[Fluffy]

I find this kind of hands are the ones that separate players who win at MPs and those who don't. The play is not particularilly difficult, yet the average player will never find it.

♠9752
♥A2
♦863
♣AK93

♠AKQ63
♥K54
♦K105
♣42


1♠-(2♦)-3♦-(pass)
4♠-all pass

lead is ♣6 (3rd and 5th), RHO plays the 8 (high= encouraging)

Spades are 1-3

[whereagles]

Pull trumps, ruff club, ruff a heart and lead a diamond, covering RHO's card. If by this time LHO is left with diamonds only, he'll concede an overtrick.

There are some variations on this, but that's the main idea.

[gnasher]

Why wouldn't you ruff both clubs? Draw trumps, ruff a club in hand, heart to the ace, ruff a club, ruff a heat, lead a diamond. That works unless LHO is 1462 (when he might have made a takeout double anyway) or RHO has ♦A.

[dellache]

There's a line that always work (even if West is 1462) provided that we can read West's length in Diamonds (let's suppose he has 6).
Note : if East has the stiff ♦Ace, West cannot be 1462 (he would have led a Diamond).

The principle is [234] cash Spades, [56]Ruff one club, [7]Heart to dummy, [8]Ruff club.
We now have West's complete count, and West has kept 5 red cards :
1. if he's kept 2 diamonds only (he still has 3 hearts, and was 1462), we cannot strip him out of Hearts, but we can just play [9]♦King from Hand in order to set up one diamond.
2. if he's kept 3 diamonds, we can strip him out of Hearts [9-10] ruff a Heart, and [11] play Diamond toward K10x, covering East's card.

Playing this way, I think we almost always score 11 tricks.

[JLOGIC]

Very nice dellache

[rhm]

Fluffy, on 2011-February-25, 04:49, said:

The play is not particularilly difficult, yet the average player will never find it.

Plays are rarely difficult. The analysis is. This one is no exception.

Rainer Herrmann

[FrancesHinden]

As I'm neither a boy nor a man there's probably no point in my replying.

[Fluffy]

Sorry Frances I wanted to add women/girl or soemthing so the title didn't look so sexist, but I didn't find a good way to do so.

2♦ overcaller had 1354.

[dellache]

Fluffy, on 2011-February-27, 19:12, said:

Sorry Frances I wanted to add women/girl or soemthing so the title didn't look so sexist, but I didn't find a good way to do so.
...

As long as you avoided the "women and men" title, that's not so bad .