[gnasher]

Scoring: MP

               pass
1♠   pass 2♦   dbl
rdbl 2♥   pass pass
3♠   pass 4♠

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2♦ was Acol-style, forcing as far as 2♠. Redouble showed a good hand.

Partner leads ♠7 to North's 9. Declarer leads ♦10 to the king and ace, allowing you to score a ruff. What now?

[mcphee]

K of H.

[gnasher]

Is this one too hard, or too easy, or not soluble, or just not interesting?

[se12sam]

Lead back the last spade?

[Hanoi5]

♣3

[whereagles]

Seems like diamonds are blocked. However, pard's trump lead is unusual. Can I trust him to have no more than the ♦K on that suit?

[Codo]

gnasher, on Apr 22 2009, 03:53 PM, said:

Is this one too hard, or too easy, or not soluble, or just not interesting?

Your problems seems never too easy- at least not for me.

I think I try something spectaculare and play the king of hearts.
This is an attemp to take away the heart entry and there are some other chances- like partner having the queen of heart.

When declarer wins and tries for club ruffs, I can take his second trump away when I am in in clubs, so there is no need for a trump lead now.

[miguelm]

Heart King seems about right....
It is unlikely declarer might want to ruff a 3rd Heart.
It is highly unlikely partner holds the Club Ace.

I am not sure what is going on with the Diams., but the only thing I can do is to prevent the situation where declarer needs a side entry to enjoy them... hopefully, at the same time I am not giving away a trick (when declarer holds Qx in Hearts).

[se12sam]

miguelm, on Apr 22 2009, 11:19 AM, said:

I am not sure what is going on with the Diams., but the only thing I can do is to prevent the situation where declarer needs a side entry to enjoy them... hopefully, at the same time I am not giving away a trick (when declarer holds Qx in Hearts).

I have a feeling partner has ♦KQJ (or KQJx). Otherwise, the King looks illogical as a play.

It cannot be a singleton (makes declarer 6-5 in pointed suits?).

[andy_h]

I don't think the diamonds are blocked, even though I don't know what the likely diamond position would be. If partner had K(Q/J/8)4 he wouldn't have played the K, and if somehow N/S have 12card diamond fit, diamonds are not blocked. Maybe it's possible partner has KQ4 leaving declarer with JT8 and so if we lead back a trump declarer can draw trumps and give up a diamond. But if he can draw the trumps he would've done so at the start and then attack diamonds so partner probably has a trump trick. If partner has a trump and a diamond trick there is no rush for to kill dummy's entry.
But the bidding suggests declarer has 6S. So he's likely to be 6214 or 6223.
I don't exactly have a full plan catering to everything..so I think I'm just going to lead back a trump.

[mikeh]

I am not at all sure of my construction, but I am placing declarer with AKQ10xx Qx 10x AJx... and on this layout, while we may disagree with declarer's line (what would you prefer?).... I have the contract beat unless I do something to hand it back to him.. such as the heart K or a high club followed by a non-trump. So I exit my last trump... it kills one entry to dummy without sacrificing my heart King.

Edit: it is useful to have an agreement as to splitting honours on defence.. I like top down with 3, bottom up with 2.

[Free]

Seems like an semi automatic ♥K to me. Only alternative is ♣, but that's just hoping too much for partner having ♣A.

[mikeh]

ok, so what happened?

[awm]

My guess is that declarer has ♦Tx. He wants to establish the suit and pitch some losers. Even if it divides 3-1, he might be able to succeed by getting back to dummy with ♠J to ruff the third diamond, then using ♥A as an entry. The 4-0 break has totally foiled this plan. It seems key here to avoid handing declarer a trick by playing the ♥K (which might be a good play in other situations where the diamonds are more set-up-able). I'd give declarer something like:

♠AKQxxx
♥Qx
♦Tx
♣AJx

Looks like four losers (although in reality he can make because ♣KQ are onside). Setting up the diamonds is a logical thing to attempt after the trump lead, but declarer was unlucky to find the bad diamond break. Note that at this point declarer is losing two diamonds, so it's almost impossible for him to make... unless we play the heart king, at which point declarer can find the club honors onside (♠J reentry) and lose only two diamonds and a club.

