Get it right…
Moment of truth. You know your LHO started with 6 spades, 2 clubs and either 3 heart 2 diamonds or 2 hearts 3 diamonds – but which? if 2 Heart 3 D then his hand is something like
If so, you can cash ♥ A, ♠ K and put him in with the 3rd spade to force him to give you the ♦ K
But if he started with 3♥ 2♦ then his hand is
if this is the case, you can duck a diamond, setting up your king.
Which? Do we have information that can let us decide one way or the other?
You ask about their carding methods, and you are told that they play standard carding, and do not play smith echo.
Time to decide. Your RHO started with either 2542 or 2452. If 2452, then it seems more natural to discard two diamonds rather than a diamond and a heart. On the other hand she did play ♥ 5 at trick 3, and followed up with ♥ 2 at the last discard. Also, even if she meant to encourage ♠ via smith echo, she would play hi-lo in clubs, which she didn’t. So that seems to suggest 2452 rather than 2542.
Have you reached a decision?
Well, I eventually decided to trust her carding, especially since I couldn’t see any reason for a false card in hearts at trick 3, when she has almost no information and her partner holds the majority of cards, and so is more likely to find the right defence if one exists.
Duck a diamond – that’s what I did – wrong. The endplay would work.
Did you get it right? Was there a clue I missed?
All I could come up was – well played @ashasharma
Could have postponed the decision by 1 trick, by casing HA first. The appearance of the H card could have given some useful information. If LHO had dropped the HQ for example, it would be better to play him for Q stiff at this stage (no real need for unblocking). If H Jack is not covered, and LHO plays the K, it might be better to play LHO for KQ. But this assuming, opponents were not super experts, out to get you!
They are ALL out to get me :). But very good point. I should cash the HA. At the very least I see one more card. On the table it would probably go J Q A K! I'll sweat a little bit about KT9 with LHo, but should get it right.
If LHO was 6=3=2=2 , would he discard a diamond and not a heart ?
I think the shape should be open book to him by now. If so, it’s not so difficult to see the endplay coming and deciding that your one hope is to make declarer misread the distribution. So yes, I think it’s quite possible for defender to pitch diamond holding 6322. Also, with say KT9 or KQ9 heart, it may look more dangerous to discard heart. Say if I started with ATxx.