[Cyberyeti]

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W leads the 5♠ (4th/MUD)

Plan the play (and say if form of scoring matters).

[Douglas43]

Cyberyeti, on 2021-November-17, 08:25, said:

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W leads the 5♠ (4th/MUD)

Plan the play (and say if form of scoring matters).

In either form of scoring I think making game is likely to be OK as we have 25hcp and no major suit fit, so no difference in approach.

I'd win on table, play a heart to the 10, then play on hearts hoping for a 4-3 break. If I also had the 8 of diamonds and the ♥10 was ducked I'd be tempted to switch and play diamonds, but without ♦8 I'm just hoping for the fifth heart to stand up.

[Winstonm]

Douglas43, on 2021-November-17, 09:41, said:

In either form of scoring I think making game is likely to be OK as we have 25hcp and no major suit fit, so no difference in approach.

I'd win on table, play a heart to the 10, then play on hearts hoping for a 4-3 break. If I also had the 8 of diamonds and the ♥10 was ducked I'd be tempted to switch and play diamonds, but without ♦8 I'm just hoping for the fifth heart to stand up.

I haven't spent much time thinking about it but it seems to me there may be some advantage - if the heart 10 holds - to switching to the diamond 9 and running it unless covered.

[Cyberyeti]

Winstonm, on 2021-November-17, 10:53, said:

I haven't spent much time thinking about it but it seems to me there may be some advantage - if the heart 10 holds - to switching to the diamond 9 and running it unless covered.

Nobody seems to have given much thought to the implications of the spade lead on this auction, I can give the lead problem he had later, but it looks a slightly odd lead to me.

If you do run the 9♦ it will lose, spade comes back what are you doing on the next diamond ?

Also - the heart suit is now dead.

[Winstonm]

Cyberyeti, on 2021-November-17, 11:43, said:

Nobody seems to have given much thought to the implications of the spade lead on this auction, I can give the lead problem he had later, but it looks a slightly odd lead to me.

If you do run the 9♦ it will lose, spade comes back what are you doing on the next diamond ?

Also - the heart suit is now dead.

Btw, I would run the spade to hand, blocking the suit, then lead heart 10 before playing the diamond 9. I want to force RHO to play the spade 10 or J at trick 1.

When a spade comes back, I win and lead a high heart. If the hearts are 5-2, I play diamonds from the top.

[mikeh]

Cyberyeti, on 2021-November-17, 11:43, said:

Nobody seems to have given much thought to the implications of the spade lead on this auction, I can give the lead problem he had later, but it looks a slightly odd lead to me.

If you do run the 9♦ it will lose, spade comes back what are you doing on the next diamond ?

Also - the heart suit is now dead.

I don’t think the spade is a weird lead. He’s never leading a red suit on this auction and our sequence will often be based on a modest 4 card spade suit, with dummy often holding a stiff and never more than two.

If it’s 4th best, RHO has either the Jack, the 10, the 8 or the 7, likely doubleton. Unlikely to be the 7 since the J would be normal from J108xx

So ducking at trick one, hoping to score the 9 and then lead heart 10, spade to the ace, hearts, is unlikely to work, not to mention telegraphing our holding to at least LHO.

And, of course, possibly standing our KQ of spades, giving back two tricks for the one we stole.

Thus win in dummy. Too bad we don’t have a falsecard available from hand.

Heart 10 seems clear. Hearts will be 4-3 more often than 5-2 or 6-1.

They’ll duck the heart.

Fortunately we haven’t yet stranded our spades, so over to the diamond Ace and drive out hearts. If hearts are 4-3 we have 9 winners.

Winston: if hearts are 5-2 you need to consider who has length. If it’s RHO, as seems likely on the spade lead (if it was from length not that MUD, which is an awful lead convention imo), then lead a low diamond from dummy. You’ll later have to guess whether to lead to the 10 next time or play for 3-3 ( or RHO ducking from Jx….he almost surely won’t duck from Qx)

If LHO has 5 hearts, thus probably making spades 3=4, I’d play low diamond anyway, since otherwise the diamonds are dead even if 3=3.

[Cyberyeti]

Opening leader's hand was

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I don't think ducking the spade round helps even though the 9 scores.

Banking all on 4-3 hearts works fine for 9 tricks.

Finessing twice in diamonds is unfortunate.

[Winstonm]

mikeh, on 2021-November-17, 13:49, said:

I don’t think the spade is a weird lead. He’s never leading a red suit on this auction and our sequence will often be based on a modest 4 card spade suit, with dummy often holding a stiff and never more than two.

If it’s 4th best, RHO has either the Jack, the 10, the 8 or the 7, likely doubleton. Unlikely to be the 7 since the J would be normal from J108xx

So ducking at trick one, hoping to score the 9 and then lead heart 10, spade to the ace, hearts, is unlikely to work, not to mention telegraphing our holding to at least LHO.

And, of course, possibly standing our KQ of spades, giving back two tricks for the one we stole.

Thus win in dummy. Too bad we don’t have a falsecard available from hand.

Heart 10 seems clear. Hearts will be 4-3 more often than 5-2 or 6-1.

They’ll duck the heart.

Fortunately we haven’t yet stranded our spades, so over to the diamond Ace and drive out hearts. If hearts are 4-3 we have 9 winners.

Winston: if hearts are 5-2 you need to consider who has length. If it’s RHO, as seems likely on the spade lead (if it was from length not that MUD, which is an awful lead convention imo), then lead a low diamond from dummy. You’ll later have to guess whether to lead to the 10 next time or play for 3-3 ( or RHO ducking from Jx….he almost surely won’t duck from Qx)

If LHO has 5 hearts, thus probably making spades 3=4, I’d play low diamond anyway, since otherwise the diamonds are dead even if 3=3.

Right or wrong , one reason I had for playing the diamond 9 was a type of discovery - if lho does not play an honor then he is likely to hold 4 (or more) diamonds or no honor cards.