[DavidKok]

Yesterday I struggled to find the best line in this 3NT contract. There are multiple decision points, multiple chances that can be combined, and no guaranteed path to victory. Please explain in detail how you would play this hand, or what information you need to proceed. Hand rotated to make South declarer.

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We're playing IMPs. West leads the ♥3, 2nd/4th. Plan the play.

[P_Marlowe]

Scoring may matter, but my guess is MP?

[DavidKok]

Sorry, edited to clarify. IMP (Butler) scoring.

[P_Marlowe]

Ok, I will give it a try

#1 we have 3 tricks in the bank, and need 6 more
#2 3 tricks can be developed in clubs, no communication issues
2 tricks can be developed in diamonds, there may be communication issues
1 spade can be developed in spade

I would start with the heart of 10, low from QJxx is normal, Q from QJ9, if Q/J
are distributed, the 10 will not make the trick, but we may gain information
about who holds what

If it does not hold, I will duck, my guess is,they will continue with hearts, after
which I will develop clubs, I may need to preserve the 8 of clubs as an entry

I will than play small to the King of diamonds, and diamonds back.
If they ever try spade, I will finesse, developing my spade trick.

[WasWinM]

Once the clubs are established, I need 3 more tricks before they can get their 5. I start by playing the heart 10 in case the lead is from QJ32. Presuming that doesn't work, I duck the J or Q from RHO, win the return, and play the small clubs to the J. If that holds, I place the ace with LHO. I lead a small diamond from the K toward the QJ. If RHO rises, I have my 3 tricks. When he ducks, I place RHO with the ace.
I revert to clubs to force out the ace. Things can change now, either a heart return or a spade switch. Either way, I finesse the spade. It loses, I win either a heart of spade return, and play to the king of diamonds. I end with 2 spades, 2 hearts, 3 clubs and 2 diamonds. while they have captured two aces, the spade king, and 1 heart. It seems to me he key to this hand is either spade finesse working or getting an opponent into the Hobson's choice of either beating the air with his ace or letting you establish a trick while not losing a tempo.

Of course this is all provided the aces are located as I proposed. If it is otherwise, I'll have to try for 3 spade tricks or even 4 if I can find a diamond/spade squeeze. Lots of ways to go on this one or to go down on this one, LoL.

[mikeh]

Interesting hand. I played a similar 3N today: multiple options, no indication from the lead or the bidding. I misguessed…I still think it was a reasonable play but I was slated for down 2 until they misdefended.

LHO is more likely to hold H9xx than QJxx, although Jxxx is such a bad lead in theory that I think it close.

The 8 will be best if LHO has Q9xx or J9xx, since we maybe set up enough tricks without AST gaining the lead in time to hurt us. Picture west with Kxx Q9xx Axx xxx. We top east’s J with the ace, lead a low diamond. West is very unlikely to pop and even if he does, he has no safe exit. His partner’s only entry is the club Ace and switching to a club is giving up. We get 6 minor tricks and (at least) 3 major winners.

I’m not down yet if east wins the first diamond. Maybe west has no entry, or hearts are 4-3 and the spade hook wins.

I know tte line I’ll take if RHO plays the 9 at trick one, but it’s late and I’ll post it if I learn that this happened.

[DavidKok]

I reasoned that the ♥4 was best if LHO held H9xx (covering an honour with the ace, and otherwise winning with the 7). RHO inserted the ♥9, which I ducked, and I won the heart continuation (RHO returned the ♥2, West played the ♥5) with the ace. Next up a small diamond to the king, which holds (♦4-2-K-T, this pair plays low=even, high=odd).
Can you live with my choices so far, and what is your next move? I will tell you what happens if you insert the ♥T the first trick at a later time, when we're closer to having completed this line of play.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

I think it is close, and if you play for H9 with opening leader or QJ, that is fine.
If we ever find out, that the lead was from Jxxx, we may assume the King of spades
is not with the opening leader, whatever this may help us.
Having one the 2nd trick, and having scored the DK, I would start with clubs to the
hand and another club round trying to keep the C8 as entry, we start developing the
clubs.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[mikeh]

I think…I’m almost sure…that LHO has Qxx and A7xx in the reds. Very few would lead a heart from J53 and I don’t think many defenders would play the diamond 10 from 109x. Plus it looks as if they’re giving honest coun5, which is often best when defending what looks likely to be a touch and go contract.

I can’t control who has the club ace. Both opps will clear hearts if I drive out the club and now I’m down if RHO has the spade king.

But if I lose to the spade king before tackling clubs, I may find RHO with both minor aces.

