[inquiry]

Continuing the 6NT hands for a while longer, here is another one.

You seemed to have lost your way in the auction. Partner showed three key cards and presumably the ♠Queen. When East doubled, partner seemed to come to his senses that he lied about the ♠Q and inexplicably decided to run to 6NT. Well, which was duly doubled again. West got off to the ♥Queen opening lead despite the double.

Well you were not making 6♠, but you are not going down too many in 6NT. Can you make Wet wish he had no doubled 6♠'s? What is your line of play? Would you risk playing to make?

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[johnu]

Spoiler

Win the ♥K and run 5 diamonds pitching a club and a spade from hand.

If it looks like West has 4+ clubs, you probably can't make without help from the opponents.

If east pitches a heart on the run of diamonds(or west started with e.g. 1=7=1=4), you have a winkle squeeze. If west comes down to 2 hearts and 4 clubs, cash ♥A, ♠A , ♣K and exit a heart. It's hard to see why east would pitch a heart with no need to guard clubs. West can beat you by unblocking hearts (except with QJ10987) so east can win the heart and play spades. Depending on the opponent, the heart unblock may or may not be common, and the decision to unblock may have to start with the first heart pitch.

If it looks like east has 4+ clubs, play ♠A, ♥A and pitch another spade. If east came down to 2 spades and 3 clubs, run the clubs. If east comes down to 1 spade and 4 clubs, you have a winkle squeeze, cash ♣K and exit a spade. East will have to give you the last 3 tricks in clubs. All you need for this is for east to have 4+ spades and 4+ clubs.

Since you know west has a weak 2 in hearts and can assume east started with 4 or 5 spades, you should be able to tell who guards clubs almost all of the time.

[Fluffy]

The distribution is crystal clear, so run diamonds and East is squeezed in the blacks, he is 5314 and doesn't have any winning 6 card combination after 7 red tricks. When he pitches ♠J It is a tiny bit safer to play for stepping stone (♣K, ♠A+spade) instead of ducking the spade in the weird case west has ♠K singleton.

[inquiry]

Fluffy, on 2014-May-11, 02:49, said:

The distribution is crystal clear, so run diamonds and East is squeezed in the blacks, he is 5314 and doesn't have any winning 6 card combination after 7 red tricks. When he pitches ♠J It is a tiny bit safer to play for stepping stone (♣K, ♠A+spade) instead of ducking the spade in the weird case west has ♠K singleton.

The real version of this hand, north was the dealer and the auction went (EW not bidding at all)

2♣ - 3♣
3♦ - 3NT
4NT - 6♦
6NT - All pass

East had ♠KQJx and four clubs (I moved a spade from West to East to prevent a spade lead after the double which makes it too easy to play) The steppingstone is still required and poor East with four spades can't avoid it. I changed the auction to make the steppingstone VERY obvious. How much harder do you think the steppingstone would have been to find without the bidding clues?

[inquiry]

This was the real auction and real EW hands (for the play above, I removed the ♠x from West because if he leads that, you can unblock clubs and run your 12 top tricks using the ♥K as entry to the clubs). I could have left the bidding as it was in real world, but I wanted to paint with broad strokes that EAST has all the significant spades. This should help the visualization of what you need to make.

It is a relatively easy hand on the bidding in the OP, but I don't see a reasonable play other than the winning line even on the "real" auction.

If you are unclear of how the stepping stone works, click through the NEXT button to follow the play in this post.

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[Fluffy]

What I meant is that in the end position if you keep 2 spades in hand you don't need stepping stone, you can just duck a spade.

I don't think there is much alternative to play than for someone to hold 4 clubs and KQx of spades (failing to unblock).

Perhaps the best play is to advance ♠A early to avoid unblocks?

[Antrax]

Wouldn't E bump to 3♥ after the double at favourable?

[inquiry]

Antrax, on 2014-May-11, 21:25, said:

Wouldn't E bump to 3♥ after the double at favourable?

Well, the shown auction didn't occur in real life, see the idea I had about making the play easier to find the steppingstone squeeze. The real auction and real hand is shown in a later post above, but the steppingstone still works. Fluffy had it right, if you are going to play for the stepping stone, it is a good idea to cash the ♠A early to try to prevent unblock from KQx.

But let's give east the benefit of the doubt (on the hypotheitical auction, East had FIVE spades (see he threw the two small ones away earliy) and West had six hearts (not five). As I said, I swapped a heart and a spade so West could not lead a spade. On a spade lead, 12 tricks are straight forward so no steppingstone needed. But yes, many would bump hearts with three at those colors.