[sathyab]

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♦J led. When opponents preempt, a bad trump break is always in the picture. Also given the favorable vulnerability and that his partner was a passed hand LHO could easily be taking liberties. So if you come up with a line that makes when LHO has seven ♥s and a stiff ♠, it'd be preferable if it also worked when he has only six ♥s and 2 ♠s for instance.

If you duck the first trick, RHO plays the Nine on the first round and LHO continues the suit with the Ten and RHO plays the Queen this time.

[gnasher]

I can't see anything better than to win the first or second diamond, play a spade to dummy, ruff a heart, play a spade to dummy, and then:
- If spades are 3-2, claim, cashing the clubs
- If spades are 1=4, ruff another heart and play winning clubs, hoping that RHO is 4324.

[aguahombre]

I don't know how to make it. North, however, must think his South is able to.

Otherwise I don't see much reason for the raise to 4S, having already shown the values for the 3-level.

[sathyab]

aguahombre, on 2011-October-09, 16:26, said:

I don't know how to make it. North, however, must think his South is able to.

Otherwise I don't see much reason for the raise to 4S, having already shown the values for the 3-level.

North was Michael Seamon, South was Jimmy Cayne, who is known for sound openings. Second chair r/w this hand is somewhat light by JEC's opening standards, which is probably one reason why North may have raised. That being said, bidding and play are two different aspects of the game. Just because you're in a pushy, difficult or perhaps close to impossible contract is no reason not to try your best to make it. In case it's of interest to you, the other table also reached the same contract on the exact same sequence.

[sathyab]

gnasher, on 2011-October-09, 16:22, said:

I can't see anything better than to win the first or second diamond, play a spade to dummy, ruff a heart, play a spade to dummy, and then:
- If spades are 3-2, claim, cashing the clubs
- If spades are 1=4, ruff another heart and play winning clubs, hoping that RHO is 4324.

RHO is not likely to have two Diamonds from the play so far, assuming that you refused the first trick. LHO led the Jack at T1 and would have continued with the Ten at T2 and RHO who played the 9 first would have followed up with the Q next. That'd be consistent with LHO having ♦JT and RHO the KQ9. So if LHO shows out on the second trump, RHO is either 4=3=3=3 or 4=4=3=2, the latter when LHO made a frisky 3♥ bid with only a six-bagger and RHO didn't act over North's double because he didn't want to encourage partner to bid again when he had so much defense.

[gnasher]

sathyab, on 2011-October-09, 23:16, said:

RHO is not likely to have two Diamonds from the play so far, assuming that you refused the first trick. LHO led the Jack at T1 and would have continued with the Ten at T2 and RHO who played the 9 first would have followed up with the Q next. That'd be consistent with LHO having ♦JT and RHO the KQ9. So if LHO shows out on the second trump, RHO is either 4=3=3=3 or 4=4=3=2, the latter when LHO made a frisky 3♥ bid with only a six-bagger and RHO didn't act over North's double because he didn't want to encourage partner to bid again when he had so much defense.

Your original post had West playing ♦J twice, so it was quite hard to make any inferences about the layout. Anyway, I don't see why the diamonds can't be KJ10-Qx, though x AQJxxxx KJ10 xx looks more like a 4♥ overcall.

By the way, I think it's normal to bid 3♥ on a 6-card suit here, especially with short spades. A five-card suit would be frisky.

Going back to the play, another possibility is to cash one spade and then play three rounds of clubs. If LHO ruffed the second round, I could discard from dummy, ruff a heart continuation, cash another spade, and later throw the diamonds on the clubs. If everyone followed to the third club, I could throw a diamond, then play a fourth club throwing another diamond. That looks better than my first plan, though it fails when LHO is 2632.

[sathyab]

Ok, if LHO who's short in trumps ruffs the third ♣, then you should have tried to pull trumps and claim Otherwise you can try to cater for a 4-1 trump break and hopefully find a line that also works with some other 3-2 breaks as well.

So let's say you start with one high trump and a ♥ ruff, then run ♣. If ♣ are 3-3, play a 4th round pitching the last ♦ from dummy regardless of who ruffs.

If LHO has two trumps, he will/should be the one ruffing. Now you ruff the forced ♥ return and play the last ♣ pitching dummy's ♥. Now RHO can ruff this. But he has only one more trump left, so you can ruff his ♦ return and claim. This is the lay-out:

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If LHO has a stiff trump, RHO ruffs and returns a trump. You win, ruff a ♥ and play the last ♣ pitching a ♥ and RHO has to use his last trump. This is the lay-out:

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It might appear as though you need to/can ruff all of dummy's ♥s to make the hand, so if you start with two ♥s, it's too late when trumps are 4-1. You do need to ruff 2 ♥s, but not necessarily the last one, as long as you can use your ♣s as trump-substitutes and you can't do that if you ruff more than one ♥ before running ♣s.

The other neat thing about the hand is that once ♣s are 3-3, you don't care who ruffs the next two rounds of ♣s, as that'll exhaust two enemy trumps and you can pull the last trump when you get back in.