[Ant590]

Yesterday I held at MP:

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Do you agree with 3♣?
Do you agree with double?

Partner leads the club six (3rd from length, top of doubleton).

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♣6, 2, K, 9

What do you do?

[TWO4BRIDGE]

Ask yourself: Who has the ♣ 4 ?
It's probably partner... which would give Declarer: Q 10 9 7 .

Edit: It does not hurt to falsecard the 9 since the 7 will go on his J next.

So switch to what you think is partner's "long major" .

If it were ♥ ( and assuming 6 of them ), that would mean South would have opened 1NT with a stiff .

Switch to ♠ A and continue.

This post has been edited by TWO4BRIDGE: 2011-August-25, 09:04

[wyman]

The 9 is a strange card for declarer to play. Strange enough that I'm cashing the club K. The 4 and 7 are missing. I would not expect an intermediate declarer to play the 9 from Q1097, as TFB suggests above. Rather, I'd expect such a declarer to try to throw off the scent with Q94. It's possible he holds Q9 tight (especially possible if he expected a major suit lead from LHO or if he would very rarely false card). If declarer is an expert, I'd give more weight to Q1097 but also more weight to Q9. Blech.

As TFB points out, partner's major is surely spades, so our two lines are CK or SA. However, we can combine chances and lead the CK and then the SA if partner shows up with the 4 and declarer does not play the Q or 10. This is what I'll opt for. It requires KJxxxx from partner if he only has ♣64. But even if he has Kxxxxx, this might not cost, and if partner's club was stiff, it might win us a few matchpoints to cash out.

[Ant590]

Thanks for the replies.

If you cash the spade ace, you get a discouraging signal from partner. I was unsure if this may indicate a heart switch or a club continuation, so I decided to continue spades anyway.

If you case the club Ace, you see Q on your left and partner throws the ten for you from T764 and you can't go wrong.

The full hand was:

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Ok, so partner (and declarer?) was (were) barking mad, but could/should I have worked out - after the spade ace cash - to continue clubs?

[Free]

It's MP, partner will have 4-5HCP. The ♠ switch is rather obvious imo, if you get an encouraging signal you might defeat 3NT easily. However, when you get a discouraging ♠ signal, you can be pretty sure you won't make more than 3 tricks (perhaps ♥A as well). This makes cashing ♣A a lot more attractive, which would immediately reveil the situation. If the situation isn't clear after cashing ♣A, then I'd probably lead a ♥, suspecting that's my partner's suit.

Not sure I'd find it at the table though, it's not easy.

[whereagles]

I would definitely try the spade ace, on which pard will discourage (possibly with the Q). After that I'll probably go back to clubs, though it might just happen that I lead.. small