[manudude03]

I was playing in Northern Ireland's premier teams competition. Had a few bad boards which may have won it. Here's the first of them.

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You get a fourth-best ♦2 lead. Plan the play.

[Kaitlyn S]

manudude03, on 2017-February-06, 08:55, said:

I was playing in Northern Ireland's premier teams competition. Had a few bad boards which may have won it. Here's the first of them.

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You get a fourth-best ♦2 lead. Plan the play.

Trying to keep the ♦A as an entry by flying ♦K at trick 1 is going to give me too many losers. I think I have to abandon the spades and clubs in favor of trying for three diamond stoppers and hope the opponents have to do something good for me (of course a spade miracle might work too.)

I play the ♦6; hopefully it's too soon for South to realize that the ♦7 is a good play. I capture South's card with the ♦A and lead a heart (I have to use hand entries to lead hearts because I can't afford to be stuck on the board later leading hearts.) I don't think I can go much further here as it depends on who wins the heart and what they lead when they do. But I presume the early play is what is critical.

[nullve]

My very unimaginative plan is just to knock out the ♣A before playing on spades, preserving entries to the ♣J if the spade finesse is working.

I'll play the ♦8 from dummy at trick 1, hopefully creating a third diamond stopper should I need it.