[Echognome]

Scoring: IMP

1NT - 3NT;
All Pass

---

You are playing a 14-16 1NT, so you have a swift auction to 3NT.

LHO leads the ♣5 (2nd/4th leads). You play small from dummy to the J and A.

You play a diamond to the Q and a spade to your Q, which holds.

You decide to play a club back up to dummy and LHO shows out! So you play low and RHO wins the 9. He returns a heart. What now?

[Fluffy]

wtf is going on?, I have no clue of the spade lie out, nor the hearts. I can't understand the lead lol.

I come to hand and cash ♥A directly, I need that hearts are blocked someow, next is to cash all diamonds and exit in spade or a club.

[gnasher]

Quote

What now?

I go down.

[Phil]

I had put together a long post and then deleted it.

It seemed LHO was ATxx, ????, xxxx, x (I won't go into why, I'm sure you can figure it out) and they have just blocked the spades. Nevertheless, if RHO defends correctly with (originally) Kx, QJxxx, x, KJTxx he can always beat you I think.

[Echognome]

I mean we could just say that we will go down on best defense and I think that might be true. On best defense, however, they would have lead a heart.

Does it help people if I tell them that East has both the A and K of spades?

[Phil]

Echognome, on Feb 16 2009, 01:19 PM, said:

I mean we could just say that we will go down on best defense and I think that might be true. On best defense, however, they would have lead a heart.

Does it help people if I tell them that East has both the A and K of spades?

LOL, LHO chose a singleton lead over five hearts (or 6?)? OK, whatever.

Just run two of your diamonds then. RHO will have to find 3 pitches from what he holds now which is AK, QJx, void, KJT. On the 1st he ditches a club, but on the 2nd diamond he feels the heat a little.

I suppose this is one of those entry shifting thingies where I need to be able to win the 4th diamond in either hand and unblock accordingly depending on what RHO pitches on the 3rd diamond?

Anyway, I wouldn't have read this at the table and the director has been hovering for about 15 minutes.

[Echognome]

Phil, on Feb 16 2009, 10:29 AM, said:

LOL, LHO chose a singleton lead over five hearts (or 6?)? OK, whatever.

Yeah. They made some weird leads throughout actually.

On one hand the auction went

(1♥) - 1NT - (2♥) - 2NT*
(P) - 3♣ - All Pass
*Lebensohl

And the 2♥ bidder lead a small club from Kx!

Turns out his partner had the stiff Q, so it didn't matter. I also happened to have AKQ of hearts. Weirdness abounds.

[gnasher]

Echognome, on Feb 16 2009, 07:19 PM, said:

I mean we could just say that we will go down on best defense and I think that might be true. On best defense, however, they would have lead a heart.

Does it help people if I tell them that East has both the A and K of spades?

Obviously I'd cash my diamonds rather than immediately conceding one down. I'd be surprised if it did me any good, however.

Suppose that he has AKx QJxx x KJ109x. On the second diamond he throws a club painlessly. On the third he knows that he can't afford another club, and he knows that he can afford a heart, so he throws one of those. On the last diamond he knows that he can afford his remaining club, because dummy now has no entry.

If his hearts are worse, say AKx Qxxx x KJ10xx, he may fear that he's about to be endplayed, but if so he can't do anything to prevent it.