[xx1943]

Scoring: MP

This is #9 of 2004/08/02 Fun&Fishy
turned by 90 degree

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Before I had counted my points, RHO opened 5♣ white against red. I think double from me is the normal action. This was followed by three passes.
Hoping for 300, 500, 800 I led A of hearts an saw this dummy:

Scoring: MP

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Partner contributed Heart 5 (standard carding) and declarer Heart Q.

Now what? What is your second lead an why?

I'm looking forward to hear your opions.

If you are interested what happened, look here:
Fun&Fishy 2004/8/2 board #9

Cheers
Al

[inquiry]

I will take a shot at it.

1) Carding, partner played the heart five. East dropped the heart queen. On heart out, but EAST might be falsecarding with Qx. As I doubt EAST has 11 clubs (possible of course), taking the second heart can wait for a minute, until we decide what else is happening.

2) We suspect east has 8 or 9 card suit for his bid, and probalby pretty good. Can he have both the SPADE KING, and the DIAMOND ACE? I think not. An 9 card suit with King and Ace on the side (not to mention the heart Queen he already showed), he might easily miss too many slams. But can he have one of these cards? Yes... IF you lead a spade, and he has the spade King, your potential heart or diamond winner will get thrown away on teh spade (with Kx he will play three rounds of spades, with stiff king, just two).

With diamond ACE, he will not have any pitches on the spade queen, as, partner will have teh spade king. So the correct play at trick two is a diamond. The question is which diamond to lead? In your poll I choose OTHER, as I would trott out the diamond King. If partner gives a violent don't lead again, and the diamond King wins, I would try the second round of hearts. If partner has diamond AQ, and not a stiff heart, I suspect he will overtake and continue diamonds. If partner ducks and signals "conitinue", I think a second diamond is cashing becasue with AQ he would overtake, so I would play him for Diamond ACE without the queen.

If partner signals lead diamond again, but EAST wins the ace, I will grab the club ace and lead another diamond. If partner signals don't lead them again, I will win the first club and exit a club hoping declearer is 0-1-3-9 and I will score my diamond jack or 0-2-2-9 and I will score my heart king.. partner will throw away his heart if he has it to clarify the defense. Or of course 1-1-3-8, or 1-2-2-8, same defense.

Kudos for posting an interesting defensive problem.

Ben

[TimG]

I think you are right that a diamond is best, but it will not work out well if declarer's hand is ♠Kx ♥Qx ♦-- ♣KQJTxxxxx.

[Free]

It's a gamble between ♥ and ♦ imo, since you can't know if declarer falsecarded in ♥ or not... ♥ however is more risky since you'll make dummy's ♥J a trick for sure, and declarer might get to dummy in ♠s. If we can make a ♠ trick ever, we'll get it later on for sure. ♦ is probably best.

[inquiry]

TimG, on Aug 2 2004, 12:44 PM, said:

I think you are right that a diamond is best, but it will not work out well if declarer's hand is ♠Kx ♥Qx ♦-- ♣KQJTxxxxx.

This is a scary hand. The only thing against it is if partner was 3-1-7-2 with AQT9 seventh in diamonds, he might very well pull the double the of 5 clubs, especially my double as I play Robaon/Segal style and all my doubles are for takeout. Of course at five level they are often left in. But true enough, a diamond switch here kills the defense if this is his hand.

Ben

[paulhar]

Ben plays with better partners than I do - when I lead the DK, my partners overtake and try to lead back to my supposed DQ! I lead a small diamond.

If partner wins the ace and returns a diamond, nothing should get away, unless declarer is 2-2-1-8 with the spade King. I'll know by the spot partner leads back whether the third diamond cashes or not.

If declarer wins the DQ with the Ace and plays trump, I can win a trump trick and play diamonds; again nothing should get away.

[inquiry]

paulhar, on Aug 2 2004, 04:05 PM, said:

Ben plays with better partners than I do - when I lead the DK, my partners  overtake and try to lead back to my supposed DQ! I lead a small diamond.

If partner wins the ace and returns a diamond, nothing should get away, unless declarer is 2-2-1-8 with the spade King.  I'll know by the spot partner leads back whether the third diamond cashes or not.

If declarer wins the DQ with the Ace and plays trump, I can win a trump trick and play diamonds; again nothing should get away.

This isn't quite true...

Consider declearer with
SK
HQx
Dx
CKQJ-many

If you lead a low diamond, your second heart trick gets away, because when your partner wins, he will not be clarvoiant enough to return a trump. He will return a diamond and say bye-bye to down two.

If partner had a stiff heart, he will play very low on the diamond king, and when it wins, you will think, why did he duck and not signal please continue diamond? Not for a spade lead, that will come soon enough, not to continue a diamond, he would signal high. No he ducks and discourages with the ace ony when he had a heart void. So if he ducks and discourages you cash your heart ACE-- or give him a heart ruff. And the good news, the defense can't split horribly as he is always down one when the diamond king holds.

Ben

[paulhar]

I'm not arguing that your defense isn't better technically, clearly it is. But if I have to play some more boards with this partner, many more IMPs or matchpoints will be lost in future boards if I lead the DK and partner overtakes with the Ace and gives the declarer the DQ - even if my temprament is not shaken, partner, by having made that play (and partners do) will think that I am the idiot and play future boards under that assumption.

Not too long ago I played in an 'experts only' room (surprised they let me in with my Advanced title) and on the first board partner thought I made a rediculous bid. On board 2, I doubled and corrected his reply to my own spade suit. He passed with three trump and 8 points. When I asked him about it, he stated, 'after what I saw on the first board...'

This is just one example of a long line of similar experiences (happily not that common) ... IMO it pays to give up on a slightly technically better bid/play if there's a reasonable possibility that partner might make a mistake based on your bid or play that he might think is your fault. Obviously, this doesn't apply if it's the last board. I'm not trying to avoid being blamed - I'm trying to avoid the bad results that come from my partner not trusting me.

Clearly this doesn't apply if you have a long standing partnership with a partner with a good sense of humor or with the ability to see things from your point of view when these accidents happen.

[luke warm]

diamond J... declarer either has the A or not... he either has the Q or not... he either has A, Q or not.. with the Q you're fine... with A,Q you might be sitting nicely (he'd surely finesse the Q when in dummy with the spade), since he has to guess immediately

this is assuming he's 1138, which is as good an assumption as anything... heck, he could be 0139 or 0148

[the hog]

Don't know what you guys are complaining about. I subbed on this board. My cho opened 5C this was the auction:
5C (X) P (5D)

Just as I was getting ready to X 5D, cho then bid 6C!! 8.06%
Damn 10 card suits.