[sathyab]

1d was Precision

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Partner consults the ceiling for quite a while and finally emerges with the ♣3, 4th best from length in your methods. You also play Reverse Smith.

T1: ♣3, 4, J, K
T2: ♦K, 2, 3, 5
T3: ♦J, 4, 8, 7
T4: ♦6, Q, A, ?

What's your discard to this trick and the next one ?

[Zelandakh]

Are we trying to work out the best defence or what partner's long thought suggests? In any case, we seem to need declarer to have xxxx/JTx/KJT6/Kx and to misguess hearts. To that end, we could throw an encouraging heart and ♣8. On the other hand this layout seems to be impossible since partner has surely not led clubs from Ax/Axx/Q42/T7632.

[rhm]

Interesting at BAM.
It looks like partner has both major suit aces, but the ♠A could be singleton.
We can see that declarer will get back to hand with the ♦T and could take the heart finesse.
This may not be so attractive to him, if he got the ♥J (and he could have the ♥T in addition), because he will almost surely be down if the heart finesse loses where 2♦ makes. If the heart finesse wins as it does and 1NT makes, 3♦ makes as well.

I discard a heart and a spade. I do not see how this endangers our 6 tricks as long as partner does not go in with ♥A if declarer leads a heart.
Declarer may well exit in a black suit, if he has the ♥J and 5 spades.
Now, seeing the spade ace with West on a low heart from partner, declarer might misguess.

Rainer Herrmann

[sathyab]

Zelandakh, on 2012-December-03, 06:10, said:

Are we trying to work out the best defence or what partner's long thought suggests? In any case, we seem to need declarer to have xxxx/JTx/KJT6/Kx and to misguess hearts. To that end, we could throw an encouraging heart and ♣8. On the other hand this layout seems to be impossible since partner has surely not led clubs from Ax/Axx/Q42/T7632.

Partner's long thought occured before he made the opening lead behind screens. So there are no UI issues here.

I don't understand why he couldn't be leading a ♣ from Ax Axx Qxx T7632. Given his own ♠ holding and the 1nt by his RHO, he might have reasoned that you must have values outside that suit and trying to establish his own suit fearing that releasing the ♠A early on would help declarer more than the defense.

[Phil]

I would be surprised if he Smithed holding the ♠A. He plays before us and cannot possibly know we have the ♣Q, so he is not going to "like clubs" holding the ♠A even if the ♠A is stiff.

So, declarer appears to be ♠A + ♦KJ + ♣K. This doesn't seem that rich for a 1N response to a Precision 1♦.

I will pitch an encouraging heart and a spade.

[Phil]

sathyab, on 2012-December-03, 14:04, said:

Partner's long thought occured before he made the opening lead behind screens. So there are no UI issues here.

?

[mikeh]

sathyab, on 2012-December-03, 14:04, said:

Partner's long thought occured before he made the opening lead behind screens. So there are no UI issues here.

I suspect that you haven't played much with screens.

In my experience, you can usually tell who has had the long hesitation. Even if the auction doesn't suggest who it is, you can frequently hear the sound of the bidding cards hitting the board or the bidding box getting rattled, without anyone deliberately slamming them down and without making a conscious effort to listen for such sounds. Depending on the size of the screens and the size of the players (not as much these days with longer screens) you may be able to see the 'hidden' player stretch back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. Sometimes players in the tank adjust the way they sit, sometimes moving their chair and so on. There are lots of clues.

Anyway, when it's the opening lead, it is probably fair to say that dummy isn't tanking about laying down dummy or raising the screen.

[gnasher]

Phil, on 2012-December-03, 15:41, said:

I would be surprised if he Smithed holding the ♠A. He plays before us and cannot possibly know we have the ♣Q, so he is not going to "like clubs" holding the ♠A even if the ♠A is stiff.

He'd seen ♣A and ♦K, and he'd expect declarer to have a spade honour. There wouldn't be room for declarer to have ♣Q as well.

[sathyab]

It's a Precision opening. If they open all 11's, responder can not bid a lot more than 1nt with 11 himself.

There was a Smith at the table, but not quite sure what it should mean in this situation when everyone knows the opening leader started with 5 or 6♣ to the Ten and an outside entry. Should Smith here indicate that the opening leader has one more entry to the suit or longer suit or some such ?

