[Trumpace]

Lead ♦ 3

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1NT overcall showed 16-18 points.

Scoring is Matchpoints. LHO starts off with the ♦3 lead. (RHO will follow with ♦8).

Plan the play.

Adv/+ please refrain from spoiling too soon.

[Trumpace]

Boring?

[vuroth]

Trumpace, on 2011-February-28, 12:33, said:

Boring?

Win, cash the ace (can't hurt), then start feeding them clubs? I guess the goal is to force west to lead a black card at some point.

[Trumpace]

vuroth, on 2011-February-28, 14:48, said:

Win, cash the ace (can't hurt), then start feeding them clubs? I guess the goal is to force west to lead a black card at some point.

They cash their DK, 2 Clubs, HA and play back a heart, eventually making the SQ.

[ggwhiz]

You have to knock out the ♥Ace and prepare to eliminate both round suits before throwing them in with the ♦K.

If you clear hearts and throw them in, rho may win the 2nd ♣ and you are toast on the endplay with a spade exit.

Better is to eliminate clubs yourself before the throw in by leading low to the ten along the way and another one later. We can stand rho leading spades once, not twice.

Better yet is to win the ♦Q at trick one and play a low club before they can see it coming.

[inquiry]

They surely would score at least 5♣ (clubs could be 6-3), heart Ace and in likelyhood the diamond King. So they can make 1NT if clubs are 5-4 and 2NT if they are 6-3. So first thought is not to make sure we don't go down two (-100 versus their making 1NT of -90). Since with this lead it doesn't even look possible to go down even one, much less go down two, we can forget all about that. The next thought is how to score more than 100 in case there are some +100 our way. That means making 3♦.

West announced 16-18, experiences shows people play this range really a 15 to 18 even when announced. So east has from 1 hcp to 4 hcp. The lack of a ♣ lead is only slightly suggestive that East has some club honors, as west is trying to cut down some ruffs by leading from (presumably) ♦Kxx.

I would win the first diamond in dummy and lead the club eight and let it run rather or not EAST covers. If East wins and switches to a spade, I win in hand with ACE, and lead a heart. The next time I am on lead, I will lead the club ten. This will lead to an eventual endplay on West if:

1-East fails to cover the club eight
2- East has something like club Q7xxx, K7xxx, A7xxx
3-West has something like AK9 tripleton, or similar holdings

Watch West hcp. There is always a chance East has the spade queen. So should East win both club tricks and East returns a spade both times, you are down to playing either for east with the spade queen or West having ♠Qx specifically. If spades are 2=4, the chances that the queen is doubleton is 5 out of 15, so I would finesse for the queen unless East showed up with the ♥Ace of ♣King.

[nigel_k]

inquiry, on 2011-February-28, 17:25, said:

Watch West hcp. There is always a chance East has the spade queen. So should East win both club tricks and East returns a spade both times, you are down to playing either for east with the spade queen or West having ♠Qx specifically. If spades are 2=4, the chances that the queen is doubleton is 5 out of 15, so I would finesse for the queen unless East showed up with the ♥Ace of ♣King.

I agree with the line but East cannot win both clubs and have the ♠Q unless West has at most 14 HCP.

[inquiry]

nigel_k, on 2011-February-28, 17:42, said:

I agree with the line but East cannot win both clubs and have the ♠Q unless West has at most 14 HCP.

This is true if you lead twice towards the club ten. On my line he could win the club nine and the club jack, for instance. So low ten twice is better instead of leading the eight, other than perhaps some psychological things with the eight.

[Trumpace]

The main point of the problem was to try and make inferences from the lead (an attempt to post more 'bread and butter' hands :-))

I disagree with inquiry that the lack of club lead is 'slightly' suggestive. There is no strong indication of a trump lead being required (maybe I am wrong here, though). Leading a trump from Kxx might give away a trick, and if LHO does not have K of diamond, he will likely have AKQ of clubs...

Not leading a club is a good indication that LHO does not hold both A and K, IMO. This pretty much maps out most of the cards.


The D lead now indicates that the diamonds are Kxx with LHO and the key point now becomes keeping East off the lead twice. The CT helps in that situation, as noted earlier.

[mtvesuvius]

Berkowitz-ed yet again!

I don't think it's right to draw any inferences from the non-club lead. A good defender won't lead an AK (or AKQ) in these situations for this exact reason - It allows you to place way too many cards, and doesn't look likely to be going away, especially on an auction like this.

Not leading an AK has an additional benefit, which is exactly this situation here. Declarer will place one of the honors with partner, and therefore will misplay the hand.

I'd play the ♦Q from dummy, and lead a low club off, covering RHO's card. I think RHO is more likely to duck if you lead the 5 instead of the 8, similarly to the way that I've found playing the Jack off dummy with JT9 tends to induce a cover slightly more... It's a weird psychological thing, but I've found it holds true quite often. If RHO wins both clubs, I'll play for the spade to drop, otherwise I'll throw LHO in with the ♦K after stripping both round suits.

[Trumpace]

mtvesuvius, on 2011-March-01, 12:37, said:

Berkowitz-ed yet again!

I don't think it's right to draw any inferences from the non-club lead. A good defender won't lead an AK (or AKQ) in these situations for this exact reason - It allows you to place way too many cards, and doesn't look likely to be going away, especially on an auction like this.

Maybe, but LHO does not know partner is close to being broke. Dummy here is quite strong.

Holding CAK, I don't see why LHO would need to risk blowing a trump trick by leading from Kxx. Your argument would make more sense (to me) if you had played RHO for the DK and cashed the DA at trick 2 :-)