[lamford]

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IMPS Lead J♠

You win with the ace of spades, South playing the five, and play a heart to the jack and cash the ace, all following (their trump carding conveyed nothing) and you lead a spade and North plays the ten and South the three under your queen. If anything South's carding is normal count. They will look at you askance if you ask them which card they would systemically play to give count with 9653 and say that this is their first time together. Over to you!

[Kaitlyn S]

lamford, on 2017-March-11, 06:29, said:

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IMPS Lead J♠

You win with the ace of spades, South playing the five, and play a heart to the jack and cash the ace, all following (their trump carding conveyed nothing) and you lead a spade and North plays the ten and South the three under your queen. If anything South's carding is normal count. They will look at you askance if you ask them which card they would systemically play to give count with 9653 and say that this is their first time together. Over to you!

North probably wouldn't have led the ♠J from ♠J9 so normal restricted choice doesn't apply here. North has one ♠J10 and if I play for that I wn 100% of the time by drawing the last trump and finessing. North could have ♠JT9x - there are three of those. He always would have led the jack, but half the time he plays the ♠9 the second time. Also I need the doubleton heart with South, slightly less than half the time since South has more open spaces if North has four spades. This makes the finesse more likely if South's count can be trusted.

South has no reason to play honest count here though, and North could have ♠J109 which swings the decision the other way, as ♠J109 is as likely as ♠J10 (actually it's more likely because the other cards splitting 10:10 are more common that 11:9 with the 11 in North.) So unless I think South is someone who would always show honest count (and why would he from ♠9xxx and give away the show?), I play to the king and if spades aren't 3-3, I ruff the fourth spade with the ♥Q.

[lamford]

Kaitlyn S, on 2017-March-11, 12:16, said:

He always would have led the jack, but half the time he plays the ♠9 the second time.

The problem with that is that he should play the card he is known to hold, the 10, all the time, with JT doubleton, JT9 or JT9x. I did draw the trump and led the 8 of spades, but South showed out. The third heart was with North, so playing three rounds of spades and ruffing one was the winning line.

[aguahombre]

Perhaps a slight improvement would have been to win trick 1 with the Queen instead of Ace. Now you succeed if RHO has 3 trumps and has an accident...not knowing about the Spade King.

[MrAce]

Aguaman nailed it.

[lamford]

aguahombre, on 2017-March-12, 11:13, said:

Perhaps a slight improvement would have been to win trick 1 with the Queen instead of Ace. Now you succeed if RHO has 3 trumps and has an accident...not knowing about the Spade King.

I considered that, but as their trump pips were so poor, I think they will ruff the third spade anyway if they can, as it will not cost them anything.

[WellSpyder]

lamford, on 2017-March-14, 04:37, said:

I considered that, but as their trump pips were so poor, I think they will ruff the third spade anyway if they can, as it will not cost them anything.

They will also know if they are thinking straight that you must have SK, otherwise you would play the 2nd and 3rd round of spades after one round of trumps rather than two. But there is no harm in giving opponents an extra chance to go wrong, even if they will normally avoid it. Everybody is careless occasionally...

[aguahombre]

To be sure, playing the Q at trick one might not matter or might not fool anyone. It is just one of those things that can't hurt; and playing the Ace instead can't help anything. I don't spend a lot of time Figuring out why something shouldn't work, and then saying "why bother?".