[akhare]

You land in 6♣ after West overcalls 1♠. The opening lead is Q♥.

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What's your line of play?

[jillybean]

I think the only hope is that hearts are 3-3
Win A♥, draw trump, play K♥ and small ♥

[inquiry]

akhare, on 2011-January-08, 22:17, said:

You land in 6♣ after West overcalls 1♠. The opening lead is Q♥.

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What's your line of play?

West has very little for his 1♠ overcall. We can even speculate that he is missing one of the ♦KQJ, so he has heart QJ and spade Q, and probably a fair number of spades. One reasonable line is a throw in with the third round of spades.... but this requires card reading on your part. This line is

Win heart King. Run clubs, coming to an ending along the lines of this.

you cash the last club, and WEST has to keep three spades (else you win three spades in dummy), two hearts (else the ace drops the jack and sets you ten up), so he comes down to one diamond. You cash the diamond, and then play three rounds of spades, allowing West to win the third round. He will be forced to lead away from the protected "heart JACK"

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This play presumes you can get a good handle on West's hand to know he didn't come down to stiff heart Jack or doubleton spade. The spade count should be easy enough, as you play him for at least 6 spades, but the red suit count could be tricky. A perfectly safe alternative line is to play for a squeeze, which requires you to "correct the count". Since I assume west DOES not have five hearts (no michaels), you can simply duck the first heart. This could even be a "compound squeeze" with West guarding against hearts alone, and both guard against the pointed suits. But more than likely you will play for WEst to have six spades and the heart jack. Win the shift (heart would help you), pull trumps, come to something like this....

You cash heart ACE, and when west ends up with 4 hearts (hearts not 3-3) the diamond ACE will squeeze West in the majors. And should East show up with 4 hearts (west shows out (of course then the jack falls), Here there is no guess works on West distribution after he starts discarding on clubs.

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[jillybean]

I knew I should have waited and saved myself the embarrassment.

[inquiry]

jillybean, on 2011-January-08, 23:11, said:

I knew I should have waited and saved myself the embarrassment.

Well, hearts 3-3 is one of the possibilities in my lines.

A real possibility is West has a singleton heart Queen. In which case the correct way to duck the heart might be win the ACE at trick one, pull trumps, then "hook" East for the jack. Bridge is a complicated game, because this gives up on QJ doubleton, yada yada..... I am sure someone will give it more thought and find the correct killer line.

[rogerclee]

Win the king in hand and draw three rounds of trumps ending in dummy, and then play a low heart towards hand. If RHO flies jack we are done, if he plays low then we duck. Assume LHO wins with the non-jack, then we fall back on a major suit squeeze against west or 3-3 hearts.

[nigel_k]

rogerclee, on 2011-January-08, 23:43, said:

Win the king in hand and draw three rounds of trumps ending in dummy, and then play a low heart towards hand. If RHO flies jack we are done, if he plays low then we duck. Assume LHO wins with the non-jack, then we fall back on a major suit squeeze against west or 3-3 hearts.

Agree with this. But knowing the bidding could help us determine the heart holdings where it might be attractive for West to lead Q.

[Fluffy]

we can endplay LHO on a diamond, he has to give us ♠J or ♥10, this is the only line that works if LHO has 4♥ and 5♠ and keeps exactly 2 spades while eastr protects the third round.

EDIT: Seems like dummy is squeezed before LHO, this line requires a missdefence.

[gnasher]

I don't like the idea of ducking a heart early, because it gives up the chance of making three tricks by force when they're QJ9x-8x. It would also be really silly if LHO was 5=5=1=2.

If I'm going to play a squeeze, I can always duck a heart later.

[CSGibson]

I'm ducking the first heart, sort of a bath coup. We win right away if the hearts are continued, and still have our major suit squeeze chances against a RHO that has 6 spades, as well as double squeeze chances around diamonds if they don't switch to that suit, the chance of QJ tight in hearts, and the chance of 3-3 hearts.

As to Gnasher's concern that they might be 5-5-(2/1), I don't lend much weight to that, but that's because I know that they had an opportunity to bid 2♥ in the auction after bidding 1♠, information you didn't have.

[tolvyrj]

I would be happier if i knew how the bidding has gone, but i guess u have checked and dbl checked u aces and spade controls so west knows what he is doing. He is not trying to give his prd a ruff aka. his spades aint that long, how can he overcall them then? There r many reasons for that but my guess is he has a diamond suit as well. Q of hearts? my guess is a lead from a short suit perhaps a singleton, leading Q against slam from QJx is not a healthy move. I would take the ace, pull the trumps and took a heart hook aginst K10; now if west takes that with J of hearts i can always hope that H r 3-3.

[rhm]

I think after the ♥Q lead there is no layout where you can not make the hand double dummy on the sensible assumption that West must have the ♠Q. (Whether East controls the third round of spades is not important.)

Assume West to hold the ♥J. (If you decide to play East for the jack you have to play differently but the play is trivial)

Win the ♥K and simply run all your ♣
When you play the last ♣ the position is as follows:


dummy

♠AK6
♥A74
♦T
♣ --

declarer

♠J8
♥T5
♦A3
♣7


West has to come down first to 6 cards. If West has kept less than 3 cards in ♥, simply discard the ♠6 from dummy.
Play a ♥ to the ace and if the jack does not drop, establish the fourth heart in dummy.

So West has to keep 3 cards in ♥. He must hold at least ♠Qx or else you have 3 tricks in ♠. Dummy now discards the ♦ten.
Now cash the ♦ ace, and West will be down to J98 in ♥ and Qx in ♠, while you discard the ♥4 from dummy.
Now play the ♠8. West can not unblock or again you have 3 ♠ tricks. Now throw him in with the ♠jack.

Granted you have to take a position on the ♥jack and you need to read the end position carefully, e.g. ♥ could be 3-3 all the time, but I see no defense and playing all your ♣ immediately will put West under a lot of pressure.

Rainer Herrmann

[CSGibson]

rhm, on 2011-January-11, 04:22, said:

I think after the ♥Q lead there is no layout where you can not make the hand double dummy on the sensible assumption that West must have the ♠Q. (Whether East controls the third round of spades is not important.)

Assume West to hold the ♥J. (If you decide to play East for the jack you have to play differently but the play is trivial)

Win the ♥K and simply run all your ♣
When you play the last ♣ the position is as follows:


dummy

♠AK6
♥A74
♦T
♣ --

declarer

♠J8
♥T5
♦A3
♣7


West has to come down first to 6 cards. If West has kept less than 3 cards in ♥, simply discard the ♠6 from dummy.
Play a ♥ to the ace and if the jack does not drop, establish the fourth heart in dummy.

So West has to keep 3 cards in ♥. He must hold at least ♠Qx or else you have 3 tricks in ♠. Dummy now discards the ♦ten.
Now cash the ♦ ace, and West will be down to J98 in ♥ and Qx in ♠, while you discard the ♥4 from dummy.
Now play the ♠8. West can not unblock or again you have 3 ♠ tricks. Now throw him in with the ♠jack.

Granted you have to take a position on the ♥jack and you need to read the end position carefully, e.g. ♥ could be 3-3 all the time, but I see no defense and playing all your ♣ immediately will put West under a lot of pressure.

Rainer Herrmann

Very nice line. Unfortunately, it's righty that has Qxx of spades (and I'm not being a devils advocate, just remembering the hand). We play precision, and lefty stuck in a nuisance 1♠ bid over our strong club with Txxxx QJx Kxx xx, and righty failed to bid 2♠ with Qxx xxx QJxxx xx.