Make Four Spades Doubled

[Fabulous Pedigree]

I don't play seriously, as I did decades ago, but in casual on-line play this hand came up. I'd rather you experts analyze it, rather than embarrassing myself.

Both sides vulnerable. North Deals.:
S A7642
H J42
D KT
C J43

S KJT3 S Q985
H 8 H AK6
D Q85 D 973
C AQ965 C K72

S -
H QT9753
D AJ642
C T8

N E S W
Pass 1C 1H 2C
2H Pass Pass 2S
3H 3S Pass 4S
X Pass Pass Pass

Opening Lead: Jack of Hearts


South seems a reasonable player, but we have ZERO bidding understanding.
(In the rudimentary East Central European standard, 1C opening might be on LESS than a 2-bagger; but our convention card is completely blank.)
No idea what partner intended 2C to mean but please comment on the rest of the bidding.

But I am especially interested in the PLAY.
Yes, North can lead the King of Diamonds and take the first four tricks, but he didn't. Can (and should!) West take ten tricks after the JH opening lead?

Cheers,
jdallen1941

[Charles Brenner]

I don't play seriously, as I did decades ago, but in casual on-line play this hand came up. I'd rather you experts analyze it, rather than embarrassing myself.
S A7642
H J42
D KT
C J43
S KJT3 S Q985
H 8 H AK6
D Q85 D 973
C AQ965 C K72
S -
H QT9753
D AJ642
C T8
N E S W
Pass 1C 1H 2C
2H Pass Pass 2S
3H 3S Pass 4S
X Pass Pass Pass
Opening Lead: Jack of Hearts
Can (and should!) West take ten tricks after the JH opening lead?

I think so. The general idea is that EW have 5 tricks to cash in hearts and clubs. No matter how the play goes we can allocate 3 trump tricks to West's strong intermediates with an East intermediate covering West's trump 3 if necessary. We need 2 more tricks which come from leading the two small clubs out of the West hand and ruffing them in the East hand unless North discards.

To be explicit, first consider double dummy, the "can":
Win the 5 plain suit tricks - hAK then cKAQ.
Lead a 4th club. If North ruffs small, overruff, ruff heart to get back to West, and play the 5th club. It will be the game-going trick regardless whether West ruffs low, high, or discards. North discarding a heart on the 4th club (or ruffing high) wouldn't change anything material.

As for "should": Win the hA and play a trump. At best West can clear 2 rounds of trumps which doesn't muck up our executing the double dummy line which is indicated when the trump break is revealed.

[Charles Brenner]

I don't play seriously, as I did decades ago, but in casual on-line play this hand came up. I'd rather you experts analyze it, rather than embarrassing myself.
S A7642
H J42
D KT
C J43
S KJT3 S Q985
H 8 H AK6
D Q85 D 973
C AQ965 C K72
S -
H QT9753
D AJ642
C T8
N E S W
Pass 1C 1H 2C

PS - Pulleeze in future be sure to put W to the left of E in the bidding diagram.

I don't know of way to make the hand diagram attractive, but somewhat helpful is to use dots to space things out:
..........Axxxx
..........Jxx
KJxx..............Q98x
etc.

[Fabulous Pedigree]

I thought it was an interesting hand. Partner played one round of trumps (North ducking).
I cringed when he ruffed a heart prematurely. It just seemed wrong, though I hadn't
thought ahead to fully understand WHY it was wrong.
...

Post by Charles Brenner
PS - Pulleeze in future be sure to put W to the left of E in the bidding diagram.

I'll try something different if I post another hand!

Blame Google Groups, not me! There was no Preview option. I stupidly assumed that
Groups was presenting me with a WYSIWYG view. (Who was to guess that the World's
Smartest Software Company(TM) couldn't even do that!)

It was 20-35 years ago that I posted at Usenet regularly.
Is there an easy access other than Google Groups?

Cheers,
James

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Post by Fabulous Pedigree
Is there an easy access other than Google Groups?

Easy is questionable, but you can access eternal-september.org for free
after having registered (also free). Then you can set up for example
Thundrbird to access the newsgroups. Then you will see pretty much what
other readers will see. There are minor differences (depending on the
available window size), but they wouldn't matter for a card diagram.

You'll need to work out how to set up a news account, but it is similar
to setting up an email account.

http://eternal-september.org