[FrancesHinden]

My apologies for causing frustration, it wasn't intentional.

The intent of the problem as posed was to get you thinking about the spade suit, in particular the need to switch to the 9 to cater for K8x in declarer's hand.

I was intending (hoping?) for the following logic:

- Partner is almost certainly 2-1-5-5 or 1-2-5-5
- If he had a low doubleton spade, or a singleton (singleton king would be an interesting holding, though), or two honours doubleton he would probably take the second diamond to play a spade.
- Therefore he is very likely to have doubleton honour.
- Partner's 4C bid shows a decent hand, he must have the AK of clubs as well to have anything resembling his call (I realise this is where our paths diverged*). RHO's 4H bid is clearly meant as a possible save and/or to make our lives difficult in the auction.
- We have to do one of two things at this point: take an entry off dummy with ace and another heart, or attack spades. If we don't declarer will get a spade loser away on a club in due course.
- Playing on hearts costs if partner has singleton 10, or singleton 9 (in practice) or even possibly a low singleton as declarer may not get the suit right, while we can safely attack spades by leading the 9.

Therefore we lead the 9 of spades, which is the only correct card in the suit if partner has Qx and declarer K8x; with other layouts it doesn't matter which spade we play.


*To be honest, I also would not be worrying about partner covering a club led from dummy looking at Kxxxx. No sane partner would do that. Of course, I can't speak for a BBO pick-up partner.

The subsequent discussion shows the hand is more complicated than this, as we can also keep playing on diamonds.

As it happens, declarer does have the suggested

K8x
Q98xxxx
xx
x

and you have two natural trump tricks.
the 9 of spades switch garners +500, which gains 3 imps against 3NT making in the otehr room (on a much quieter auction).

[vuroth]

Gah, how long did it take me to see all of that? Even knowing the answer.....

If declarer attacks ♣s, partner HAS to return their Q♠ - that way, I can always cash my J♠ before the T♣ is promoted and used to discard the third spade in declarer's hand. This is true even if declarer successfully finesses the 6♥ (If partner started with 4 or 43 in hearts, for example). If I don't lead the 9♠ now, though, declarer CAN win the race to promote the T♣ and discard a ♠.

This problem might actually be easier for an advanced+ than for an intermediate. 90% of everyone I've ever played with would cover my 9♠ with the Q, and I'm not so sure I'm not among that number. No clue how often even the good partners/opponents would return the Q♠ on trick 5... I didn't feel as though I could rule out 2254, or even 0256 (while I love 65 hands, 0256 and <= 13 points isn't for sure a reverse, at least not in my world). It never even occurred to me that declarer could have 7♥s, because that's a "routine" 3♥ overcall. (Heck, I thought a decent B/I problem was explaining why partner couldn't be 44 in the minors....)

York is right that I should trust partner and distrust opponents, but honestly there are times in my deductive reasoning where I have to think to myself "if XXXX has THAT hand, they deserve the points". Declarer having <6 points fit that description here.

I filled a 8.5x11 sheet with point and card distributions on this problem, and never hit on the "obvious" one. It's a good exercise to go through it all, and I can't help but learn from it, but even as a paper problem this one just had too much for me to consider.

If there was ever a problem that made me think "maybe playing against better opponents would sharpen my game", this hand was it.

Thanks again for the problem, Frances. Sorry I was grumpy earlier this week.

Quote

*To be honest, I also would not be worrying about partner covering a club led from dummy looking at Kxxxx. No sane partner would do that. Of course, I can't speak for a BBO pick-up partner.

I'm pretty sure that I could work out not to cover at the table, but well, come play ACBL slowball games sometime.

On second thought, don't.

V