[lmilne]

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They lead A♦ after a fairly long pause for thought, you play low from dummy after roughly 10 seconds, RHO plays the 9 in tempo and you (mistakenly?) play the 8.
They continue a low diamond at trick 2. On the lead of an ace they play reverse attitude and they rarely play count signals. If it makes much difference, your opponents are reasonably experienced players but not top level.

[billw55]

edit: a little trickier than I thought at first.

[Winstonm]

I can't think of anything better to do than win the K, cross to club A, heart to Q, two high clubs pitching spades, then A,K spades and spade ruff high, banking on either stiff 10 of hearts or hearts 3/2.

[mikeh]

I win in dummy (you should definitely have played the J at trick one, since LHO would probably not continue the suit if he had the Q, out of a fear that he's giving you a free finesse, altho the odds that is is useful seem remote: AJxxx KJxxx J AJ?

Anyway, having won in dummy, it seems foolish to bank everything on a fortunate trump break, so I win the club A, cash a high trump in hand and cross to the heart Q. If both follow or the 10 is stiff, then I cash 2 clubs in dummy, pitching spades, and then AK and ruff a spade. I am in dummy now with nothing but trump in my hand. I am in jeopardy only if LHO has the now stiff heart 10 and can overruff me, so I will simply try to read the minors correctly.

If trump are 4-1, non stiff 10, and LHO holds 4, then I have to use all my tops to pull trump. I am in dummy and must play for Q10(x)(x) in spades on my left, so I'll advance the spade J (which also caters to stiff 10 on my left).

If trumps are 1-4, maybe I can trump coup, but I have to shorten my trump to do that. So I cash the top clubs, pitching spades, and ruff a diamond to hand (at the table I might have a feel that diamonds are safer to ruff..I don't want rho pitching from xx in spades) and then AK spades, ruff a spade and I am in dummy with K9 of trump sitting over 10x in rho.

[gszes]

mikeh, on 2013-May-06, 13:29, said:

I win in dummy (you should definitely have played the J at trick one, since LHO would probably not continue the suit if he had the Q, out of a fear that he's giving you a free finesse, altho the odds that is is useful seem remote: AJxxx KJxxx J AJ?

Anyway, having won in dummy, it seems foolish to bank everything on a fortunate trump break, so I win the club A, cash a high trump in hand and cross to the heart Q. If both follow or the 10 is stiff, then I cash 2 clubs in dummy, pitching spades, and then AK and ruff a spade. I am in dummy now with nothing but trump in my hand. I am in jeopardy only if LHO has the now stiff heart 10 and can overruff me, so I will simply try to read the minors correctly.

If trump are 4-1, non stiff 10, and LHO holds 4, then I have to use all my tops to pull trump. I am in dummy and must play for Q10(x)(x) in spades on my left, so I'll advance the spade J (which also caters to stiff 10 on my left).

If trumps are 1-4, maybe I can trump coup, but I have to shorten my trump to do that. So I cash the top clubs, pitching spades, and ruff a diamond to hand (at the table I might have a feel that diamonds are safer to ruff..I don't want rho pitching from xx in spades) and then AK spades, ruff a spade and I am in dummy with K9 of trump sitting over 10x in rho.

I like this LOP but I do not see the benefit of starting a top trump from hand then another to dummy. Why not win the dia K club to A heart to AQ
where we learn about the trump break 2 top clubs pitching spades then spade AK and ruff a spade. If all of this works if trumps were 32 I am cold
ruffing something high back to hand and pulling the last trump if trumps were 14 I ruff anything with the 9 and win the last 2 tricks if spades were
14 I need to figure out the minors ruffing back to hand with the 9 and winning last 2 tricks.

[mikeh]

gszes, on 2013-May-06, 16:42, said:

I like this LOP but I do not see the benefit of starting a top trump from hand then another to dummy. Why not win the dia K club to A heart to AQ
where we learn about the trump break 2 top clubs pitching spades then spade AK and ruff a spade. If all of this works if trumps were 32 I am cold
ruffing something high back to hand and pulling the last trump if trumps were 14 I ruff anything with the 9 and win the last 2 tricks if spades were
14 I need to figure out the minors ruffing back to hand with the 9 and winning last 2 tricks.

If trump break well, it would be a pity to find spades 4-2 and have the short spade hand be able to ruff higher than dummy. Hearts will usually be 3-2, and spades will most often be 4-2, and when both are, then the short spades will usually hold the 3rd heart.

That's why one leaves a heart honour in dummy.