[awm]

Here's a hand I recently had to play in 6♦ at IMPs. What's the best line?

Scoring: IMP

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Our auction was 1♠-2♦-3♦-4♣-4♥-(X)-P-4NT-5♦-5NT-6♦.

The bidding may appear a bit odd (our methods are somewhat nonstandard) but it got us to a very reasonable spot. The lead is the ♥Q (note that east doubled hearts for the lead).

[brianshark]

I think I would win the heart Ace and play the heart J. The plan being to try and ruff 2 hearts and then draw trump, pitching the club on the spade as soon as entry problems force me to. I don't think I can afford even a single round of trump before exiting in hearts or else risk entry problems.

[Halo]

At the table I'd play for favourable breaks in clubs and diamonds.

Win the heart, discard the Jack of hearts on the third club, ruff a heart, diamond, ruff a heart etc.

Makes with clubs 43, diamonds 32 and hearts no singleton.

[nige1]

awm, on Jun 3 2008, 05:58 PM, said:

Scoring: IMP


Here's a hand I recently had to play in 6♦ at IMPs. What's the best line? Our auction was 1♠-2♦-3♦-4♣-4♥-(X)-P-4NT-5♦-5NT-6♦.
The bidding may appear a bit odd (our methods are somewhat nonstandard) but it got us to a very reasonable spot. The lead is the ♥Q (note that east doubled hearts for the lead).

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A line like Halo's: ♥A, ♠AK throwing ♣, ♣KAQ discarding ♥J. If you survive all this, then attempt a cross-ruff.

[pclayton]

My gut tells me to win the ♥A and play back the Jack.

I'll ruff one heart and I assume I'll get an uppercut. Different diamond spots makes this more interesting. This gets me to 11 tricks (2♠, ♥, ♥ruff, 4♦ and 3♣'s).

In the endgame, I'll have to decide between a double (with clubs on my left), and a ♣/♥ simple against RHO.

[Codo]

I would duck the second HEart too.
If the trumps are 3-2 and they don`t return a spade, I will ruff one heart, cash all winners outside spade and reach:

AKX
-
-
-

Opps
x
x
-
x
Righty has to hold a heart, lefty a club and noone can hold three spades.

So they need to return a spade after I switch to Heart to stop me. In this case I try to ruff two hearts and discard the loosing club early on spades.

[awm]

A few comments on these lines:

(1) It seems that LHO has lead the unsupported ♥Q. While this is a possible lead from Qxx(x) it does seem pretty likely that hearts are 5-2. So ruffing two hearts may not work. Similarly some crossruff lines can run into trouble.

(2) The squeeze lines are pretty, but there's no guarantee that opponents aren't up to returning a spade upon winning the ♥J. This eliminates some of the better squeeze options.