[Echognome]

Scoring: MP

1♦ - 3♣ - 6♣

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You bid to the excellent slam in 3 bids. North showed 17+ and south showed 6+ clubs with 2 of the 3 top honours and no A or K outside (rare but descriptive).

You are playing MPs so you know you will be against the field, so you better make your contract. Only problem is that the lead is a spade.

How do you plan to give yourself the best chance of making this?

[mikeh]

Without consuming the time I'd take at imps, it seems to me that you have to tackle ♦ now: and they are either 3=3 or 2=4, since surely west would lead one with a stiff, and I doubt that you have any realistic way of catering to a void.

I lead the ♦K: to make it psychologically more difficult for east to duck.

Against best defence (which is rare), I follow with a second ♦. I assume that West gave honest count, since if east ducked the first ♦, surely west has to be honest else east may go wrong.

Anyway, even if west shows an odd number, I plan to ruff the 3rd ♦ (if they duck the first, win the second, and play a 3rd) with the 10. If east has 4♦ and not the ♣J and found the duck of the K, then I pay off to good defence.

Now, this may look like 'easy' defence with that dummy, but unless one is playing in a known tough field, matchpoints is a game in which you will rarely do badly by underestimatingthe strength of (unknown) opponents And east may fear an overtrick if he ducks the first ♦: after all he knows that his partner has 2 or 3 cards in the suit.