[ralph23]

Scoring: IMP

South opens 3♠ and North raises to 4♠.

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You lead your singleton ♣ and partner wins the first trick with the Queen; declarer plays a small one.

At trick two, Partner cashes the King of ♣ and declarer plays another small one, so you know declarer still has the Jack of ♣ and that at trick 3, partner will cash his Ace.

What do you play on trick 2 ? On trick 3 ? Why ?


Adv & exp, pls hide your answers.
Answer hidden below... full hands to follow .....

Spoiler

You know declarer has a 7 (or 8) card spade suit for his opening pre-empt, and that he started with 3 clubs to the Jack. He therefore has at most 3 red cards in his hand, and the top diamonds and the Ace of hearts in dummy will more than take care of all of these red losers.

Your only chance for a 4th trick is to trump a heart, so throw away your King and Queen of hearts on tricks two and three. Partner will lead a heart at trick 4 and you will ruff for the setting trick. Fortunately, declarer had a singleton heart.

Interestingly, the defense is easier for many if you have two small hearts rather than the King and Queen. "Sorry partner, we could have set it, but my hand was too good !"

[goobers]

Pitch your hearts.

[Quantumcat]

Why the hearts? You would get 3 club tricks then only?

Declarer has 3 diamond and heart cards. Maybe he has 2 hearts and 1 diamond, or 1 heart and 2 diamonds (He wouldn't bid 3♠ with a void).

If he has 1 heart he can just play ace, ruff, a diamond to dummy, (partner has 1) discard other diamond on heart.

If he has two hearts, he can play diamond to dummy, discard heart, (partner has 2 now) and ace of hearts.

If you discard your hearts, declarer can draw as many trumps as he likes, then enjoy two hearts and a diamond or 1 heart and two diamonds, whichever his holding.

Seems cold!!!

[the hog]

Reply below

Spoiler

sluff KQ of H. pd will return a H and you can ruff.

[Quantumcat]

Spoiler

Discarding hearts wouldn't have crossed my mind if it wasn't for goober's answer, I totally forgot partner is on lead right now. Cool problem! Requires a bit of lateral thinking.

[ralph23]

You know that declarer started with a 7 or 8 card ♠suit, and he's also got 3♣. Whatever losers he has in the other two suits (including ♥) will certainly go away on those great high cards in dummy.

So, you will never get a trick in ♥... so throw away your ♥ and get partner to return one at trick four so that you can ruff. Hopefully declarer is not void in ♥ !

The hand illustrates IMHO that high cards can be an impediment. If West had two small ♥ he would find the defense much more easily, wouldn't he ?

Scoring: IMP

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Which leads to another interesting hand .... one (or very similar one) that actually happened many years ago in a rubber bridge game at a club. The West player was the great Harry Fishbein.

Scoring: Rubber

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North opened 1♣ and Harry's partner (notoriously, one of the worst players in the club, who wasn't very observant and who had a "hard time" with defensive signals anyway, to put it charitably ) overcalled 1♦.

South bid 1♥ and Harry as West bid 1♠. North now bid 1NT, and Harry's partner raised him to 2♠.

But South now jumped to 4♥, ending the auction.

Harry led his top ♦, and his partner won the first two tricks with the Jack and the King of ♦, Harry playing hi-lo with his doubleton ♦.

At trick 3, East leads his good Ace of ♦ and declarer plays a small one from his hand.

What was Harry's play on trick 3 and why ?

[goobers]

I guess he pitched the SA to encourage a 4th diamond. He's never getting his ace anyway.

[ralph23]

goobers, on Jul 20 2007, 01:26 PM, said:

I guess he pitched the SA to encourage a 4th diamond. He's never getting his ace anyway.

Why didn't he just throw a low ♠ to discourage a ♠ return ?

[goobers]

Because they all look high, his spade ace is probably not cashing anyway, and as long as partner pushes a 4th diamond back, you've already beaten the contract one trick

[ralph23]

Yes, Harry's problem was that (although East could see all the low spades between his hand and dummy) (1) he was playing with a poor partner and (2) the lowest ♠ that he had was the 8 ! East (not being very observant) might think that was a "big one" and lead a ♠.

Harry knew East would not raise him without 3♠, so he was quite sure that declarer is void in ♠.

So, in real life, what did East lead at trick 4 after Harry's spectacular discard ?