[ralph23]

♣♦♥♠

Scoring: IMP

NS playing simple SAYC.

---

At IMPs, North opens 1♠ and South responds 2♣.
North responds 2♠ and South bids 2NT.
North raises to 3NT ending the auction. EW have been silent.

You and your partner are playing 4th best leads.

Partner opens with the ♦6. You take your Ace and declarer drops the ten.

You now return your remaining diamond. Declarer plays the Jack and Partner takes his Queen. At trick 3, Partner now leads the 2 of ♦ and it's your discard. What is your play and why ?

Adv & exp pls hide your answers.
Full hands to follow.

[pclayton]

Fun hand. If youve never seen this theme, its neat.

I wish hands like this would happen at the table.

A good Int should be able to reason this one out. I would have doubled 3N by the way and not liked the result.

[jocdelevat]

I'm horible at leads and carding.(I can say level novice).
I suppose I discard q spade hoping to catch declerer on a spade and heart. I see declerer hand as 1435

[ralph23]

jocdelevat, on Jul 19 2007, 07:03 PM, said:

I'm horible at leads and carding.(I can say level novice).
I suppose I discard q spade hoping to catch declerer on a spade and heart. I see declerer hand as 1435

OK, so give declarer 1435. That's reasonable.

What do you think his clubs are like? How many club tricks do you think he can take? If that's true, how many tricks can he take in all ?

And what will be his line of play after he wins trick 3 with the King of diamonds? (You know of course that he has it...).

How in the world is your partnership going to set this contract ???

[Trumpace]

Just a guess (haven't thought it through)
[ h i d d e n ]

Spoiler

Drop the Club Ace. Hoping that the Club Jack is an entry to partners hand

[/ h i d d e n]

[jocdelevat]

I supose he has 2 honors(k and q or J) in his club suit because if he has 3 honors I see no problem making the contract. I as declerer I will play low heart and then 10 club from dummy wich loose to ace. I take spade with ace then play ace heart follow by 9 club. From here contract down anything I play.

[kenrexford]

Ditto Trumpace.

[jocdelevat]

Trumpace answer should be right however I bet most b/i will not do it. That doesn't make me happy either. Thanks for those 3 hands. I learned something.

[kenrexford]

The precise pips that East has leads to a funny possible ending:

Spoiler

Suppose East does ditch the club Ace. Declarer might sense the problem and elect to cash his heart Ace-Queen and club King-Queen, leaving:

Dummy holds ♠AKxxx ♥--- ♦--- ♣10
Declarer holds ♠x ♥K8 ♦--- ♣xxx

Declarer will be up to five tricks (two hearts, two clubs, and a diamond) and will need four of the last tricks. He has three easily. He has a fourth if he can end-play East.

East will have no minor cards left. He must save two hearts, else the heart King will drop the 9, establishing Declarer's 8. So, East ends up with:

♠QJ109 ♥9x ♦--- ♣---.

Declarer now wins by simply cashing two top spades and throwing East in to lead hearts back.

So, the jettison of the club Ace works when Declarer is not 1435 or 2434 shape. That means that West cannot be 2254 or 1255 shape.

Every time I play the club Ace, partner has one of these shapes. LOL

[DWM]

I cannot see the point of telling P about the club ace. The most informative card to play is the q♠ shows him a run in spades headed by the queen

[ralph23]

♣♦♥♠

Scoring: IMP

NS playing simply SAYC

---

Partner is sitting with good ♦ and will set the contract if he gets the lead ... but how can he get the lead if you win the first ♣ trick with the Ace?

You can see that partner can never get the lead in a major suit. The only hope for his getting the lead is in declarer's main suit, ♣. So imagine what declarer's hand is like and how this can happen...

If partner just has three ♣ to the Jack, then he could get the lead with the Jack. (He could also get the lead if he had Qx in ♣, or even (a long shot indeed) a singleton King... but these are unlikely compared to 3-to-the-Jack).

However, if you win the first ♣ trick with the Ace, declarer will play low and partner's chance to get the lead will evaporate.

