[Hobartian]

I was North and declarer in a six heart contract.

My trumps were King, Jack and four and dummy had Queen, eight, seven, six and five.

The auction was uncontested. After winning the opening lead in my hand I led the four towards the Queen. East played the ten and I played the queen which was taken by west with Ace. After winning the next trick I led to the jack and East showed out. That left west with the nine and another trump and I had no way of making my contract.

After seeing the hand record I worked out that if I had lead toward the jack or king I would have observed the fall of the ten from East and that would have given me the opportunity of later finessing West for the nine.

The full layout of trumps were North: King Jack four, East: Ten, South: Queen, eight, seven, six, and five. West Ace, nine, three, two.

If the west and east hands were reversed it would also be possible to finesse East for the nine. My fatal mistake was leading from the short hand toward the queen leaving the king, jack, as a doubleton without any finessing possibilities.

Is there any rule of thumb in drawing trumps with this layout?

[Hanoi5]

Welcome to the forums!

---

In general when playing a suit you try to use the honours in the short hand first. So you should play a heart towards KJ in dummy.

The first time you do this you'll get to see the Ten from East and you might lead hearts from South again intending to finesse against West's 9. But I'm not that sure that's such a great idea. Although maybe it's a restricted choice situation?

What I'm sure of is that you should generally play high cards from the short side first as it gives you many advantages in many situations. (For example if East and West holdings were reversed you would have lost two tricks in hearts while if you had played towards KJ you would have trapped the nine).

[phil_20686]

The best line is to lead up to the KJ, as then if one of the T9 falls on your left, then you can play the J next and if he shows out you can finesse.

Its not a retricted choice situation because east may duck with AT9, and AT9+T9 is more likely than T or 9 alone.

[Statto]

Another rule of thumb is to play towards the hand with more honours first. Again this suggests playing towards the shorter hand here, but had it been KJ876 opposite Q54, the two competing theories almost neutralize each other. (It's marginally better a priori in this situation to start with small towards KJ for the specific [rare] case when an opp has A109xx over KJ876, as you can then escape only 1 off.)

[nige1]

A useful utility that reveals the optimum play at teams or pairs is suitplay

[Fluffy]

As phil says, you should not finese then 9 back because RHO can duck A109 making it against odds. However if east is incapable of ducking then finese is odds on.