No inference from the auction?

White on red, you deal and reach 4H on an uncontested auction: 1H – 4C - 4H

Dummy: 984 K952 A87643 ---

Declarer: A2 Q8764 QT92 A6

There is no perfect bid with dummy’s hand, so I think the splinter with a void is fine. The SJ is led. How do you play?

With this trump combination, you need to decide which opponent is more likely to have a stiff trump and lead a low one through him, succeeding when he has stiff A, J or T, as well as on 2-2 breaks other than JT tight (assuming you take the second-round restricted-choice finesse.) No opposing bidding here, so it’s just a guess, right? Not at all! It was much easier for lefty to enter this auction than righty, which means that righty is much more likely to have a stiff heart (and 10 or 11 black cards.) So, ruff a club and lead a small heart. I’ve thought about this kind of auction before, so the inference should have been routine, but somehow when it came up (round of 32 at the USBC) I was “off my game” and played a heart to the K at trick 2. RHO had stiff T, and there was no stiff K in diamonds, so that was down 1. I cannot report the auction at the other table, but the board was a push.

Note that because the auction makes 2-2 trump breaks more likely, one might be tempted to go against restricted choice even when the HT appears, but I do think you should finesse…there are lots of hands where rho can’t bid red/white with a stiff heart.

The hand record is at http://usbf.org/docs/vugraphs/USBC2009/hands/USBC2009_R32_13_20_1-30.PDF (board 12)