[Benoit35]

I can go to bed happy. Tonight went so-so at the club, but on the very last board...

---

... I swung at the fence. A small heart was led.

How did I make this?

[ahydra]

Duck, win the spade continuation, diamond finesse, club finesse, ruff a spade, heart ruff, ruff a spade, DA throwing the last spade? Nah, that'd be too boring (and slightly dangerous).

Duck, win the spade continuation, ruff a spade, club finesse, ruff a spade, draw the other trump, run all the trumps and I'd like to say triple-squeeze on East, but that doesn't quite seem to work. Maybe just a plain pointed-suit squeeze on East coming down to Kx in spades and diamonds? Unlikely after the X, but a bit more fancy than a couple of finesses!

ahydra

[dkham]

I'll guess that you went up with the king of hearts; this lost and defence returned another heart.

You ruffed this and made by ruffing three spades in dummy then dropping singleton king of clubs. Well bid!

[Benoit35]

dkham, on 2012-May-09, 05:43, said:

I'll guess that you went up with the king of hearts; this lost and defence returned another heart.

You ruffed this and made by ruffing three spades in dummy then dropping singleton king of clubs. Well bid!

Exactly. The opponents clapped.

[ahydra]

Ruffing a heart (low) and two diamonds (high) to get back to hand?

ahydra

[Benoit35]

Yup.

Turns out LHO had ♦KJ, but the double scared me off that finesse.

[dkham]

So your slam is only beatable if they lead trumps twice (once on opening lead, once on winning heart).
Or can you make it by not playing hearts and getting back to hand in diamonds three times instead - can you post the full hand?

[Phil]

ahydra, on 2012-May-09, 04:40, said:

Duck, win the spade continuation, diamond finesse, club finesse, ruff a spade, heart ruff, ruff a spade, DA throwing the last spade? Nah, that'd be too boring (and slightly dangerous).

Duck, win the spade continuation, ruff a spade, club finesse, ruff a spade, draw the other trump, run all the trumps and I'd like to say triple-squeeze on East, but that doesn't quite seem to work. Maybe just a plain pointed-suit squeeze on East coming down to Kx in spades and diamonds? Unlikely after the X, but a bit more fancy than a couple of finesses!

ahydra

There are several lines to consider:

On a spade continuation:

1A) You may just choose to finesse it. If the hook wins, its simply a matter of picking up trump for no losers. So ruff a spade, hook a club. If they are 3-0, then you need the diamond finesse. If the finesse loses, you can fall back on the diamond finesse, but the bidding is starting to make less sense.

1B) You can simply ruff three spades and hope for the ♣K singleton.

2) If RHO shifts to a trump (and he has to lead something), I'd probably hook (if 3-0, back to 1A), ruff a spade, ruff a heart, ruff a spade and ruff the ♥K and play for the squeeze / finesse.

[Benoit35]

Approximate hands:
W: xxxx xxxxx KJ xx
E: KJxxx AQJx xxx K

So, yes, the ♦finesse line would have worked as well. A trump lead would have forced me into it, and I would have been even more pleasantly surprised (but a little less proud of myself).

dkham: The safer play is to get back in hand by ruffing diamonds high. But in this case, carelessly leading the ♥K from dummy does no harm, as East no longer has a club to return.

[Statto]

I can't imagine a ♠ return whatever opponents' hands were.