playing any other suits.

[han]

I am not sure that that is right Andy. In order to play completely safe you also have to win the first trick in your hand. By playing the first two tricks like this, you make your chances of scoring 11 tricks considerably smaller, especially if you plan to swindle them out of a heart continuation. Besides, in order to go down in 3NT you not only need diamonds to split 5-0, you also need them to be able to pick up 3 heart tricks before you can set up club tricks. So, if clubs honors split, hearts need to be exactly 5-2. All together that brings us perhaps to about 1% (the specific 5-0 diamond split is already less than 1%). Ergo, if playing safe costs you an overtrick about 1 out of 5 times then it is not worth it.

Generally in spots like this I think that people tend to worry too much about the tiny chance of going down at the cost of taking fewer overtricks.