[antonylee]

---

By agreement, 2♣ denies a 4cM. You lead the ♣5 to the 10, king and 2, then the ♦9 comes back. Now what?

[wank]

edited out some BS

[mich-b]

I think it makes sense to consider his ♦9 as suit preference , and play a ♠ for him to ruff , playing delarer for 7411.
This is likely to save an overtrick (which is important if thats MP), and will set the contract if pd's hearts are Ax or Qx (and declarer later misguesses).

On the other hand , if pd does have a ♠ void , he might (should?) have won the first trick with the ♣A , to make sure I dont go wrong when I win the ♦A.

[wank]

lol yes i already realised i can't add up

[gnasher]

I agree that partner's diamond ought to be suit-preference, but I'd have to be very sure of my carding agreements before I played declarer to have bid 3♥ with AK1098xx H10xx x x. With - Hx xxxxx AK98xx partner might have done more too.

[whereagles]

Well, I'm going to play pard for a more normal xx Ax 9xx AKxxxx. I'll take the ace and play back a club. Maybe we can get to 2 trump tricks.

[phil_20686]

whereagles, on 2012-February-09, 05:00, said:

Well, I'm going to play pard for a more normal xx Ax 9xx AKxxxx. I'll take the ace and play back a club. Maybe we can get to 2 trump tricks.

What if partner has only 5 clubs?

if he has say xx Qx xxxx AK9xx, a club back ensures defeat. While 5 card overcall in a poor hand are not my favourite, they happen a lot in the real world, and with a random partner I would not rule them out.

It also seems to me that its implausible that partner is 0256 and didnt bid some more. So I would not return a spade. If he had one spade and the heart ace he would return a spade, so it looks like he is 22 or 21 in the majors. At any rate, it seems unlikely the spade luser is going even if he does get 4 minor suit tricks.

Sign me up for AD and Jc return.

[Phil]

Partner made a w/r 2♣ overcall over 1♦. Let's not be too hasty to judge him as random if he has ♣AKxxx + another card.

If partner has the spade void (very unlikely), I would expect partner would build a fence around me and win the ♣A at T1 and expect me to work out the spade ruff. If partner is 0=2=5=6 and declarer is 7=4=1=1, we need the ♥A as well, and I would expect partner would cash the ♥A before playing the diamond. There isn't a layout where partner has only five clubs, denies four hearts, and has a spade void.

I also don't expect declarer to misguess trump when partner has xx Ax 98x AKxxxx.

I think its quite likely partner has something like xx Qx xxxx AK9xx and we have four cashing tricks as long as we don't do anything crazy.

[MrAce]

Phil, on 2012-February-09, 11:17, said:

I think its quite likely partner has something like xx Qx xxxx AK9xx and we have four cashing tricks as long as we don't do anything crazy.

Or

Kx
Qx
xxxx
AKxxx

But anyway, i dont understand why pd didnt cash 2nd ♣ before ♦9 ? He knows setting ♣Q for declarer costs us nothing.

I dont believe pd has 5♣ only, it doesnt make sense since he doesnt know who has the ♦ Ace. He would look very stupid if i had AJx ♥ and declarer had ♦ Ace, saying bye bye to our 2nd ♣ trick as well as saying bye bye to our possible 4th trick in defense.

[bigbenvic]

where are our 4 tricks coming from?
We have 2 minor suit tops, partner should heave either the A or K of ♠ or the A♥ for his bid.

The K♠ is no good for us so he doesn't have it (if he does the ontract is cold!)

If he has the A♠ then it looks cold too, unless pards has the Q♥ which makes East KTxxx(x) Axxx xx(x) x which makes that highly unlikely.

So pards has to have the A♥ and as such I'm letting the K♦ win playing the 5.
Maybe when in dummy, declarer will play a ♥ to the Q. My partner could have ♦ length and be playing for me to have A♥ and xx♦ so I fly the Ace and lead a ♦ and score a ruff. If I play the 5♦ it might look like I hold 3, so the ruff isn't on and he tries a trump, partner wins and hopefully the diamond trick doesn't go away!

