[Trumpace]

You somehow reach 3NT after E/W determined that their suit was spades:

Scoring: Rubber

LHO leads ♠Q, RHO overtakes with A, and continues with a spade.

---

Plan the play.

[Old York]

Spoiler

Low Heart to the Ace, then back to the King.... suit fails to break?
Switch to ♦Jack and hope for the best

I would never consider myself to be an advanced rubber bridge player, never get the practice these days

Edited
Tony

[Trumpace]

Sorry I should have requested no quick spoilers from adv/+. Can you please hide your answer old York?

[Trumpace]

btw, Old York might have thought it obvious and forgot to mention one thing about trick 2.

[kenrexford]

Technically, there's probably more to this:

Spoiler

I mean, suppose that "E/W determined that their suit was spades" because someone showed long spades. Suppose, further, that hearts split 4-1 with the person holding long hearts also holding long spades. If either East or West has, say, 10 cards in hearts and spades, then the failure of his partner to make any preempt in clubs may suggest that you play for the diamond King to be stiff.

I point this out purely to note that it is sometimes a good idea to remain flexible and open to radical ideas if the actual cards, in the context of an actual sequence, suggest the need for desperate measures.

[Trumpace]

kenrexford, on May 17 2009, 01:10 PM, said:

Technically, there's probably more to this:

Spoiler

I mean, suppose that "E/W determined that their suit was spades" because someone showed long spades. Suppose, further, that hearts split 4-1 with the person holding long hearts also holding long spades. If either East or West has, say, 10 cards in hearts and spades, then the failure of his partner to make any preempt in clubs may suggest that you play for the diamond King to be stiff.

I point this out purely to note that it is sometimes a good idea to remain flexible and open to radical ideas if the actual cards, in the context of an actual sequence, suggest the need for desperate measures.

Agree, but it is hard to give that as part of the problem statement without giving away the main theme of the hand. I hope you do agree that once we arrive at the crucial point, the bidding + fall of the cards will pretty much suggest only one line of play.

[Old York]

I must admit that the overtake puzzled me. Was there any significance to the card at trick 2? Suit pref? It all looked a bit unnecessary and may block the suit?

[Trumpace]

Old York, on May 17 2009, 03:10 PM, said:

I must admit that the overtake puzzled me. Was there any significance to the card at trick 2? Suit pref? It all looked a bit unnecessary and may block the suit?

No no nothing as complicated as that. Only that, you have to discard something from dummy...

[whereagles]

Good BI problem. The solution is the sort of reasoning that helps advancing as a card player.

[Quantumcat]

If hearts are good there are 9 tricks.
Did he continue with a high spade or a low spade? I am presuming it is west with the longer spades? In case they are 6-3 and the hearts aren't good, duck, he can't hurt you, west would have to get on lead again if the clubs were a problem. If the hearts are no good then spades have to be 6-3 if you want to set them up and not lose a bunch of spades. But after you set up the fifth heart then you cant take the diamond finesse for a ninth trick, you would have to play ace and another then if west has the king you lose. Taking finesse is ok cause east gets it and has no more spades hopefully.

So ... you duck a spade, and take the diamond finesse before you play out the hearts, just in case hearts dont cash.

[Trumpace]

Quantumcat, on May 19 2009, 09:29 PM, said:

If hearts are good there are 9 tricks.
Did he continue with a high spade or a low spade? I am presuming it is west with the longer spades? In case they are 6-3 and the hearts aren't good, duck, he can't hurt you, west would have to get on lead again if the clubs were a problem. If the hearts are no good then spades have to be 6-3 if you want to set them up and not lose a bunch of spades. But after you set up the fifth heart then you cant take the diamond finesse for a ninth trick, you would have to play ace and another then if west has the king you lose. Taking finesse is ok cause east gets it and has no more spades hopefully.

So ... you duck a spade, and take the diamond finesse before you play out the hearts, just in case hearts dont cash.

What do you throw from dummy on tricks 2 and 3?

And after winning the 4th heart, what do you plan to do if an opp plays a ♣ (assuming you get the spade split you hope)?

[Quantumcat]

You could throw a diamond, but can't throw anything else. I'm not sure. If you could keep everything you still wouldn;t necessarily be ok with clubs: The 2nd spade could be overtaken and a club played and another when you play low, then east can play another when in with the diamond, then cash some when in with a heart. Maybe the diamond finesse for the ninth trick isn't so good. Maybe better to try for a club trick. So throw the 2 diamonds away, then play a club. East might knock out the ace of diamonds, then when he gets in with a heart, he could cross to west with the king of diamonds to cash spades. So that doesn't work. Also no good if east has no club honour, cause west has to get in before you get a 2nd club trick, with KQ.

I did just think of something though. When you have 3 spades to the ace and your p plays the Q, you are supposed to play low, to force out the K while you still have a little card, IF you are expecting to be the one who gets in (or else declarer has a definite stopper and can duck, then you have nothing to play when you get in). You won't do that if you are not expecting to get in, because you won't ever need that little card. So, either he has TWO spades, or he has three and he is not expecting to get in. So then the hearts break & diamond finesse works. So take the spade and expect the diamond finesse to work and the hearts to break for lots of tricks! Or else for him to have only 2 spades, and you don't have to throw away a club, and west is never on lead again, so they aren't a danger.

[Trumpace]

I wouldn't try to read too much into the Spade A overtake.

Assume that if you lose the lead after winning ♠K, you have a very high chance of going down, spades might still be 5-4 after all. In fact, please assume that the spades split 5-4 for the purposes of this problem. (Sorry, I should have stated it earlier itself).

[Quantumcat]

If spades are 5-4, there is nothing left but to play hearts off the top, surely? a 3-2 break is better than any finesse.

And anyway if spades ARE 6-3 then you can't discard anything in dummy on the 2nd discard.

It is a bit boring if the answer is "play hearts off the top" but what else is there???

[quiddity]

Quantumcat, on May 21 2009, 06:45 PM, said:

It is a bit boring if the answer is "play hearts off the top" but what else is there???

If you play the hearts in the right order you can check for a 3-2 break and still have a chance to try the diamond finesse if they break badly.

[Quantumcat]

Alright. A, then K, if they break badly try diamonds.

To make, the king must be onside, and NOT third (or else we only get 8 tricks, 1 club 1 spade 3 hearts 3 diamonds) or singleton offside.

I'll assume that the player with the longer spades was the one who bid, and the one with the more HCP.

Different scenarios:

-west has 5 spades and 4 hearts. W=9 cards we know of, E= 5, West is shorter in diamonds than east. Play low to ace of diamonds
-west has 4 spades and 4 hearts. W=8 cards, E=6. Low to ace.
-west has 5 spades and 1 heart. W=6 E=8, but west bid and east didn't. Finesse.
-west has 4 spades and 1 heart. W=5 E=8. East bid and west didn't. Low to ace hope singleton offside.

Is this right?

[Trumpace]

Correct. Something like that, depending on how the bidding went.

Also, we should take care not to throw any ♦ from dummy at tricks 2 and 3 (if you decide to duck trick 2).