[MarkDean]

Scoring: IMP

---

(1♠) P (1NT) P 1NT = F1
(2♥) P (4♥) AP

Partner leads the heart ten.
Declarer takes 30 seconds to play the heart jack, and then a spade. Duck or hop?

[Fluffy]

duck quick, its almost always right to duck dummy's singleton with Axxx when LHO has 5+ cards, having ♦K10 and ♣K jsut makes it more clear (althou not 100%)

[FrancesHinden]

There's clearly no right answer to this.
If you stop and think about it you should probably play the ace.
In practice I expect I would duck smoothly, but there's no reason declarer can't have, say,

K10xxx
AKxx
Qx
Jx

[gnasher]

FrancesHinden, on Apr 11 2010, 12:38 PM, said:

There's clearly no right answer to this.
If you stop and think about it you should probably play the ace.
In practice I expect I would duck smoothly, but there's no reason declarer can't have, say,

K10xxx
AKxx
Qx
Jx

If you take away ♣J from that hand, he still goes down even if we duck ♠K. In fact, it's hard to construct a layout where ducking is wrong and declarer doesn't have ♣J.

Regarding stopping and thinking, we all did that at trick one, not trick two, didn't we? THe harder part is to think at trick one when we *don't* have ♠A.

[Jlall]

gnasher, on Apr 11 2010, 09:53 AM, said:

Regarding stopping and thinking, we all did that at trick one, not trick two, didn't we? THe harder part is to think at trick one when we *don't* have ♠A.

Declarer thought for 30 seconds at trick 1 so it doesn't matter. Agree if declarer played quickly though.

As for the hand I'd duck, a lot of it depends on partner's lead tendencies though and if they just randomly lead a trump on an auction like this or not.

[pirate22]

Defence is hard--but this is where your bread and butter comes from,
at least your opp thought for 30 seconds,you should have used this time factor to decide smoothy,what you are going to do if he leads a spade fromd dummy
(smoothly play a middle card) say the 6.
Partners shape is probably 3s/3h----and either 3/4d and4/3cl.
and his ht lead is correct,and if you get the lead you also play a heart.

regards-----\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\i have looked at this again.declarers hand is min 5s/4/h and 2/2 declarer is not likely to hold 4 d-so there is a case for up with spade ace and play K diamonds,and see pards signal,at least you will hold them to contract,if not defeat the contract, but also 6 spades gives declarer a guess.horses for courses.

[jdonn]

I believe strongly in ducking here, partner probably has spade strength to lead a trump so it's unlikely (though of course possible) that he has the diamond ace. Also sometimes they have K-empty but if you duck smoothly assume you won't have the ace and try to be a genius and duck themselves as well.

[pooltuna]

jdonn, on Apr 14 2010, 11:12 AM, said:

I believe strongly in ducking here, partner probably has spade strength to lead a trump so it's unlikely (though of course possible) that he has the diamond ace. Also sometimes they have K-empty but if you duck smoothly assume you won't have the ace and try to be a genius and duck themselves as well.

and too boot your spade spots are so ugly that if you go up with the A the suit will be ready to roll(over you) probably after 1 ruff.

[mikeh]

Unless you are an extremely talented AND fast thinker, most advancing players would improve their defence significantly if they trained themselves to always duck smoothly on these hands...unless they have been able to work out that it is wrong.

Most of us, on most hands, won't be able to know what to do with any degree of assurance, so having a 'default' mode enables us to be tough defenders, compared to those who give away the location of the A by tanking...regardless of what they end up doing.

Many years ago...in the Rosenblum in 1994, I was playing against Baze and Lawrence. Lawrence led towards a KJx(x) in dummy and I twitched for a fraction of a second...just enough that I realized I had done it, but my partner hadn't noticed. Lawrence popped the K and made his game. My partner asked how he guessed right and Baze said 'Your partner broke tempo just enough'.

I don't think I have twitched very often since...and while I am sure that I have let some contracts through by ducking, I am equally sure that many declarers have gone wrong because I gave nothing away.

Lecture over...on the hand, since I can't work out what is right, I would duck in tempo (btw, returning to the lecture theme, another common trait I see is that players who have learned to duck will in fact play to the trick faster with the A than without it....in their effort to not hestitate they actually accelerate their tempo)