2 diamonds, 2 spades, 2Hs and 3 clubs are 9 tricks, with my having lost a trick in every suit.

So I hook the spade.

Btw, while it’s often silly to pretend to read the exact hand on this sort of problem, I think LHO is likely to be xxx Qxx Axxx Axx/xx Qxx Axxx Axxx.

From either holding, imo the correct lead is the low heart. We need something from partner and we need less in hearts, because we have the queen to contribute, than we do in spades. If west has the king of spades, we don’t care much about the hand since we’re making anyway.

Edit. Never analyze a hand when doing something else, lol.

Here’s how I tbink the hand should be played, with playing low or the 8 from dummy on the first heart, the two plays being identical in effect.

Duck. Then when the 2 is returned, realize that it is almost surely RHO who has the 4th heart. This is very important and informs our next play. We should not, imo, play a diamond. If east has two entries, we are going down. If he has one, we need to knock it out asap. We are always going to need two spade tricks, so if east only entry is the spade king we have to knock it out st trick 3.

So…win the 2Nd heart, spade finesse. If it wins, we can assume 3 spade tricks.

Now we don’t care if we lose 2 heartbtricks. Just play on the minors

If the spade hook loses, we need LHO to hold both minor aces

[DavidKok]

Mike, the diamond trick was won on the table. You're in the wrong hand to take a spade hook.

Here is the full hand:

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After the tricks up to the diamond king the remaining cards are

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with North on lead. The only way to make from here is a diamond ducked in both hands, playing West to have started with exactly ♦A2.

I was one of only two declarers to go down in 3NT, with 4 declarers making their contract (and 1 failing to bid it). With the spade ace offside and the diamond ace as a slow entry I ended up losing one spade, two hearts, one diamond and one club.
After the hearts decision on trick one I feel like the rest is reasonable, but I was especially curious if someone would read the diamond signal or find a serious flaw in my line. I was also curious if inserting the ♥10 rather than letting it run to the ♥7 is really indicated - I thought it was close but slightly better to play low.

[mikeh]

DavidKok, on 2026-September-29, 09:49, said:

Mike, the diamond trick was won on the table. You're in the wrong hand to take a spade hook.

Here is the full hand:

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After the tricks up to the diamond king the remaining cards are

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with North on lead. The only way to make from here is a diamond ducked in both hands, playing West to have started with exactly ♦A2.

I was one of only two declarers to go down in 3NT, with 4 declarers making their contract (and 1 failing to bid it). With the spade ace offside and the diamond ace as a slow entry I ended up losing one spade, two hearts, one diamond and one club.
After the hearts decision on trick one I feel like the rest is reasonable, but I was especially curious if someone would read the diamond signal or find a serious flaw in my line. I was also curious if inserting the ♥10 rather than letting it run to the ♥7 is really indicated - I thought it was close but slightly better to play low.

An understandable error on your part. I wrote my post while overseeing a technician servicing our various gas appliances and he had lots of questions so I got distracted. I edited the post once I realized my mistake. My line changes once the heart 9 appears...winning can't be right. And when the 2 comes back I change my view of the hand, placing RHO as the danger hand with 4 hearts. Therefore I hook the spade right away.

I now see that the 2 was from 962. In NA, against good players, it'd be 99%+ that RHO had 4 hearts. If the 2 back is normal in the field in which you played, I'd presumably know that...either that it was or that it might be, which would prompt a question. In fact, against anyone I'm not extremely familiar with I always ask 'leads and carding' and if, in NA, they didn't tell me that they play non standard returns, I'd expect a ruling in my favour

[DavidKok]

Sorry, I understand the distraction but do not accept you calling this 'an error on my part'. I specifically asked which information you need, and gave exact cards. The previous remarks on which hands hold which cards are confusing to me - you mention RHO holding the king of spades, but also both aces, but also four hearts, while playing from the wrong hand? To me it seems the definition of RHO and LHO flips a few times in the text. You also failed to remark that, in your construction, West led the ♥3 "2nd/4th" from ♥Qx3. Additionally, I think an expert East might well falsecard on the heart return here - but even without that, some remark on your assumptions not adding up would have helped me along in clarifying the carding.

I understand we should always give all carding, and I'm sorry for only having listed the "2nd/4th" here. Nevertheless, I failed to understand your previous (and now edited) post, and I did not manage to extract a request for clarification from there.

It is shocking to me that it would be possible to get this board overturned, especially in light of the hand construction. Almost certainly I misunderstood which hand you meant with the three-card heart suit.

