[pescetom]

MP

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It's friday night and this looks more or less like a 1NT opening, but when the dummy goes down after the ♠Q lead you wonder ruefully whether it might have been better to open 1♣ and become dummy.

What is your plan now and what contingencies are you ready to handle?

[mikeh]

bridge is a partnership game. A 1C opening, if meant to show a 15-17 1N, is not a partnership bid.

It's masterminding if intended to maximize the chances of being declarer and, if perpetrated for other reasons, simply a ridiculous bid.

It's the sort of call I sometimes see made by players who think they are being 'creative' or think of themselves as expert without having much idea of what being expert requires...hint: its helps to show respect to partner. As in telling partner that you have 6+ clubs and around 16 hcp...open 1C and rebid 3C in standard based methods and trust partner. wtf makes 1N better than that?

[fuzzyquack]

If the task at hand is to play 3N rather than comment on the bidding like it was assumed in the post above, I duck ♠Q. After another ♠, I win in hand, cash ♥A, and play low ♣ to T. If it's a Friday night bridge and my LHO is not an expert, I will draw a conclusion of ♣Kx once he hesitates and plays low. If the ♣K appears smoothly, I unblock T, win ♠A, cash both ♥ pitching ♦s. If nothing interesting happens, I finesse in ♣. If RHO wins ♣J, I play him for KJx. Handling his possible ♦ return is standard.

[pescetom]

 mikeh, on 2024-March-04, 12:16, said:

bridge is a partnership game. A 1C opening, if meant to show a 15-17 1N, is not a partnership bid.

It's masterminding if intended to maximize the chances of being declarer and, if perpetrated for other reasons, simply a ridiculous bid.

It's the sort of call I sometimes see made by players who think they are being 'creative' or think of themselves as expert without having much idea of what being expert requires...hint: its helps to show respect to partner. As in telling partner that you have 6+ clubs and around 16 hcp...open 1C and rebid 3C in standard based methods and trust partner. wtf makes 1N better than that?

You once accused yourself of occasionall hyperbole so I concede you ample rope
FWIW I agree that 1♣ is a superior bid to 1NT, as I thought was implicit in the post.
A semi-natural 1NT if clearly agreed and disclosed has its merits... but this hand is not a systemic 1NT and basically just fun on a friday (beer) night.
Partner was happy and prepared and similar openings often do work out... even in this case it's hard to imagine a different outcome from 3NT played one side or the other (and it's often more important to be able to play that better than most of the field, as you have frequently pointed out).

But the opening is a side issue, we can open a separate post if you want to discuss it further. The question was about the play.

[pescetom]

 fuzzyquack, on 2024-March-04, 13:46, said:

If the task at hand is to play 3N rather than comment on the bidding like it was assumed in the post above, I duck ♠Q. After another ♠, I win in hand, cash ♥A, and play low ♣ to T. If it's a Friday night bridge and my LHO is not an expert, I will draw a conclusion of ♣Kx once he hesitates and plays low. If the ♣K appears smoothly, I unblock T, win ♠A, cash both ♥ pitching ♦s. If nothing interesting happens, I finesse in ♣. If RHO wins ♣J, I play him for KJx. Handling his possible ♦ return is standard.

Thanks. This is pretty much what I decided at the table, although I excluded another line first and decided to defer the decision about whether to finesse.
I wonder if everyone else agrees and has nothing to add?

[pescetom]

Silence here... the forum is dying and it doesn't help if expert members prefer to derail a thread rather than answer the question asked.
I thought the play was interesting and far from obvious at I/A level.
Anyway, thanks to fuzzyquack for the only and useful contribution in topic.

FWIW here is the actual layout:

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At the table, I held up once and then took in hand and unblocked ♥A.
I wondered if it might be better to play ♣Q, but decided that overall it was better to run small to T instead.
North provided the 3 in tempo and South took the J, returning diamonds.
The end result was 3NT making which was poor at MP, with many other tables in 3NTW+1 on a hearts lead.