[nige1]

The bidding, play, and defence are interesting.
What do you think of the bidding?
Against your 4♠,
LHO leads ♣A, 4, 6, 3 (UDCA).
and continues ♣T, 7, 5, K
I don't know what's the best single-dummy line
Suppose that you cash ♠A, 3, 2, RHO discarding ♣8.
You cross to dummy ♦4, 7, A, 2.
Do you play ♣Q?
Do you finesse ♦s?

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[gszes]

I see no real benefit to cashing the club Q right now. My guesstimate on the hand places rho with heart A (maybe K) (If lho has the heart ace and did not try to cash it I would hold my hand closer to my chest) and lho with a pretty fair number of clubs due to rho lackluster club 6 as a negative signal. I am guessing lho is similar to 4315. I would hook the diamond.

[nige1]

My bidding is inconsistent. I think I should rebid 3♦.
Against 4♠, LHO leads ♣A, 4, 6, 3 (UDCA).
and continues ♣T, 7, 5. K
I don't know what's the best single-dummy line.
I cashed ♠A, 3, 2, RHO discarding ♣8.
Then crossed to dummy ♦4, 7, A, 2.
Like Gszes, I saw no advantage in playing ♣Q.
I led a ♦ to ♦K -- which succeeds unless ♦s are 5-1.
The full deal is on the left. LHO ruffed the 2nd round of ♦, and exited with ♠Q, defeating me by one trick.
One declarer played in 4♠X-1 which saved me from a bottom.
All others were successful. Presumably, they took the same inspired view as Gszes -- finessing ♦ -- perhaps helped by other opponents' bids or doubles.
Careless talk costs lives

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[nige1]

Against 4♠, LHO leads ♣A, 4, 6, 3 (UDCA).
and continues ♣T, 7, 5. K

For completeness: Gib reveals...

At trick 3, rather than cashing a round of trumps, you can succeed with ♦A, ♣Q and then ♦K.

Instead, suppose that you play ♦AK without touching trumps.
LHO ruffs and must lead a ♥ to defeat the contract.
(Then he can discard a ♣ on your next ♦ lead).

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[HardVector]

I had formulated a plan before reading the results, and my initial assessment was to play it as a crossruff. If you are planning to do that, you want to cash all your winners before embarking on that tack. That means cashing the ♣Q.

[mikeh]

HardVector, on 2019-April-30, 11:26, said:

I had formulated a plan before reading the results, and my initial assessment was to play it as a crossruff. If you are planning to do that, you want to cash all your winners before embarking on that tack. That means cashing the ♣Q.

I had the same thought: try for a cross-ruff, but the problem with 'cashing' the club is that LHO may well be 4=5=2=2 and now he pitches his diamond. Now he ruffs the second diamond and exits a spade honour and we are down.

So if I were going to try to cash a club, I would cash the top diamonds first. Of course, that also leads to a set as it happens. Having seen the result before analyzing the play in detail (for which I have my own mea culpa) I can no longer pretend to be able to analyze objectively as to what I would have done at the table. But, I would definitely not have played a 3rd club before the top diamonds.

[nige1]

nige1, on 2019-April-30, 10:58, said:

Against 4♠, LHO leads ♣A, 4, 6, 3 (UDCA).
and continues ♣T, 7, 5. K

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HardVector, on 2019-April-30, 11:26, said:

I had formulated a plan before reading the results, and my initial assessment was to play it as a cross-ruff. If you are planning to do that, you want to cash all your winners before embarking on that tack. That means cashing the ♣Q.

Hardvector's cross-ruff seems to work.

mikeh, on 2019-April-30, 12:16, said:

I had the same thought: try for a cross-ruff, but the problem with 'cashing' the club is that LHO may well be 4=5=2=2 and now he pitches his diamond. Now he ruffs the second diamond and exits a spade honour and we are down. So if I were going to try to cash a club, I would cash the top diamonds first. Of course, that also leads to a set as it happens. Having seen the result before analyzing the play in detail (for which I have my own mea culpa) I can no longer pretend to be able to analyze objectively as to what I would have done at the table. But, I would definitely not have played a 3rd club before the top diamonds.

If you adopt Hardvector's line and play for a cross-ruff without touching trumps, then you can succeed even if LHO is 5422 and discards a ♦ on dummy's ♣Q.

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