[paulg]

Scoring: IMP

Pass (4NT) Pass (5♣)
Pass (5♦) All pass

---

The 4NT bid asked for specific aces and the response denied any.

You lead the ♣K. Declarer plays the ♣10. Partner plays the ♣6 (I guess most of us have not discussed precisely what this means after an auction that starts with 4NT) - should it be count or suit preference?

What do you play next?

As a secondary question, is there any difference in leading the ace or king when you hold both, given that you would not expect declarer to have two small in a suit?

[gnasher]

When both partners know that declarer has a singleton, and both partners know that the other one knows, it should be suit preference. If we can trust declarer, that should apply here, though it might be unwise to assume that without agreement.

Anyway, we should be able to work this out without help from partner. Suppose that opener has AKx Q AKQJxxxx x. A heart switch is necessary to prevent the strip squeeze. I can't think of any layout even vaguely consistent with the bidding where a heart costs or another suit is necessary.

On the other hand, what is partner up to? He appears to have played ♣6 from J762. If he thinks it's count, he should have played the 7. If he thinks it's suit preference, he should have told me where his ace is. Is he playing a middle card because he has an honour in each of the other suits? Maybe he's worried that declarer has Ax Q AKQJ1098xx x, and thinks we might need a spade switch before a heart is played. Or maybe he just hasn't spotted the strip squeeze.

I'll play a heart, prepared to look very foolish if declarer has some absurdity like x AQx AKQJxxx xx.

[paulg]

Andy's reconstruction is very accurate and it was necessary to switch to a heart as declarer has a small singleton.

I thought the carding question was interesting from a largely academic interest. It's not as if this situation comes up very often unless you play a huge number of hands.

And from J762 what does suit preference mean? I would guess that Jack means spades, 2 means hearts and 6/7 says no preference.

[Jlall]

gnasher, on Jan 31 2010, 06:07 AM, said:

Anyway, we should be able to work this out without help from partner.

amen brotha

[Jlall]

If we are assuming things like "we KNOW declarer has a stiff club" then surely when dummy hits with the HK we can also assume things like "we know declarer has a stiff heart... (becuase if declarer happens to have the Ax of hearts this has to be cold).

I think trick 1 is just count, maybe the 4N bidder did something weird. We can't just assume that they have bid correctly when they opened 4N. I don't see why you are assuming something about the club suit, and assuming nothing about the majors, becuase of the bidding.