I like a trump return.

[mikeh]

awm, on Apr 22 2009, 05:19 PM, said:

My guess is that declarer has ♦Tx. He wants to establish the suit and pitch some losers. Even if it divides 3-1, he might be able to succeed by getting back to dummy with ♠J to ruff the third diamond, then using ♥A as an entry. The 4-0 break has totally foiled this plan. It seems key here to avoid handing declarer a trick by playing the ♥K (which might be a good play in other situations where the diamonds are more set-up-able). I'd give declarer something like:

♠AKQxxx
♥Qx
♦Tx
♣AJx

Looks like four losers (although in reality he can make because ♣KQ are onside). Setting up the diamonds is a logical thing to attempt after the trump lead, but declarer was unlucky to find the bad diamond break. Note that at this point declarer is losing two diamonds, so it's almost impossible for him to make... unless we play the heart king, at which point declarer can find the club honors onside (♠J reentry) and lose only two diamonds and a club.

I like a trump return.

Hey, I copyrighted that layout... go defend against another one!

[JLOL]

Partner has KQJ because from KQ they would play low.

[awm]

Here's another one:

♠AKQT9xx
♥Qxx
♦T
♣xx

Sometimes people are aggressive with seven solid. Note that after the lead, it looks like there are four losers from declarer's view (two clubs, two hearts). Finding the ♥K onside allows a make of course, but it seems fairly safe to try for diamonds dividing 3-2. Ace of diamonds, ruff a diamond high; if they divide then spade to jack and ruff another diamond, pull trump and the hand is over. If diamonds are 4-1 then we can always take the heart hook.

Declarer got unlucky to find diamonds 5-0. Now he has lost an unneeded diamond trick and really has no play to make (lose two clubs, the ruff, and heart king). But we can hand the contract back by switching to heart king ourselves (declarer wins in dummy, heart to queen, ruff heart on board and lose two clubs and the diamond ruff).

[dburn]

It seems to me that the critical holding for declarer, and one that makes his line of play not at all unreasonable, is:

♠AKQ109x ♥Q ♦10x ♣AJ102

Now, he could have made the contract after the trump lead by playing for the actual club position, but his shot of a diamond at trick two is a long way from ridiculous (nor is playing the ace, although he could still make by ducking).

However, if that is what he has, I had better play a spade now rather than some silly king of hearts. True, if I let the contract through by doing the latter I could always blame partner afterwards for not having led a diamond, but I would rather beat 4♠ at my table and blame team-mates afterwards for not being in 3NT.

Edit: forget all that. Declarer's line would be ridiculous if that was what he had. Originally I was thinking that a spade would be necessary if declarer's clubs were AJ87, but my own club holding seems to preclude this.

Would still play a spade rather than a heart, since I can't see when we might need to do the latter. But I confess that with ♦KQJ it would never occur to me to play other than the jack on the ten, so there is doubtless something about the problem that I am missing altogether.

[Codo]

mikeh, on Apr 23 2009, 01:04 AM, said:

I am not at all sure of my construction, but I am placing declarer with AKQ10xx Qx 10x AJx...

But in your layout you give partner KQJx in diamonds. He played the king.
He did so, because...?

I mean, when he had used the normal jack, we may have returned a simple spade and wait for all tricks we are entitled to to come.

So did the king show: I have so solid diamonds, no need to kill his entries, he cannot use the diamonds anyway?

Or did the king show: Partner you must play hearts to kill the entry?

Or did it show nothing at all?

[gnasher]

I think that ♥K (instead of a trump) beats the contract when he has AKQ10xxx Jx J10 Ax or AKQ10xx Jx J10 AJx I'm not sure how likely these layouts are, given the play so far.

I can't think of any layout where partner has ♦KQJ and a heart switch gains.

The actual hand is probably not that instructive:

Scoring: MP

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Declarer's play at trick two was in the hope that his LHO would cover from HHx (this was matchpoints). My switch to ♥K was partly because I thought ♦K might be suit preference for hearts, partly because if it worked I'd have a good story to tell, and partly because this was two thirds of the way through a 24-hour bridge tournament.