[mikeh]

You lead the club 6, 4th best. Partner plays the 7 under dummy’s 9, showing an odd number. Declarer takes a while to play to trick 2, but eventually plays spade to the Ace, back to the Queen and then to his King, catching the 3-3 break. On the 4th spade you pitch a middle heart...do you? If not, what would you pitch? Dummy discards a low heart as does your partner. You play udca. Declarer thinks some more and exits a club. Your plan? 1N was 14-16, btw.

---

I’m not sure this belongs in the expert forum when posted as a problem. At the table, however, I think it is an expert level problem, if only because I think that it’s hard for non-experts to maintain the level of focus, at the table, needed to get these right. Nobody is ringing a bell to tell one that ‘this hand is a problem you can/should solve’. The expert treats, or does treat if playing well, every hand as if it were a BBF problem.

[Winstonm]

AKxx, AQx, xxx, Qxx is my estimate. Solution:

Spoiler

Immediately return a heart so partner will not be squeezed in the red suits on the run of the clubs and to keep communications open in clubs. Btw, if opener held Jxx in diamonds he probably would have played more straightforward, cashing top diamonds then, if that failed, taking the heart finesse.

[Cyberyeti]

 Winstonm, on 2021-June-21, 11:05, said:

AKxx, AQx, xxx, Qxx is my estimate. Solution:

Spoiler

Immediately return a heart so partner will not be squeezed in the red suits on the run of the clubs and to keep communications open in clubs. Btw, if opener held Jxx in diamonds he probably would have played more straightforward, cashing top diamonds then, if that failed, taking the heart finesse.

Declarer has 9 tricks opposite that, AKxx, AJx, Jxx, Qxx is the holding

[Winstonm]

 Cyberyeti, on 2021-June-21, 12:15, said:

Declarer has 9 tricks opposite that, AKxx, AJx, Jxx, Qxx is the holding

4 spades, 2 diamonds, 1 heart, and 1 club...what am I missing?

[Cyberyeti]

 Winstonm, on 2021-June-21, 12:43, said:

4 spades, 2 diamonds, 1 heart, and 1 club...what am I missing?

the heart finesse you may have been done by the stupid layout of the hand viewer and N as declarer

[Winstonm]

 Cyberyeti, on 2021-June-21, 12:50, said:

the heart finesse you may have been done by the stupid layout of the hand viewer and N as declarer

Thanks. Exactly so. I had the hands in the wrong positions.

[blackshoe]

For me, the answer to the question posed is easy: incorrectly.

[mikeh]

Yes, the defence needs to switch to a red suit after winning the club exit. It doesn’t need to be a heart.

Declarer is known to be either 4=3=3=3 or 4=2=4=3, by the auction.

If he has Qxxx in diamonds, he’d have played that suit already

If he has Qxx in diamonds, he’d have played that suit already....if he has the heart Ace he simply has 9 winners and if he’s off the heart Ace, he’d try diamonds rather than, in essence, giving up.

He is known to hold 9 hcp in the blacks, and at most 1 in diamonds. He has to have the heart Ace. So the danger is, as has been noted, that he has AJx in hearts and partner is going to get squeezed. The heart switch is the simplest, but note what happens on a diamond switch. Declarer can’t duck it, so he has to win and now he can’t get off dummy without breaking up the squeeze.

At the table, I was dummy. We were in the GNT District event. While kibs were barred, my wife came into the room and asked how we were doing. Since I was dummy, I could see what was going on, and invited her to watch. I told her that declarer would play on spades, hoping for 3-3 or east holding Jx/10x (if J10x, he was going down).

Once spades broke I said he’s going to cash the last spade and exit a club.

As it happened, and this happens quite often, west spoiled the situation by pitching a club on the fourth spade, keeping KQx Qxxx in the reds. This made it trivial since east couldn’t switch to a red card without abandoning his clubs. Had they defended correctly, declarer has to hope for Qx in diamonds.

I got a kick out of it, ruined only a little by the misdefence, because one doesn’t see suicide squeezes very often.

I wasn’t sure how to post this...as a play problem, a defence problem or as a ‘would you rather play or defend’ problem...though I thought that would be the least interesting.

Sorry for posting north as declarer. That was the real life situation, but I should have rotated the hands for convenience