[Sambolino]

Scoring: MP

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a recent hand from a big mp tourney (300 tables).

LHO opened strong club and then showed 19-22 bal, RHO transfered to spades and invited (showing also 4 card ♥) so LHO accepts and they end up in 4♠. and, yes, pard leads ♥ ace! why would you drop ♥K (if you want to make a case about lo-enc then imagine you got ♥9 instead of ♥3) and why would you return a ♣

[Flameous]

Playing UDCA, dropping the king under the ace tells partner two important things. That he needs to continue hearts (high is high only if you can spare it) and if we have the lady, we have odd number of hearts. Now partner can count if he really needs to continue it. (If he had 5, he propably shouldn't. Of course depending where the J is then)

Well now it works out and p can put me in with 5 of hearts, easy to read it's a signal to clubs. With the lucky lie of the cards, it's not even necessary if the declarer is any good since he's about to lose one spade trick.

2 down.

[pclayton]

Flameous, on Sep 16 2008, 01:36 AM, said:

Playing UDCA, dropping the king under the ace tells partner two important things. That he needs to continue hearts (high is high only if you can spare it) and if we have the lady, we have odd number of hearts. Now partner can count if he really needs to continue it. (If he had 5, he propably shouldn't. Of course depending where the J is then)

Well now it works out and p can put me in with 5 of hearts, easy to read it's a signal to clubs. With the lucky lie of the cards, it's not even necessary if the declarer is any good since he's about to lose one spade trick.

2 down.

Dropping the K only promises the Q. It says nothing about the suit length.

Playing the ♥K seems dangerous. Since we can see all the hands, its evident, but I don't know if I would make the play at the table. I honestly can't say.

Maybe if you had set this up as a defensive problem with only the dummy exposed you'd get some honest answers.

[han]

You didn't give the auction but it sure seems wrong to play the king. Why can't partner have 3 hearts?

[Sambolino]

auction went, say

1c strong - 1d neg
1nt 19-22 bal - 2h xfer
2s - 3h nat invite
4s

[Sambolino]

pclayton, on Sep 16 2008, 10:21 AM, said:

Maybe if you had set this up as a defensive problem with only the dummy exposed you'd get some honest answers.

i hoped to get some honest answers and to expose the trickiness of the deal immediately.

as for playing K or not - my 2¢: one should judge if it's realistic that pard continues hearts after a card that looks discouraging, and therefore take a risk or not (and in tempo)