[gnasher]

sathyab, on 2012-December-04, 12:18, said:

There was a Smith at the table, but not quite sure what it should mean in this situation when everyone knows the opening leader started with 5 or 6♣ to the Ten and an outside entry. Should Smith here indicate that the opening leader has one more entry to the suit or longer suit or some such ?

Does everyone know that? If what you say about South's range is correct, the defenders' club honours could be 10-J, 10-QJ, Q-J or Q10-J.

Anyway, the Smith signal isn't just about West's club holding, it's about what he wants to happen. Hence it depends on his club length, club honours, side entries, and spade holding.

[sathyab]

I was the one on opening lead. Most of the time I'd lead partner's suit. Leading another suit might easily waste an entry in partner's hand that might have been useful after establishing his suit. But I made an exception holding ♠Ax ♥Jxx ♦Qxx ♣Txxxx for two reasons. First, Leading the Ace might help declarer when partner has a suit such KJ9xx. Second, if responder did have a ♠ stopper, partner would have values elsewhere and if it happens to be in ♣ the lead could be productive.

At the table, partner discarded a ♠ first. Naturally of course, declarer played ♦ in a way that the ♠ overcaller had to make a second discard before he could see partner's pitch, so he discarded another ♠, convinced not unreasonably that declarer had a ♠ stopper. Declarer didn't have one ! He had ♠Txxx ♥ATx ♦KJTx ♣Kx. So he now had the luxury of testing ♥ and made 4 ♦, 2♣, 3 ♥ for nine tricks ! Teammates made 8 tricks in notrump.

[Phil]

So in other words...

1. You didn't lead partner's suit with Ax after he made a vulnerable overcall. I think this is very bad strategy at BAM.

2. You lied about your spade holding by making a positive Smith. Earlier you ask, "Should this hand make a positive Smith signal with an outside entry", but you neglect to mention your entry just happens to be in partner's overcalled suit!

3. Worst of all you posted partner's hand apparently wondering how he could defend better play after you proceeded to give him bad information.

You still don't explain how declarer managed 9 tricks in NT. I guess whoever won the heart still didn't shift to a spade and cash four tricks there, although its easy to see how that happened after this start.

[wyman]

@Phil,

He described that partner pitched 2 spades on the run of the diamonds.

[sathyab]

Phil, on 2012-December-04, 13:45, said:

So in other words...

1. You didn't lead partner's suit with Ax after he made a vulnerable overcall. I think this is very bad strategy at BAM.

2. You lied about your spade holding by making a positive Smith. Earlier you ask, "Should this hand make a positive Smith signal with an outside entry", but you neglect to mention your entry just happens to be in partner's overcalled suit!

3. Worst of all you posted partner's hand apparently wondering how he could defend better play after you proceeded to give him bad information.

You still don't explain how declarer managed 9 tricks in NT. I guess whoever won the heart still didn't shift to a spade and cash four tricks there, although its easy to see how that happened after this start.

I didn't post partner's hand to wonder how he could defend better. I posted it because it was an interesting hand and the defense is extremely tough from his point of view. Nowhere did I ever imply that partner did anything unreasonable.

I wasn't sure about what Smith signal would mean in this context, so I posted whatever happened at the table, noting that it could easily have been wrong.

As for not leading A from Ax in partner's suit, if declarer had a stopper, it tends to work out badly. When he doesn't have a stopper it can mislead the defense as it did here.

The ♠ overcaller pitched two ♠s and ♥ broke 3-3, so defense could not get more than 4 tricks before declarer had nine.

[PhilKing]

I don't mind the lead, but since one would hardly lead a club from Txxxx without an entry, I don't think you should Smith.

Usually, partner will continue clubs anyway (it's not as if failing to Smith asks for a switch), but here he can figure out the hand.

[sathyab]

PhilKing, on 2012-December-04, 14:12, said:

I don't mind the lead, but since one would hardly lead a club from Txxxx without an entry, I don't think you should Smith.

Usually, partner will continue clubs anyway (it's not as if failing to Smith asks for a switch), but here he can figure out the hand.

That was the part I was unsure when defending this hand. In retrospect, may be I shouldn't have implied good clubs, it'd definitely matter if partner had only the ♣Jx. But on this hand, what mattered really was telling partner that my entry was in ♠ in spite of the overcall before he discarded a second ♠. I knew declarer didn't have four ♥, so I was all set to pitch a ♥ from Jxx as it would have been safe. But partner had to make the critical discard before I could.