Where is his majesty
You deal and open 1♦ and soon find yourself declaring 6♦ on the lead of ♠ 2.
This is what you see
N
North
♠
AQJ
♥
43
♦
Q82
♣
AJ876
♠2
S
South
♠
3
♥
A652
♦
AK953
♣
KQ10
Clearly the only worry is bad Trump break. If♦ are 3 2 or J/T Singleton with LHO you have top 12 tricks. And if not.. you need to find ♠ K. You can finesse at T1 and if that works simply concede the fourth ♦ . Similarly if you think RHO has ♠ k you can play ♠ A , test Trump’s and then run the ♠ Q.
Which way? Any clues? Any other considerations?
The auction the opponents heard is
W
West
N
North
E
East
S
South
—
—
—
1♦
Pass
2♣
Pass
2♦
Pass
2♠
Pass
3♣
Pass
3♦
Pass
3♥
Pass
3♠
Pass
4♣
Pass
5♦
Pass
6♦
All Pass
0
Finesse at trick 1 looks better both percentage wise and little inferentially. With 2 suit fit for declaring side, defenders would want to be aggressive on lead. With no pips in hearts and likely that west will have some card in heart which he could have chosen to a passive spade – so looks more like K(xxx) and K(xxx) (or Qxxx or Kjxx etc) in spades and hearts. Secondly, if trumps are bad and you need to set up spade thru ruffing finesse, you will also need clubs to behave 3-2 or club 9 falling singleton as you are short of entry in dummy to take ruffing finesse and enjoy the winner. Does not look like spade being singleton as then east has 8 card suit – so some noise possible.
RT, the entry issue doesn’t exist. And you don’t need to play for club 3-2 or 9. You can play diamond Ace, and assuming no J or T appears, you can play K and then small to Q, play SQ take the ruffing finesse, and concede a diamond.
Yes, that is correct.
I would still opt for immediate finesse.
Please also replace any 8 of D with 9 🙂
West, opening leader, has the following information.
N-S is in a 2 suit fit – source of tricks.
Probably no key card is missing (no use of RKC)
Dummy has SA, and partner has not doubled 3S when he got a chance.
Call for an aggressive lead
From declarer’s point of view, West is going to make aggressive lead. East did not double 3S, still west choose to lead S. Why?
H cue bid was secondary, and probably is the most likely lead.
Probably, west knows about the bad break in D(either singleton or 4 of them), and wants to make declarer guess early as far as S is concerned. On a H lead, after trumps are played, declarer will have to fall back on a S finesse.Put him under pressure. Is low S a deceiving lead? Don’t know.
As a declarer, I am going to finesse S.
South could easily be void in S in this auction.. S lead from K gives a free finesse that might be the crucial 12th trick. If I was west, I wouldn’t lead S from K.
So, I would finesse S at trick 1.
I meant i wouldn’t finesse.. Sry 🙂
I thought you meant you’d finesse cos you don’t trust your own analysis 🙂
The key point is that we are concerned ONLY with bad trump breaks. Of these cases, the 5-0 cases are a significant portion. So, my gut (apparently not in need of immediate re-calibration 🙂) tells me that it is better to finesse at trick 1 and play D to the 9 unless East plays a higher Diamond or shows out.
Joyjit has summed up the info available to the West (before leading) very nicely, so I would not repeat.
On this bidding Spade lead through the dummy seems to be far more attractive rather than Heart.
Prima facie it seems 50-50, as the West will lead S irrespective.
When we go deeper, there is 1 consideration –
If West suspects bad trump break, he should always lead a H from KQ, and also very likely from QJ
Even from Qx… H lead becomes more attractive if looking at a trump trick.
While I still think it 50-50, I slightly prefer the SA 55-45.