rhm, on 2014-April-22, 05:06, said:
If that is true, why not back your judgement and simply win in hand and play ♦A followed by the ♦Q? 1
As long as RHO has at least one heart honor, the club loser will eventually disappear on the 4th heart. RHO can not have 5 spades, 4 clubs, the ♦K and 4 hearts.
Why take the diamond finesse and compromise the entries to dummy?
There are also some options in the club suit.
For example if LHO wins the ♦K and returns the third diamond, you can win in dummy and play a club to the ten, since you now have the entries to establish the clubs and discard your heart losers. 2
Rainer Herrmann
I said I like his line. Basically playing on hearts. I like taking club in hand, cashing
♠ A and ruffing last
♠ and playing a
♥ from dummy sending it, planning to put LHO in a tuff situation at trick 5 for lead.
Having said that I can try to answer your questions (the blue parts in the quote)
1-There are multiple reasons why I do not like playing
♦ A and another
♦. But mostly because i
t simply just does not work. A good defender can simply refuse to take the 2nd ♦ in order to gain control of the trumps when in with a heart honor.(admittedly it is not as easy to see this at the table by a defender) How are you planning to make if this occurs? Assume LHO holds Jxxxxx Kxx Kxx x and RHO KQxxx Qxx x QJ9x
2-The line about playing towards my T was in my mind also (once you manipulate clubs to RHO it is obvious how to play the clubs if you choose this path) But when one chooses to endplay LHO at trick 4, after
♠ A and ruff he has to discard something from the dummy. In order to be consistent to play vs multiple shapes I would probably choose to discard club from dummy on spade A, rightly or wrongly I felt more comfy with this line tbh.