[Cyberyeti]

IMPs

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9♠ lead, you can't guess this right, KJ are over the Q, you're in hand for possibly the last time, plan the play

[ahydra]

For a minute I thought this was a hand I played yesterday - I also had 5-5 in the minors with a diamond suit of precisely AKQJ7, and partner had the spade Ace and out opposite. But my hand had "only" 20 HCPs and I didn't get the auction to myself :/, so I'm guessing this is something else.

Spoiler

It's interesting that W led a spade when East doubled for a heart lead... a singleton? That would mean we have to drop the CQ rather than finesse it. I guess we have to decide how much we trust the opponents.

ahydra

[Cyberyeti]

ahydra, on 2014-March-10, 07:32, said:

For a minute I thought this was a hand I played yesterday - I also had 5-5 in the minors with a diamond suit of precisely AKQJ7, and partner had the spade Ace and out opposite. But my hand had "only" 20 HCPs and I didn't get the auction to myself :/, so I'm guessing this is something else.

It's interesting that W led a spade when East doubled for a heart lead... a singleton? That would mean we have to drop the CQ rather than finesse it. I guess we have to decide how much we trust the opponents.

ahydra

It came from yesterday from the East anglian green point.

Good deduction as to the spade lead, I think it's likely the leader looked at his long heart suit and decided there was no need to lead one as dummy would have 1, but 2 spades, could have gone wrong if declarer had AJ10xx and out and a heart loser went west, but unlikely.

[1eyedjack]

Looks like you need a 3-2 Club break to have any chance. Even dropping offside singleton Q is not going to help.

That being the case it seems to be just a case of which is more likely: Qxx onside or Qx offside?

There are more combinations of Qxx opposite xx than there are xxx opposite Qx

So I would go for the finesse.

Even if I diagnose that the Spade lead is a singleton, I don't see that this will change my decision. All it does is increase the likelihood of the Club length being with West. But we have already made that assumption as being the only scenario that matters.

[Cyberyeti]

These deductions were correctly made by a couple of declarers, but they still went off in a contract they should have made when they missed something, what do you play to the next few tricks after winning A♠ ?

[helene_t]

If West has four clubs to the queen we will need to ruff a club in dummy. We will have to hope that East doesn't have three or more diamonds because we can draw only two rounds of trumps. If both follow twice in trumps we cash a high club. If East ruffs we are down but in that case we wouldn't have made it anyway.

[nige1]

Cyberyeti, on 2014-March-09, 18:28, said:

IMPs
9♠ lead, you can't guess this right, KJ are over the Q, you're in hand for possibly the last time, plan the play

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Spoiler

Win ♠A. Finesse ♣J. Cash ♦A and (assuming both follow), ♦K and ♣A. If ♣ are 3-2, then draw trumps and claim. Otherwise, ruff a ♣ before drawing more trumps, hoping that RHO's shape is 5521 or 5611.
If RHO has a (most unlikely) 5800 shape, then you can still succeed by drawing at most one round of trumps. Continue ♣AK, ruff a ♣, ♥A, ruff a ♣, Now lead a ♥ from dummy to make your small trump.

[Cyberyeti]

OK, people have the point, E was 5521 so the key is to finesse the club, draw 2 rounds of trumps then play A♣. This was beyond some decent declarers in the event I played in. Nigel's point about the 5800 is amusing but I think E would have bid over 2♣.

[Zelandakh]

Is a hand featuring Kickback, DOPI and tertiary deductions that several experienced declarers got wrong really N/B material now? It seems like a decent I/A hand to post though.

[Cyberyeti]

Zelandakh, on 2014-March-18, 10:07, said:

Is a hand featuring Kickback, DOPI and tertiary deductions that several experienced declarers got wrong really N/B material now? It seems like a decent I/A hand to post though.

The auction was largely irrelevant except that it featured a double of an artificial heart bid which was the only reason I posted it.

I thought the actual play problem was the sort of hand somebody better than a beginner only gets wrong if they play too quickly, it's very easy to play the third trump without realising you've missed something.

My partner actually went off in a "cow flew by" way much more creative than that.