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Your partner leads the 8 of ♠, which you believe to be his 4th best. You play the ten of ♠ and it wins.
How are you going to defend, and why?
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Plan your defense
#1
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Posted 2007-July-29, 10:40
♣♦♥♠
Your partner leads the 8 of ♠, which you believe to be his 4th best. You play the ten of ♠ and it wins.
How are you going to defend, and why?
Your partner leads the 8 of ♠, which you believe to be his 4th best. You play the ten of ♠ and it wins.
How are you going to defend, and why?
♣♦♥♠ Philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that other philosophers are all jackasses. He usually proves it, and I should add that he also usually proves that he is one himself. H.L. Mencken. ♣♦♥♠
#3
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Posted 2007-July-30, 09:44
North has 9HCP, and we have 10. Partner has at most 6HCP.
By rule of 11, declarer only has 1 spade higher than the 8 in his hand. It can't be the Q (partner would have 7 HCP), so it's either the K or the A.
If declarer is Kxx in spades, returning a spade will set the contract (partner, if he's counting, would overtake our J).
If declarer has the ace or 4 spades, though, we'll have more work to do.
Given that we now know that partner's 4-6 points are in spades, we have a pretty good idea where his winners are coming from. 1 club, 5 diamonds, and 2 hearts. If he also has the spade ace, that's 9 winners.
If he has the spade ace, the only chance I have of defeating the contract is to hope declarer only has 2 diamonds in his hand. Leading the king of clubs to knock out the ace, then holding up the first round of diamonds would lock declarer out of the board.
The problem is that I can't do both. Do I attack spades, or do I knock out the ace of clubs?
My choice is to attack spades. Partner will know if we have enough spade tricks, or not. If not, partner can see the same board that I can, and even though I can't signal suit preference, hopefully partner will reason out to lead me back a club. This works to knock out the ace, regardless of how declarer plays it, because there are only 2 clubs on the board.
V
EDIT - I like jtfan's answer. Wish I'd thought of that.
By rule of 11, declarer only has 1 spade higher than the 8 in his hand. It can't be the Q (partner would have 7 HCP), so it's either the K or the A.
If declarer is Kxx in spades, returning a spade will set the contract (partner, if he's counting, would overtake our J).
If declarer has the ace or 4 spades, though, we'll have more work to do.
Given that we now know that partner's 4-6 points are in spades, we have a pretty good idea where his winners are coming from. 1 club, 5 diamonds, and 2 hearts. If he also has the spade ace, that's 9 winners.
If he has the spade ace, the only chance I have of defeating the contract is to hope declarer only has 2 diamonds in his hand. Leading the king of clubs to knock out the ace, then holding up the first round of diamonds would lock declarer out of the board.
The problem is that I can't do both. Do I attack spades, or do I knock out the ace of clubs?
My choice is to attack spades. Partner will know if we have enough spade tricks, or not. If not, partner can see the same board that I can, and even though I can't signal suit preference, hopefully partner will reason out to lead me back a club. This works to knock out the ace, regardless of how declarer plays it, because there are only 2 clubs on the board.
V
EDIT - I like jtfan's answer. Wish I'd thought of that.
Still decidedly intermediate - don't take my guesses as authoritative.
"gwnn" said:
rule number 1 in efficient forum reading:
hanp does not always mean literally what he writes.
hanp does not always mean literally what he writes.
#4
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Posted 2007-July-30, 11:14
vuroth, on Jul 30 2007, 10:44 AM, said:
If declarer is Kxx in spades, returning a spade will set the contract (partner, if he's counting, would overtake our J).
If declarer has Kxx of ♠, do you think he would have held up at trick one?
♣♦♥♠ Philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that other philosophers are all jackasses. He usually proves it, and I should add that he also usually proves that he is one himself. H.L. Mencken. ♣♦♥♠
#5
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Posted 2007-July-30, 11:54
ralph23, on Jul 30 2007, 12:14 PM, said:
vuroth, on Jul 30 2007, 10:44 AM, said:
If declarer is Kxx in spades, returning a spade will set the contract (partner, if he's counting, would overtake our J).
If declarer has Kxx of ♠, do you think he would have held up at trick one?
If declarer is Kxx is spades, the king is his 9th trick. He just HAS to hope spades are 4-3, or he's cooked.
He has to take the king straight away, and play diamonds before defense switches to clubs.
So declarer has the ace of spades, and we really only have 1 shot at defeating the contract. If declarer has 3 diamonds, he's got it made.
V
Still decidedly intermediate - don't take my guesses as authoritative.
"gwnn" said:
rule number 1 in efficient forum reading:
hanp does not always mean literally what he writes.
hanp does not always mean literally what he writes.
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South opens 1NT (15-17) and North raises to 3NT.