[dwar0123]

A neat little defensive problem. U/D Count and attitude.

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[MrAce]

Why did we not unblock the ♣K at the second round of clubs? Pd led trump when he has nothing in hearts, and ♦K in front of long diamonds. It is hard to believe he made this lead with nothing in club suit.
Maybe we don't need to, lets see.
He has either 5314 or 5215, but the way pd followed clubs says 5215

Cash the ♣ K and check what he discards from dummy. And play the red suit he discarded from dummy. He will discard a diamond of course. He can at best ruff our diamond and drop the K from pd when we play it, he is out of trumps and we will always get a ♥ trick from dummy. If he discards a ♥ from dummy we simply play ♥ and always get a club from hand plus 4th ♥ for an extra down trick.

[Zelandakh]

Playing a club will presumably establish the suit for declarer and similarly diamonds establishes that suit in dummy. So I guess the only way to give a chance to go wrong is a heart. No doubt the position is very neat if I think about it some more.

Edit: Timo, partner is 3334 from the udca carding so declarer is 5215.

[MrAce]

Zelandakh, on 2014-May-19, 17:39, said:

Playing a club will presumably establish the suit for declarer and similarly diamonds establishes that suit in dummy. So I guess the only way to give a chance to go wrong is a heart. No doubt the position is very neat if I think about it some more.

Edit: Timo, partner is 3334 from the udca carding so declarer is 5215.

Thanks, I will correct it.

I still disagree with your solution. I just can't believe pd led trump with nothing less than a Qxxx in club suit when he is holding Kxx diamond in front of long diamonds when he had an easy lead of hearts holding xxxx in the unbid suit where they seem to be not interested in 3 NT. It simply just does not make sense to me. Although I expect you to be correct on this particular deal due to the title of the topic. But I am writing how I would play at the table. I expect declarer to hold;

KQJxx
xx
x
AJTxx

There are other indications that says declarer is unlikely to hold Q of clubs.

1- Holding AQxxx ♣ he may as well chose to finesse in clubs. He would be in decent shape with finesse working and if not he still have a lot of chances, especially when N does not have 3rd spade to play.
2- Declarer could have tried 3rd round of clubs in order to drop Kxx instead of ♥ finesse Isn't this why he started to ruff clubs instead of finesse had he held AQxxx?

But as I said it is almost obvious that playing ♥ is the winner when the title says "it is so wrong but it is so right" To me it is wrong to play ♥ for the reasons I already said and it is right because it is right on this hand Even if it is right to play ♥, you also need the declarer to go wrong. I mean I saw the defense you suggest as soon as I looked at the hand, and I admit it is fancy and neat play. However it is a disaster if declarer holds AJTxx in club suit, where we can simply defeat him we are giving him a chance to make it.

[MrAce]

Actually, the more I look into it, the more I dislike ♥ play now. The reason besides the ones I already said, is that playing ♥ now is almost the same thing with playing ♦ now Zel. They both rely on wrong guess by declarer. Perhaps ♥ play now is worse than ♦ play. If we are going to bet our money on the guess of ♦ suit, we better play it now. This gives declarer a better chance if we have the K of ♦ regardless of how many diamonds we hold, instead of later playing us for exactly Kxxx diamonds or pd with Kxx diamonds. But when we play hearts he is very likely to guess diamonds correct, simply because it is better odds to play small and ruff and expect to make when any defender holds Kxx as oppose to pinpoint specific Kxxx with S and Jxx with N.

[nige1]

dwar0123, on 2014-May-19, 16:37, said:

A neat little defensive problem. U/D Count and attitude.

OK. After reading Mr Ace, the penny dropped
A small red card does seem best!

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[1eyedjack]

nige1, on 2014-May-19, 20:02, said:

OK. After reading Mr Ace, the penny dropped
A small red card does seem best!

---

On this layout, a red card gives declarer a choice of options some of which work and some which fail, depending on a guess of the Diamond layout. Possibly choice of red suit may psychologically influence that guess, but agreed that C:K removes declarer's losing options.

Swap C:Q and C:J then declarer has no winning line if you cash C:K then exit in H.

Arguably declarer needs C:Q to justify 3C bid

[nige1]

An alternative line for declarer is to win second trick with ♠K, cash ♦A, ruff a ♦, cash ♣A, ruff a ♣, ruff a ♦, cash ♠Q drawing trumps.

As the cards lie you are home 1 X ♣, 2 X ♦, 1 X ♥, 4 X ♠, 1 X ruff.

You would retain some options if South started with ♦ K J x x.

In fact, if you guess, somehow, that South also started with ♣ K x x, you can exit in ♣, making whatever the ♥ position.

[MrAce]

Nige1.....I don't know how you came up with this whole hand. Did you construct it or did you look at his hand records? Either way you started to make double dummy analysis. There are two options in single dummy analysis of this hand.

Declarer has either AQxxx or AJxxx clubs. If declarer has AQxxx you can not defeat him by yourself, you need his help too. By hoping that he plays Q from QT9 diamond, and I say why this is unlikely before and why imo it is better to play diamond than heart now, which gives declarer more chance to go wrong imo. There are also a lot of indications that pd is unlikely (but of course not impossible) to not hold Q of clubs. Such as lead-line of declarer play-but most importantly it is the ONLY holding that makes it defeatable without any help from declarer.

If you constructed the 4 hands, what makes you believe declarer has AQxxx instead of AJxxx? 1 hcp difference for his bidding? Is it such a huge hint that overrides everything else we saw so far during the play? Or is it the title of the topic? Of course I know as well that the title screams for AQxxx ♣. But the goal is not to pinpoint the original deal.

[1eyedjack]

MrAce, on 2014-May-20, 11:39, said:

If you constructed the 4 hands, what makes you believe declarer has AQxxx instead of AJxxx? 1 hcp difference for his bidding? Is it such a huge hint that overrides everything else we saw so far during the play?

To my mind even having C:Q is borderline insufficient for 3C bid, so yes, subtracting yet another point from an insufficient hand is a big issue for me.

[nige1]

MrAce, on 2014-May-20, 11:39, said:

Nige1.....I don't know how you came up with this whole hand. Did you construct it or did you look at his hand records? Either way you started to make double dummy analysis. There are two options in single dummy analysis of this hand.

Declarer has either AQxxx or AJxxx clubs. If declarer has AQxxx you can not defeat him by yourself, you need his help too. By hoping that he plays Q from QT9 diamond, and I say why this is unlikely before and why imo it is better to play diamond than heart now, which gives declarer more chance to go wrong imo. There are also a lot of indications that pd is unlikely (but of course not impossible) to not hold Q of clubs. Such as lead-line of declarer play-but most importantly it is the ONLY holding that makes it defeatable without any help from declarer.

If you constructed the 4 hands, what makes you believe declarer has AQxxx instead of AJxxx? 1 hcp difference for his bidding? Is it such a huge hint that overrides everything else we saw so far during the play? Or is it the title of the topic? Of course I know as well that the title screams for AQxxx ♣. But the goal is not to pinpoint the original deal.

I don't know what the OP deal was. I simply parrotted reconstructions of others. Your reconstruction and suggested defence seem fine. An inspired declarer can end-play you in ♣, unless you get rid of your ♣K early. (Mr Ace, himself, pointed this out, in an earlier post).