[FrancesHinden]

You are South
Dummy is East

Scoring: IMP

P 3♥ 3NT all pass

---

Partner leads the HK, and you play the 2
Partner thinks for a while and plays a second heart to your ace (I assume), declarer playing the jack.

Now what?

[Free]

♠

[whereagles]

In auto-pilot mode, spade is normal. In problem mode, I'd have to give it a looooong thought, but would probably end up playing a spade anyway....... lol.

[andy_h]

spade? nothing comes to mind. Maybe a low heart back to tell partner i have something in clubs..

[dcvetkov]

I would be surprised if declarer comes to 9 tricks here, unless very strong and can rattle tons of spade and diamond tricks. Problem is that partner maybe be endplayed once or twice. I would play a spade, but then he will know what to return? Any return can give declarer a trick.

[pclayton]

Clearing hearts might be right if declarer has something like: KQJ QJx AKQ AKTx, but this is a really strong 3N call. What about: AJT, QJx, AK, AKTxx - this hand is certainly more likely.

A spade seems right when declarer has a one loser diamond suit, but I think declarer also needs a club and a spade tenace that needs to be attacked right away for it to matter: AQ, QJx, KQJTx, AKT. However, this hand would give pard eight spades who stayed silent over 3N.

Frankly, even a club could be right if declarer has KQJ, QJx, AKQxx Ax, but it seems there are many more hands where the closed hand has AKx and we just gave away #9.

I'm playing a 3rd heart.

This post has been edited by pclayton: 2008-May-07, 10:05

[nige1]

FrancesHinden, on May 7 2008, 03:33 AM, said:

Scoring: IMP

P 3♥ 3NT all pass
You are South. Dummy is East. Partner leads the HK, and you play the 2. Partner thinks for a while and plays a second heart to your ace (I assume), declarer playing the jack. Now what?

---

IMO ♠ = 10, ♥ = 9.
Hands wth more than 23 HCP are vanishingly rare, so prospects (at single dummy) are quite good. Perhaps declarer has something like ♠QJx ♥QJx ♦AKQJx ♣AK

[FrancesHinden]

I'm pleased lots of people play a spade, because that's what I did. I also asked a couple of the top English players and John Armstrong & Tom Townsend also played a spade, though didn't really give very convincing reasons.

My partner's hindsightful comment was that you know declarer has a bundle of high cards, and so you might as well play the suit where you need least help i.e. a club.

A club is the winning action, declarer has
AKQJx
QJx
AQJ
Ax

I tried to do a simulation but it wasn't very successful, on the first 50 hands I dealt that were consistent with the auction (partner not doubling and not leading his own strong suit) it made no difference what you played (at least, no difference in whether the contract makes or not).