Yes, if declarer has KQJxx of ♣ (or better), you have thrown away an overtrick. But isn't the paltry overtrick possibility worth the gamble of setting the contract ? This is IMP scoring after all !

[vuroth]

kenrexford, on Jul 19 2007, 10:42 PM, said:

Ditto Trumpace.

...with the caveat that I thought about it for longer than I would have at the table.

Also, these things tend to be easier when presented as a problem than when they come up in play.

V

[goobers]

vuroth, on Jul 20 2007, 11:06 AM, said:

kenrexford, on Jul 19 2007, 10:42 PM, said:

Ditto Trumpace.

...with the caveat that I thought about it for longer than I would have at the table.

Also, these things tend to be easier when presented as a problem than when they come up in play.

V

Sigh, sadly true. I solved this problem, but I guarantee that I will not find this at the table.

I guess it'll just take some more time before these things become second nature. (Will the opponents mind if I tank for 10 minutes at the table?)

[pclayton]

For extra credit, figure out a way declarer could have made the hand with this lead.

[ralph23]

pclayton, on Jul 20 2007, 12:30 PM, said:

For extra credit, figure out a way declarer could have made the hand with this lead.

♣♦♠♥

Ah yes, that is a great question and I had forgotten about it ! Declarer did (IMHO anyway) misplay the hand. Where did declarer fall from grace ?

[goobers]

Hopping the DK at trick 2, crossing, and leading a low club up?

[ralph23]

goobers, on Jul 20 2007, 12:59 PM, said:

Hopping the DK at trick 2, crossing, and leading a low club up?

Wonderful. You get the bonus! Now for extra extra credit:

Looking at all four hands, you can see that winning trick 2 with the King of ♦, entering dummy and leading a ♣ will allow the contract to make: it doesn't give East the opportunity to make the newspapers by his spectacular discard of the Ace of ♣ on the third round of the ♦.

But why do I think that declarer "misplayed" the hand at trick 2, by playing the Jack instead of the King ? Isn't a holdup play a good idea here ?

How did declarer think (or did he?) the ♦ were divided between East and West (numerically, not high cards) ?

[skjaeran]

ralph23, on Jul 20 2007, 08:28 PM, said:

goobers, on Jul 20 2007, 12:59 PM, said:

Hopping the DK at trick 2, crossing, and leading a low club up?

Wonderful. You get the bonus! Now for extra extra credit:

Looking at all four hands, you can see that winning trick 2 with the King of ♦, entering dummy and leading a ♣ will allow the contract to make: it doesn't give East the opportunity to make the newspapers by his spectacular discard of the Ace of ♣ on the third round of the ♦.

But why do I think that declarer "misplayed" the hand at trick 2, by playing the Jack instead of the King ? Isn't a holdup play a good idea here ?

How did declarer think (or did he?) the ♦ were divided between East and West (numerically, not high cards) ?

Spoiler

At trick 2 declarer doesn't know if the suit is divided 5-2 or 4-3, since the ♦2 is still hidden. But he knows that west has 4 or 5 cards in the suit headed by the queen. Thus, if he takes the king at trick 2 and east later gains the lead with the ♣A, if east does hold the ♦2, opps will win 3♦'s and the ♣A. And he'll make the contract. If east has a doubleton ♦ he'll be out of ♦'s when winning the ♣A, and declarer will make an overtrikc. If west has the ♣A it doesn't matter what declarer does at trick 2. So it can never gain to take the ♦ finesse at trick 2 (unless you think a devious west has made a short suit lead).

[ralph23]

Thanks Harald, for that very concise and incisive summary on the declarer play.

This is something that B/I's need to think about when contemplating a hold-up play: How do you think the enemy cards are divided ? Make a theory (a guess), and follow it out. Then make a competing theory (guess).

Sometimes you can "tell" by the opening lead (if you trust your opponents to be honest here... usually they are because they don't want to deceive partner). So, if West leads the deuce and they are playing fourth best, you "know" he has a 4-card suit. That "knowledge" may be false of course, but you may want to play accordingly.