[nige1]

Amusing position from Scottish Online Swiss Teams.
(Simplified a bit to remove distractions).
West led a ♦ against South's 4♥.
East showed out on the first round of trumps.
Click Next to see the 1st 2 tricks.

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[Winstonm]

Spoiler

My guess:
As best I can tell, If west is short in diamonds, then by ruffing in front of dummy the natural trump trick is traded for a spade loser; however, west could get out of this trap by unblocking spades. Let's say he holds AQJ, Q10xx, J10, xxxx. Diamond won, AK of clubs cashed. High diamond, diamond ruff. (west must pitch spade). Club ruff. Diamond toward dummy - west must discard the ace of spades, allowing east to win K109 of spades.

[Evies Dad]

Wouldn't West have to ruff the 3rd spade in that scenario, and then you win last two tricks.
West could ruff low to try to avoid this.
But then you can draw another round of trumps and continue as before, I think.

[nige1]

Amusing position from Scottish Online Swiss Teams.
(Simplified a bit to remove distractions).
West led a ♦ against South's 4♥.
East showed out on the first round of trumps.
Click Next to see the 1st 2 tricks.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
The winning line is to ruff 2 ♦s and a ♣ before exiting in ♠.
Endplaying West, who has to ruff a plain suit and lead a trump into declarer's tenace.

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[Winstonm]

nige1, on 2021-October-01, 06:04, said:

Amusing position from Scottish Online Swiss Teams.
(Simplified a bit to remove distractions).
West led a ♦ against South's 4♥.
East showed out on the first round of trumps.
Click Next to see the 1st 2 tricks.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
The winning line is to ruff 2 ♦s and a ♣ before exiting in ♠.
Endplaying West, who has to ruff a plain suit and lead a trump into declarer's tenace.

---

Is east dead or just asleep? There is no way to end play west if east is paying attention.

[AL78]

nige1, on 2021-October-01, 06:04, said:

Amusing position from Scottish Online Swiss Teams.
(Simplified a bit to remove distractions).
West led a ♦ against South's 4♥.
East showed out on the first round of trumps.
Click Next to see the 1st 2 tricks.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
The winning line is to ruff 2 ♦s and a ♣ before exiting in ♠.
Endplaying West, who has to ruff a plain suit and lead a trump into declarer's tenace.

---

How can that work? East can play low on the spade exit, but West has another spade to play, and all East has to do is overtake, cash a third round, and guarentee West's trump trick with a fourth round.

[akwoo]

AL78, on 2021-October-01, 11:03, said:

How can that work? East can play low on the spade exit, but West has another spade to play, and all East has to do is overtake, cash a third round, and guarentee West's trump trick with a fourth round.

When East cashes the third round of spades, West has nothing but trump left and is forced to ruff.

[AL78]

akwoo, on 2021-October-01, 11:15, said:

When East cashes the third round of spades, West has nothing but trump left and is forced to ruff.

Of course, declarer stripped West of the minors. In that case I don't see how East can do anything to stop the endplay after the diamond lead. Declarer cashes minor suit winners and cross-ruffs minor losers and exits a spade. They can only cash two spade tricks before West wins by force and has to lead out of HQx.

[pescetom]

AL78, on 2021-October-01, 11:29, said:

Of course, declarer stripped West of the minors. In that case I don't see how East can do anything to stop the endplay after the diamond lead. Declarer cashes minor suit winners and cross-ruffs minor losers and exits a spade. They can only cash two spade tricks before West wins by force and has to lead out of HQx.

As a bidding oriented player I am more concerned about why W missed the lead that would always defeat the contract.
If a double of the transfer indicated something more useful than diamonds then maybe things would have been simpler.

[AL78]

pescetom, on 2021-October-01, 15:27, said:

As a bidding oriented player I am more concerned about why W missed the lead that would always defeat the contract.
If a double of the transfer indicated something more useful than diamonds then maybe things would have been simpler.

I don't think leading a king from KJ tight into a 2NT opening instead of a safe top of a sequence is an obvious lead.

[nige1]

pescetom, on 2021-October-01, 15:27, said:

As a bidding oriented player I am more concerned about why W missed the lead that would always defeat the contract. I f a double of the transfer indicated something more useful than diamonds then maybe things would have been simpler.

The absence of a double by East might suggest a non-♦ lead but East still has a natural ♦ lead.

[pescetom]

nige1, on 2021-October-01, 15:41, said:

The absence of a double by East might suggest a non-♦ lead but East still has a natural ♦ lead.

My point was that if the double suggested a ♠ lead then even I would have defeated the contract

AL78, on 2021-October-01, 15:38, said:

I don't think leading a king from KJ tight into a 2NT opening instead of a safe top of a sequence is an obvious lead.

Not unless partner told you so.

[nige1]

A construction with the same theme but now there's no defence to South's 6♠ contract

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[Winstonm]

Good ones, Nige.

[smerriman]

pescetom, on 2021-October-01, 15:44, said:

My point was that if the double suggested a ♠ lead then even I would have defeated the contract

If a double suggests a spade lead, next time the deal will be exactly the same but with spades and diamonds reversed

[nige1]

Another similar construction of mine, that The Bridge World published, ages ago.
West leads a ♣ against South's 4♠ game.
Unfortunately, there appear to be at least 4 trump losers
Would a BBO self-kibitzer find the winning line?

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[nige1]

More pedestrian but this board came up in
Harry Smith's BBO Online Swiss teams, tonight
West leads a ♦ against 4♠ by South.
A bit lucky

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[Winstonm]

nige1, on 2021-October-04, 14:56, said:

More pedestrian but this board came up in
Harry Smith's BBO Online Swiss teams, tonight
West leads a ♦ against 4♠ by South.
A bit lucky

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Good thing you got some practice in before this hand came up.😉