In our lockdown league match on Monday this hand came up; which has led to quite a discussion afterwards:
Ken and I ended up in a reasonable slam (Paul reckoned a bit more than 50%); 3S is a splinter and 3N a forward going move without any specific cue bid. It is easier played by West (which it was in the other room but only in game, making 12 tricks).
On the diamond jack lead, Ken had an option of taking the A, finessing a spade to throw a diamond. Understandably though, Ken let it run (people sometimes lead from kings - happened to me 2 weeks ago), won the second diamond and drew three rounds of trumps. Paul reckoned that double dummy one can finesse the queen of spades and cash the queen of diamonds catching South in a criss-cross trump squeeze, (forcing him to let go a club or spade). But that assumes both K of spades and clubs are right so the clear line is instead to play for clubs 3-2. However the 4:1 break defeated it and we ended with a rather unlucky loss overall (we still would have won if I hadn’t made a defensive error on board 7).
I wondered later, if, instead one might take only two rounds of trumps, then finesse the club, play off the Ace (which will hold if clubs are actually 3:2) and hope that if it is 4:1 that North doesn’t have the last trump. With the actual layout this fails. Even if it works one needs a bit more luck; there aren’t the entries to ruff clubs twice and get back to dummy to cash them. Instead one has to finesse the QS, cash QD then cross ruff home.
Yes, I thought at the time that it was better to take two rounds of trumps only and then finesse the queen of clubs and cash the ace. On this hand it makes no difference and if South has a doubleton diamond it does not help, as you cannot cash the queen of diamonds. However, if South has JTx of diamonds, quite likely from the jack lead, and the third heart, then Gerry's line works quite nicely. But again on this layout it fails. But well spotted Gerry.
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