helene_t, on 2012-December-20, 08:55, said:
IMPs all red. 1NT-3NT.
I have stolen this from "Card play techniques". Given that the lead is more likely to be from HH853 than from 53, it seems sensible to take the ace immediately, in order to block the suit (on the second heart trick N can overtake his partner's honour but if he then cashes his other honour he will promote our
♥9.
But what then? The book doesn't adress it further than just that you need to take the ace of hearts at trick 1. Presumably we want to test the diamonds first but I can't decide whether to give them a diamond trick first. Mostly it won't matter but I would like to keep the option open of endplaying South at the point when he has only spades left.
Any thoughts?
Duck a diamond it matters not if dia 4-1 it never hurts and it may help rectify the count for a squeeze.
East can easily pitch 1 or even 2 dia when the opps take heart tricks and all of our options are still
open. We can manuever any (2 suit) squeeze that might be available and we can keep the throwin of N
in reserve or even take a spade finesse as last resort if no good squeezes show up (unlikely) or even
use the three spades for a compound squeeze if the distribution warrants it.
This lop leaves the opps with little recourse and if they do not take their 2 heart tricks immediately after
taking the dia they risk getting squeezed into us making 5