[mikeh]

DavidKok, on 2026-September-29, 14:34, said:

Sorry, I understand the distraction but do not accept you calling this 'an error on my part'. I specifically asked which information you need, and gave exact cards. The previous remarks on which hands hold which cards are confusing to me - you mention RHO holding the king of spades, but also both aces, but also four hearts, while playing from the wrong hand? To me it seems the definition of RHO and LHO flips a few times in the text. You also failed to remark that, in your construction, West led the ♥3 "2nd/4th" from ♥Qx3. Additionally, I think an expert East might well falsecard on the heart return here - but even without that, some remark on your assumptions not adding up would have helped me along in clarifying the carding.

I understand we should always give all carding, and I'm sorry for only having listed the "2nd/4th" here. Nevertheless, I failed to understand your previous (and now edited) post, and I did not manage to extract a request for clarification from there.

It is shocking to me that it would be possible to get this board overturned, especially in light of the hand construction. Almost certainly I misunderstood which hand you meant with the three-card heart suit.

The ‘error’ was not reading my full post, thereby not realizing that I’d caught my own error! I wasn’t suggesting any misleading in your part. I created tge sityation and yiur failing to read my full post, before pointing out that I was in the wrong hand, isn’t exactly a big mistake, lol. I suspect a subtle language issue in terms of the semantic load n ‘error’…I suspect you took it as more critical of you than intended.


I didn’t in any way suggest that, if their leads were normal, I’d even seek a ruling. My comment was that in NA one would lead the heart 3 from Qxx, playing 4th best. I failed to appreciate the possibility of leading the middle card from, say, Q9x, probably because that lead seems to me to be asking for trouble…or do those who lead that card never find declarer with AJ8?

Anyway, my reference to a ruling would be in NA, after my question about carding, if they didn’t disclose that RHO would return the 2 from an original 962 or that opening leader would not lead low from Hxx. If I were playing against European players, as I have on numerous occasions, I’ve learned the (very) hard way to ask detailed questions. While most international players are very forthcoming, I’ve had tremendous problems getting proper disclosure from players of a certain nationality, which I won’t name because it would be unfair to those from that country who do give proper disclosure. Btw, I’m not referring to Dutch..I’ve always admired the way your country’s players conduct themselves

[akwoo]

mikeh, on 2026-September-29, 14:52, said:

Anyway, my reference to a ruling would be in NA, after my question about carding, if they didn’t disclose that RHO would return the 2 from an original 962 or that opening leader would not lead low from Hxx.

Mikeh is of course correct for the opponents he typically plays against, but a fair number of intermediate players (some of whom have many masterpoints) will never have learned what is standard to return from an original 962, and the partnership will actually have no agreement on this, nor would they know that anyone did or that there was something to disclose. I don't think you'll get a ruling in your favor when the opponents have no agreement and didn't even know there is something to disclose there (nor would they remember a year later the next time they played in a regional).

I had a partner who routinely played highest of touching honors when 3rd to play. I tried to get him out of that, with the result that he usually played the lowest but sometimes forgot. I had (and still have) no idea how to disclose that (and it took me probably a half dozen sessions to notice he did this consistently when we started playing), especially since any disclosure would prompt him to remember!

[mikeh]

akwoo, on 2026-September-29, 17:14, said:

Mikeh is of course correct for the opponents he typically plays against, but a fair number of intermediate players (some of whom have many masterpoints) will never have learned what is standard to return from an original 962, and the partnership will actually have no agreement on this, nor would they know that anyone did or that there was something to disclose. I don't think you'll get a ruling in your favor when the opponents have no agreement and didn't even know there is something to disclose there (nor would they remember a year later the next time they played in a regional).

I had a partner who routinely played highest of touching honors when 3rd to play. I tried to get him out of that, with the result that he usually played the lowest but sometimes forgot. I had (and still have) no idea how to disclose that (and it took me probably a half dozen sessions to notice he did this consistently when we started playing), especially since any disclosure would prompt him to remember!

I wouldn’t even call the TD if the opps appeared to have no agreement. However, in NA I have not yet met anyone who leads the middle card from Q9x, as an extreme example, and met and played with many who’d lead low from Qxx. At least here, the other lead is so unusual that I can’t imagine it being systemically played by a partnership with no agreements as to the card east returns from an original 3 card holding. Plus, unless the players were from some other part of the world, just visiting, I’d expect them to know that their treatment would be unexpected absent disclosure….especially against someone who took the trouble to ask about leads and carding agreements. I’ve definitely played against people who seem to think that it’s good bridge to play unusual agreements and make at best, incomplete (often misleading) disclosure but in every case they were clearly very experienced players. Unethical, yes but that’s how a (tiny) minority likes to play.