[rogerclee]

IMPs, White vs Red, Third Seat

♠AK3 ♥AJT9 ♦9 ♣JT8xx

P - (P) - 1♣ - (P)
1♥ - (P) - 3♥ - (Dbl)
Rdbl - (3♠) - Dbl - AP

Lead: ♠K

1) Assuming that you could not have bid 3♦ here to show an invitational splinter, do you agree with your bidding and opening lead?

Scoring: IMP

---

♠K - ♠4 - ♠6 - ♠2

2) UDCA, but no other discussion (I'm not sure what partner's spade spot is supposed to mean here anyway, if anything). Your continuation?

[Codo]

Opening 1 Club was fine, but the jump to 3 HEart was too much.
I have 13 HCPs and 7 losers, way too much for jump to 3 Heart.

In my first reply I overlooked the XX from pd, so I still dislike the 3 HEart bid, but now I am more confident about 3 Spade X and like the double.

Now I agree that pd will hold many of the missing HCPS, so I change my view and continue spades.

This post has been edited by Codo: 2008-March-31, 09:13

[Rebound]

Just a side question of a more general nature if I may:
Often, when I have trump control, a singleton, and some sign of life from partner, I will lead the singleton with the idea that I will have time to find partner's entry (assuming it exists) to get a ruff since declarer has to knock out my control to draw trump. Is this faulty reasoning? I will often attempt this even with Ax(x) let alone AKx as in the given hand.

[655321]

Don't mind the 3♥ bid.

Double of 3♠ is extra greedy - there is a reason you are supposed to have 4 trumps to double a partscore. Once your ♠A and ♠K have won 2 tricks, you are left with ... not much ... to try for 3 more tricks.

Anyway, I agree with the opening lead, and now would continue with 2 more rounds of spades. If partner has pretty much all the outstanding HCP, we might hold declarer to 3 spade tricks, 3 club tricks and a diamond, for 2 down.

[pclayton]

Two more spades look best. It's hard to see how we can ever beat this -3, but a diamond continuation might lead to -1.

I agree with 3♥ and the double. Partner has expressed a willingness to defend. How can we not double 3♠ with AKx?

[gnasher]

I agree with 3♥, and with the double. If I pass over 3♠, partner will probably bid 4♥, expecting our hands to fit better than they actually do.

It looks obvious to continue trumps, but I'm not sure that it's right. It makes sure of two down when declarer has only four spades and no ♦Q, but it lets it through when he has five spades and ♦Q, or four spades and ♦Q10x, or five spades and ♥K (there's a squeeze or endplay in the round-suits).

Might partner have bid as he did with Jx Kxxx KJxxx xx or x Qxxx KQJxx xxx? I think he might, so I'm going to switch to diamonds. If partner has the red suits well under control, maybe he will work out that there's no need to give me a ruff, and will play a major instead so that I can revert to the plan of drawing trumps.

[rogerclee]

Jlall, on Apr 1 2008, 01:58 AM, said:

Would def shift to a diamond now and hope to get 1 diamond 2 spades 1 heart and a ruff.

On most layouts where playing trump-trump is good a diamond is just as good anyways.

It turns out on the actual hand that any sort of shift is better than trump continuations. It allows him to set up diamonds for only down 1.

Shifting either causes declarer to allow you guys to score your trumps separately (pard has ♠Jxx and a stiff club) or to get tapped, allowing us to score our hearts. Any shift will probably lead to down 3 or 4.