Sometimes you encounter a truly horrendous trump split in what ought to be a fairly straightforward contract. This was an interesting hand from a Declarer-play perspective.
NS Game, Dealer NorthYou are North and open 1
. Everyone passes.
East leads the Ace of Hearts and this is what you see:
South (Dummy) 5
J542
A1092
Q976
A ledNorth AK843
107
KJ3
A42
East cashes the AK of Hearts and continues with the 3 on which West plays the 6, 8 and then the Queen and you ruff the 3rd Round. You try the AK of Spades and East shows out on the second round.
Not good! How do you plan the play?
Clearly West started with 6-card Spades and exactly 3 Hearts (they would definitely have played the 9 rather than the Queen on the 3rd round if they started with 4). That gives them only 4 cards in the Minors. Clearly you cannot avoid losing 6 tricks in the Majors so you have to try to avoid losing any other tricks in the Minors.
Another strand to this is as follows: East has already shown up with the AK of Hearts. They are unlikely to have
too much else or they would surely have made a takeout double over 1
so either the Queen of Diamonds or the King of Clubs (if not both) will probably sit with
West.
A decent plan, therefore, is to cash the
King at trick 6 and then (assuming West plays low) either to play a Diamond to the Ace and try to drop the Queen in the West hand or to play a
small Diamond to the 10 and play East for the Queen, since they surely have the greater Diamond length. Whichever you choose, if you now lead the Jack of Hearts, West is stuffed if they started with 2 Diamonds.
If West ruffs the Jack of Hearts you simply discard a Minor suit card (if you cashed the King Ace of Diamonds, and the Queen didn't appear then discard a Diamond, but if you opted for a finesse of the
10 rather than trying to drop the Queen the obvious play is to discard a Club). West can cash all of their Spades, but will eventually have to lead a Club (probably away from the King, as explained above).
If, on the other hand, they discard a Diamond, then they still have a Club left and you can lead a Club to the Ace. If they discard a Club, then definitely discard a Diamond from your hand and lead a Diamond from Dummy (now, whether they follow or ruff high in front of you, you must come to another trick in the end).
That line works as long as West doesn't have 4-card Diamonds and a void in Clubs, but that would give East at least an 11-count with KJ10xxx in Clubs and they would surely have overcalled when they have a singleton Spade.
What doesn't work is what Partner tried, which was to play a Diamond to the Ace (without cashing the King first) and then leading the Jack of Hearts, because West still has a safe exit card (their 2nd Diamond) when they've taken all of their trumps. That line works when West has a singleton Diamond, but if you're going to play for that, you must cash the
King first and then run the Jack (or play a small Diamond to the 10).