[Al_U_Card]

Scoring: MP

p p 1NT p
2♣ p 2♥ p
2NT p 3NT p
p p

---

Your pard leads the J of diamonds and you are playing standard leads.

You win the ace as declarer follows with the 5.

Do you continue the suit and if so, how are you going to play it?

[luke warm]

yes

the 2

[Gerben42]

In the future it may be simpler to put dummy North, that is sort of the standard.

For future readers: DUMMY IS WEST HERE! (took me a while to notice).

I would have ducked the first round.

[Al_U_Card]

Gerben42, on Feb 27 2006, 10:34 AM, said:

In the future it may be simpler to put dummy North, that is sort of the standard.

For future readers: DUMMY IS WEST HERE! (took me a while to notice).

I would have ducked the first round.

Sorry about that! (The hand orientation.) As there will be a continuation provided, what are your reasons for ducking initially?

[Al_U_Card]

Maybe not so much a problem as a need to define when certain rules apply and when judgement is required. That is why I need to know the reasons behind the actions. Obviously winning the ace will clarify the situation for pard as well as maintaining control before declarer can get in and maybe take his tricks before ours are established.

[mikeh]

The point about ducking the 1st ♦ is valid.

Indeed, it is the way to avoid the blockage possibility.

Partner presumably has led from J10x or from length, which may include KJ10x(x).

The critical holding is when partner has led from KJ10xx.

Playing the 2 back, which is the accepted play from an original 4 card holding, creates a problem at mp scoring.

Partner will win the 10 and have to decide whether to underlead the K or play the K and block the suit.

This would be no problem if he held another entry. He could underlead the K, losing to declarer's hypothetical Q8, but be able to cash the suit on regaining the lead. And, in a similar way, he could play the K, blocking the suit opposite your Q8, knowing that he can get back in after you cash your ♦.

But he has no entry.

This is almost a non-issue at imps as well, since with that 5 card ♣ suit in dummy, the odds are high that underleading the Kxx (after winning the 10) would cost only an overtrick when 'wrong', while blocking the suit is likely to be fatal.

Partner may have some clue from the cards played by declarer when declarer has xx, but most probably partner will be guessing at trick 3.

So there is some logic to winning the A and returning the Q. It loses when partner led from J10x, and you end up being embarrassed by declarer's K7xx.

So it is a guess: either for you or for partner: all of which takes us back one trick: why on earth did we put ourselves in this position?

It is basic bridge to think before playing to trick one, and the thought we should have had was 'if we win this trick, which ♦ are we going to play back?'

Had we done this basic thinking, we would have NO problem now.

So if the point of this question was to make us think, it came one trick too late. It is making us think not about correct technique at this point but about how best to guess our way out of a silly situation that we created by thoughtless play.

[Al_U_Card]

So the initial duck caters to all possibilities. As leader, seeing the 8 from pard, (or would you play the 2?) if you held KJTxx originally, you would then continue (the J holds) with your original 4th best?

[mikeh]

Al_U_Card, on Feb 27 2006, 11:55 AM, said:

So the initial duck caters to all possibilities.  As leader, seeing the 8 from pard, (or would you play the 2?) if you held KJTxx originally, you would then continue (the J holds) with your original 4th best?

If I led from KJ10x(x) and my Jack held the trick, I would go out on a limb and assume that declarer did not hold AQx of my suit

Yes, I would lead my original 4th best now: I would continue the K from an initial KJ10 (tripleton) and the 10 from an initial J10x.

I personally play udca, but one's signalling methods are irrelevant on this hand: when the J holds, one need not be a brain surgeon to work this out, and dummy is such that there is no earthly reason for third hand to signal for a switch.

[Al_U_Card]

Unfortunately, pard decided to rise with the Ace and continue with.....the 8. I won with the ten and then plunked down the King (from KJTxx) hoping that the suit was divided 3-3 (A8x) Am I better off switching to cater to pard having held A8 only? I had no outside entry so I figured that all of pards values were finessable . Switching does carry the risk of giving declarer some help, but it denies him a D trick....