[Walddk]

Scoring: IMP

South: 3NT
Lead: D9

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It's not often you know declarer's exact shape before the lead. Here is an example from a strong team game on BBO.

1N - 2♠
3♠ - 3N
P

2♠ was a shape and range enquiry, and South showed 4333 and a maximum. Your partner leads ♦9, promising the 10 but denying any of the four top honours.

Declarer plays low from dummy, you win the ace and South follows with the 6. What is your move at trick 2 and why?

Roland

[brianshark]

Just to clarify, declarer showed exactly 4 ♠s?

[Walddk]

brianshark, on Oct 24 2007, 01:02 PM, said:

Just to clarify, declarer showed exactly 4 ♠s?

Yes. Four spades and no other four-card suit was the explanation at the table. So 4-3-3-3 it is.

Roland

[whereagles]

At trick 2 I'm going to play the 10 of clubs and I don't know why. It just feels right.

[Edmunte1]

[COLOR=gray]. I'll return ♦Q. Partner has 7-8 hcp. If he has ♣A, declarer will always make the contract by ducking one round in diamonds. So our chance is that partener has ♣J and ♥AQ. In that case declarer has only 8 tricks and needs 9th trick from hearts, and we will promote partner's diamonds before declarer promotes his hearts

[brianshark]

Maybe a small club hoping partner has AJx and a heart stopper (Qxx) and declarer covers partner's J on the 1st round, preserving the entry.

[MFA]

♦Q. The legitimate chance. If I play a club and find p with AJx, declarer can just duck in dummy. This might not be so obvious for him, but still I'll expect him to do it.

[Halo]

Q♦

I think that we will take it off because of partner's long diamonds.

[Tomi2]

I think I'd have played ♦Q in the first trick to see what decl makes next. he will need the !d trick, so I hope think I wont lose tempo but I will gain inromation from his play and my parters signals.
One error I will not make, is to play him for 4333 and forget about all other possibilities. That would be careless even if I had been misinformed, but it would be a big mistake, if decl had a non 4333 hand and decided to sell it as 4333

[Onno]

If you play ♦Q declarer knows at once he has two diamond tricks. If you don't he'll have to guess to play the king or possibly endplay West. But that is a bit far-fetched I guess. Just returning ♦Q and hoping partner has two entries must be better.

Tough to see my goofs at the table return on the forum Especially when everybody gets it right.