I am finding this hand very interesting. As has been noted, bringing in the diamonds is iffy. I will reproduce the hands, but with the
s arranged differently.
North
J5
AJ83
423
QJ953
West East
9864
KQT2
Q764
92
KT5
Q83
42
KT76
South
A73
KT5
AJ976
A8
Now the diamonds need more work, too much work, to establish, so how about clubs? The opening lead is the
4, can we bring in this contract? I am pretty sure that the answer is no, but suppose we win the lead on the board with the J, tossing the T underneath. Then we lead the
Q. If E plays the K, we are home. We take the A and we lead the
8 and let it ride. If E takes his T we can make an overtrick via one trick in
, four in
, one in
, four in
. If E declines to take the 8 with his T, then we only get three
tricks instead of four, but thanks to our pitch of the
T at T1 we can bring in four
tricks.
To beat the contract on this line of play, E must play low on the
Q. Now declarer gets two
tricks. He will still be on the board at T3, so he can attack
. Since I have rearranged that suit he is going down.
Here is another rearrangement.
North
J5
AJ83
423
QJ953
West East
9864
KQT2
Q764
92
K3
QT85
K42
T76
South
A73
KT5
AJ976
A8
Suppose again that the opening lead is the
4, taken by the J, declarer tossing the T. Now the
Q is led, it goes Q68?, W to play. If it goes Q68K then declarer again has ten tricks: 1+4+1+4=10. But if W ducks, so Q682? Declarer has one more entry to the board so while he could cash the
A and go back to the board via
K and a small
, cash the last
, and lead a
to establish the suit, he cannot then get back to the board to cash the
s.
Here I have restored the
s to their original convenient arrangement, so if, after the
Q holds, if declarer now switches to
then all is well.
in short, with careful defense, winning the
lead with the J and leading the
Q is unlikely to establish the
suit. Of course the line at the successful table was to try clubs and then let the opponents establish diamonds. Might work. Not for the first time, a line that should not have worked did work.
This hand provides a lot of opportunity for both the offense and the defense. As the cards lie, declarer needs to work on diamonds. Just looking at the NS cards, I think clubs are the best bet, but I think they should be played A and a small
toward the board. This fails here, but I think it is the best bet.