[MrAce]

bigbenvic, on 2012-February-09, 19:49, said:

where are our 4 tricks coming from?

I am not sure what you meant.

If you are talking about the construction i made while quoting Phil we take 2♣+1♦+1♥. I just gave him ♠K to make it look like more of a 2♣ bid.

On the other hand i wasnt making any suggestion in regards to solution. I was questioning pd's action. Can he really have 5♣ and risked to play ♦ ? Because it is a risk that gains for nothing. Declarer may have ♦ A and our ♣ can go on ♦, which then i wld be holding ♥A instead of ♦A.

xxxx
AJx
xxx
Jxx

Pd shifting to ♦ when holding only 5 ♣ does not make any sense whatsoever. With 5 ♣ pd HAS TO cash 2nd club.

[bigbenvic]

MrAce, on 2012-February-09, 20:09, said:

I am not sure what you meant.

If you are talking about the construction i made while quoting Phil we take 2♣+1♦+1♥. I just gave him ♠K to make it look like more of a 2♣ bid.

On the other hand i wasnt making any suggestion in regards to solution. I was questioning pd's action. Can he really have 5♣ and risked to play ♦ ? Because it is a risk that gains for nothing. Declarer may have ♦ A and our ♣ can go on ♦, which then i wld be holding ♥A instead of ♦A.

xxxx
AJx
xxx
Jxx

Pd shifting to ♦ when holding only 5 ♣ does not make any sense whatsoever. With 5 ♣ pd HAS TO cash 2nd club.

No, was just starting my post with the question I try to ask when I am in defense, in this case where are the 4 tricks coming from to beat this contract of 4♥. Was in no way reflecting on your post, I agree if pards has 5 he has to cash the second, so as he didn't I've dismissed it for the purpose of my post. The ♦ switch would be a terrible one as you rightly pointed out, if he had only 5♣

[antonylee]

So I did return a spade hoping for a ruff, reading the diamond as suit preference (even though we had no firm agreements on that) as well as considering that if partner had five clubs he should see that cashing the king won't cost. So, yes, I'm playing declarer for 7411.
As it happens, partner was xx-Qx-xxxx-AKxxx, which looks like an OK 2♣ overcall over 1♦ to me at these colors. The diamond was intended as count, I presume -- not that this would be helpful, and he said that trying to cash another club could cost if declarer was 6511. Our combined heart holdings were worth a trick so we could actually have defeated the contract. Beh.
Still, I like the idea of winning the club ace with a spade void to make it clear a club continuation is not wanted.

[MrAce]

antonylee, on 2012-February-09, 20:48, said:

So I did return a spade hoping for a ruff, reading the diamond as suit preference (even though we had no firm agreements on that) as well as considering that if partner had five clubs he should see that cashing the king won't cost. So, yes, I'm playing declarer for 7411.
As it happens, partner was xx-Qx-xxxx-AKxxx, which looks like an OK 2♣ overcall over 1♦ to me at these colors. The diamond was intended as count, I presume -- not that this would be helpful, and he said that trying to cash another club could cost if declarer was 6511. Our combined heart holdings were worth a trick so we could actually have defeated the contract. Beh.
Still, I like the idea of winning the club ace with a spade void to make it clear a club continuation is not wanted.

See those who are so focused on carding and false carding such as taking the first trick with A instead of K misses the basic analysis of this hand. And when the pd is in same page with them it becomes a happy ending story with no one aware of the danger and what would happen if South had ♥A instead of ♦A.

We are expecting pd to be intelligent and fancy to take the first ♣ with Ace, but we are not expecting pd to be capable of making a very simple logical defense, which is to cash immediately 2nd ♣ winner from a 5 card holding incase i have the other red ace.

Your pd's excuse about declarer being 6511 is worse than his mistake, because from your lead he knows declarer has 2♣, thus he cant be 6511. This would be a better problem if you posted North hand and asked us how to defend at trick 2 imo.