[Phil]

Scoring: MP

1D - 1S - 1N - AP

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Wonderful world of Matchpoints.

Pard leads the ♠6. Declarer pops Ace. Do you encourage or discourage?

Declarer leads a heart to his Queen and pard wins the Ace and surprises you mildly by continuing the ♠4 that you win.

What now?

[hackenbush]

I'll encourage on trick 1. We have the K and could be right to set up the suit still.

Declarer's line seems to indicate he thinks board has entry. He has to have something in diamonds for the 1NT bid without spade stopper, but chose to set up hearts first. He could have ♠T83-♥Qxx-♦Kxx-♣KJxx, but I think he's more likely to have a vulnerable club suit with diamond suit good to go, e.g. ♦AKx-♣Txxx. I'll switch to ♣A.

[rogerclee]

Since this is an interesting hand, I'll play the ♣Q.

[whereagles]

Encourage in spades, since you want pard to know you have the ♠K. How are you supposed to know pard has 5 clubs to the king?

[hanp]

Very good problem!

I will discourage in spades. Partner knows I don't have too many values and since I'm known as a sound overcaller partner already knows I have the spade king. The auction also reveals that I don't have 5 clubs (in fact both partner and I can count declarer for at most 3 spades without a stopper, at most 3 hearts, very likely not 4 diamonds so probably at least 4 clubs) so I think partner will figure out I have good honors in clubs.

OK so I have discouraged in spades and partner still continues spades. Obviously partner does not have king-fifth in clubs (but didn't we already know that from the auction Nuno?) but we don't need that much for the club shift to be right. Give declarer 10xx Qxx Kxx K10xx and a shift to the club queen beats it. Heck, after this defense declarer may even go down holding 10xx Qxx Axx K10xx as it isn't obvious to drop the heart 10. Or declarer might finesse in diamonds, hoping for the uptrick.

A spade continuation will likely hold it to 7 tricks but I'm not sure that that is good even if that's the best we can get: most south's won't bid 1NT and north will pass out 1S if south passes. And 1S is at most down 1.

So I'll try to beat it and switch the the club queen. If for some strange reason declarer tanks and ducks I will revert back to spades.

[Fluffy]

Ifnto posted as a problem I would continue spades in a flash.

[Phil]

Unfortunately you have a partner that won't grasp any subtleties.

Any club holds it to 120. A spade is 150. Declarer had Txx Qxx AKx JTxx.

Reverse the minor kings and a spade continuation is better, but I don't know how to determine this.

Declarer's popping Ace at T1 is interesting, but I don't think you can read too much into it.

Not sure about discouraging spades unless you are playing obvious shift or something. I don't think you can rule out a singleton lead here, since pard could be easily 1=4=5=3. We could easily have T9xxx, Qxx, Kx, AQx and still have our 1♠ call and this is the kind of hand that wants to discourage I think.

[whereagles]

I would say a singleton lead is unlikely (or should be so) because: 1. a 1♠ overcall doesn't promise the world and 2. it's not a good idea to lead into a suit in which opps usually have more cards than we do

But anyway, going up with the spade ace does look a bit suspicious, but agree it's way too far-fetched to use it as an excuse to play declarer for his actual hand

[sathyab]

Phil, on Mar 12 2009, 02:54 AM, said:

Unfortunately you have a partner that won't grasp any subtleties.

Any club holds it to 120. A spade is 150. Declarer had Txx Qxx AKx JTxx.

Reverse the minor kings and a spade continuation is better, but I don't know how to determine this.

Declarer's popping Ace at T1 is interesting, but I don't think you can read too much into it.

Not sure about discouraging spades unless you are playing obvious shift or something. I don't think you can rule out a singleton lead here, since pard could be easily 1=4=5=3. We could easily have T9xxx, Qxx, Kx, AQx and still have our 1♠ call and this is the kind of hand that wants to discourage I think.

The only way this kind of problem can be solved is by relying on suit preference by partner as he holds up hearts twice. He knows dummy has entries to heats, so he might as well let you in on where his limited minor suit strength lies by the order in which he plays the remaining spot cards. If he does hold up hearts twice, you get a chance to suggest club values, after giving count first and then following suit with low-hi of the remaining cards. Needless to say this kind of defense needs some sophistication, but successful defense of NT contracts at MP can't do without it.

For a similar example of suggesting suit preference, look at a 1nt defense in the 03/14/09 Daily Bulletin of the Houston Nationals.

[hanp]

Holding up twice takes away declarer's guess in hearts and it may give up the contract when partner has the club king and declarer the diamond AK. Besides, Phil had already commented on the fact that we can't expect too much subtlety from this partner.

I think given the problem the only way to "solve" it is to estimate the likelyhoods of different scenarios. Sometimes you will get it wrong.