[inquiry]

Imps, Both Vul

S - J 10 5
H - J 9 5
D - 6 3
C - Q 8 7 6 3


S - A K 4
H - K 7 6 3
D - A K J 8
C - A 4

Bidding,
W N E S
1S P P DBL (1S bidder playing precision)
P 2C P 3NT
P P P

Opening lead Spade 3,

Spade Jack wins, East plays the spade 6

If you don't like the bidding, just live with. The play might make it worth while. Plan your plan. Perhaps if I showed a few more tricks it would be easier to plan your play, as there are a lot of ways to go, but it is interesting to see if an overall strategy can be derived early.

Ben

[Poky]

Overtake the SJ with SK (making a potential entry) and play CA, club to queen hoping in 3-3 club break with CK in opener's hand.

Something like:

Q98732 (strange lead)
AQ
Qx
Kxx

or

Q9732 (strange signaling if not UDCA)
AQ
Qxx
Kxx.

Poky

[inquiry]

Lead was fourth best, spade play by RHO, if asked, was "standard attitude". These defenders are "milddle of the road", so for the sake of this problem, we will state that it is a fair conclusion that WEST has five spades and East has two.

[luis]

Poky: When the opps bid to 3NT afer you open the bidding there's no point in making an honest 4th best lead. The s3 can easily be the 5th spade from west and east may have 62. Very likely.
When you know your pd is broke you cannot deceive him so it's a good idea to deceive declarer.

[Poky]

Absolutely true! I only noted something strange was happening in signaling.

Anyway, my line remains the same.

The real entry-problem arises when spades are:
98732 vs. Q6

But I think we can exclude this possibility...

[flytoox]

Agree with poky, I will overtake with s ace and play c ace and small c to dummy. but there is still a problem, if west is good enough, he might discard c king on c ace to create an entry for east. let's assume west defend well by discard c k in this case you play c to c q and play the third c, discarding s k on the third c.
now east will return d(best def.), insert d8 if it is a small card, cover with jack if it is t or 9. west is endplayed now.

[the hog]

Win S with K and continue A + another C. Presumably lho wins K. lho is probably 5332. If he continues S, I win in dummy, cash Q of C and watch what he pitches. If he pitches a S, I can exit with AK and another D. If he pitches a H I exit with AK and third D to force him to lead from AQ of H.

[rtewari]

Quote

Agree with poky, I will overtake with s ace and play c ace and small c to dummy. but there is still a problem, if west is good enough, he might discard c king on c ace to create an entry for east. let's assume west defend well by discard c k in this case you play c to c q and play the third c, discarding s k on the third c.
now east will return d(best def.), insert d8 if it is a small card, cover with jack if it is t or 9. west is endplayed now.

On this line, the defence has a simple 5 tricks. When you play low on diamond return, West wins and cashes spade queen and exits a diamond and then they wait for 2 heart tricks as declarer now has to play hearts from hand.

Probably better is to play for the heart suit and some sort of a minor suit throw in against West. It is possible for West to hold spade Q , heart AQ , Diamond Q and club K. Sometimes, West may not have club king and diamond queen may be coming doubleton in which case playing for clubs will clearly will be losing play. I would tend to play for heart ten with West. Cross to diamond Ace, play a low heart towards J9x intending to play the nine if West plays low smoothly. It would require good & quick defense to duck with heart AQx.

[inquiry]

I believe Rajeshwar has found the best line, low heart towards dummy. West with AQ, or A can't mess your line up, and with AQx might go wrong.

Real world, West had singleton heart A, and his hand was...

S-Qxxxx
H-A
D-Qxx
C-Kxxx