FrancesHinden, on Aug 16 2007, 09:47 AM, said:
Which of the remaining high cards do you think partner has? Why?
You may want to re-read the first line of the posting before you put too much faith in the bidding to guide you.
But let's look at declarer's distribution(s).
We know he has 6
♣ to the AKQJ(xx).
We know he has at least one
♠ since he used Blackwood.
We know he doesn't have two small
♥ (or a
♥ void) since he used Blackwood.
If he started with 5
♦ to the AK, he must have 1-1 in the majors, and he's going to make it, no matter what we do. He'll ruff out my
♦, his 5th one will be good, and he'll just lose the Ace of
♠.
If he started with 5
♦ to the Ace empty, he must have 1-1 in the majors, and he's going to lose a
♠ and a
♦ all day, no matter what he does;
unless he has the stiff
♠ Ace, in which case he's going to make his contract all day, by just giving up a
♦.
If he started with 4
♦ to the AK, then if he has
♠xx and
♥x for his 3 major suit cards (we ruled out his having 2 losing
♥), he's going to make it. He has no choice of plays, except to hope the
♠ Ace is onside.
If he started with 4
♦ to the Ace empty, he must have 2-1 in the majors, and he's going to lose a
♠ and a
♦ all day, no matter what he does;
unless he has the
♠ Ace, in which case he's going to make his contract all day, by just giving up a
♦.
If he started with 3
♦ to the Ace empty, then he has 4 major cards, and he has a diamond loser all day, and we'll cash our
♦ winner as soon as we get the lead. So he's going down unless he holds both the Ace of
♠ and the King of
♥ in this case.
If he started with 3
♦ to the Ace King, i.e.
♦AKx, then he has 4 major cards... hmmmm....let's come back to this one later.....
If he started with AK
♦ tight, we know he has the King of
♥ and at least one other
♥. He can't have 4
♠ and a stiff
♥, since responder bid
♠. He has 5 major cards, and if he has the Ace of
♠, he has 4 major winners; he'll make it.
If he doesn't have it, he'll succeed if he has
♥KT(9)(x) and guesses the Queen correctly; but he has no other choice of plays.
If he started with Ax
♦, he has a diamond loser that EW will take as soon as they get the lead; so he better have the
♠Ace and be a good Queen guesser, holding something like
♠Ax
♥KT9 or maybe
♠AJT
♥Kx. But he has no choice of plays here either.
If he started with
♦AKx, however, it gets more interesting.. he has no minor losers, being able to ruff his third diamond, and 4 major cards. If he
has the Ace of
♠, he has 3 major tops and no problem... if he lacks
both the Ace of
♠ and the
♥ King, he has no chance.
So it's really only interesting when he lacks the Ace of
♠ but has the King of
♥. Now he has 11 tops, 9 minors and
♥AK, and a choice of plays for his 12th trick.... a major suit finesse in any case.
My partner didn't go through all that to guess that I had the Ace of
♠. When declarer Blackwooded and didn't try for 7, he concluded that it was likely that I held an Ace, and after trick two, it was clear that I held the Ace of
♠.
So on the second round of trumps, he discarded the
9 of
♠... trying to sell declarer on the notion that he (East) held the Ace of
♠.
Declarer finessed me (West) for the missing Queen of
♥, lost the trick to East, and the Ace of
♠ was the setting trick.
Help
