[luis]

Scoring: IMP

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West opened 1♠, north passed, east raised to 2♠, you bid 3♥ as south and pd raised to 4♥ ending the auction.
West leads the club queen.

There're two lines: play the club queen to be a doubleton and put up the cK from dummy or play the cQ to be a singleton and hope that opener has also the major suit aces. Which line would you take and why ?

Luis.

[cherdano]

luis, on Mar 4 2005, 07:05 PM, said:

There're two lines: play the club queen to be a doubleton and put up the cK from dummy or play the cQ to be a singleton and hope that opener has also the major suit aces. Which line would you take and why ?

If RHO guesses that ♣Q is singleton, he can win the A and beat it no matter what I do. Isn't this a strong case for playing it to be a doubleton?

Arend

[luis]

cherdano, on Mar 4 2005, 07:35 PM, said:

luis, on Mar 4 2005, 07:05 PM, said:

There're two lines: play the club queen to be a doubleton and put up the cK from dummy or play the cQ to be a singleton and hope that opener has also the major suit aces. Which line would you take and why ?

If RHO guesses that ♣Q is singleton, he can win the A and beat it no matter what I do. Isn't this a strong case for playing it to be a doubleton?

Arend

No, because East can't tell if the lead is a singleton or QJ doubleton. If it's QJ doubleton taking the ace and returning the suit while declarer discards his losing spade and wins and impossible cK in dummy would be quite embarrasing :-)

Maybe this is also a nice problem for East, if declarer plays low, what would you do and why ?

[inquiry]

They got me. I go fancy and duck. It would help only slightly to know if EAST promised much with 2♠ (are they playing constructive raises)...but, give EAST the club ACE, that only leaves WEST wtih at maximum ♠AQJ, ♥A, and the known ♣Q for 13 hcp including a sigleton or doubleton club Queen. Take away either ace and he doensn't have a normal opening bid and he probably doesn't have both middle spade honors either.

So the first half of the necessary equation exist, WEST will have both missing major aces. So the second half is does he have a singleton club or a doubleton club? The a priori odds do not favor WEST having a singleton club, but to lead Q from Qx here would be too odd. So I will play west for singlton club Queen...

Now for the rest of the story? West the suprizses you big time by cashing clubs ace followed by them eventually getting both major aces... Why didn't you cover the club Queen your partner ask with tone in his voice you have nver heard before. Some expert he screams as he clicks on your name and chnage you to enemy bfore he departs the table to join another.

[luis]

inquiry, on Mar 4 2005, 07:55 PM, said:

They got me. I go fancy and duck. It would help only slightly to know if EAST promised much with 2♠ (are they playing constructive raises)...but, give EAST the club ACE, that only leaves WEST wtih at maximum ♠AQJ, ♥A, and the known ♣Q for 13 hcp including a sigleton or doubleton club Queen. Take away either ace and he doensn't have a normal opening bid and he probably doesn't have both middle spade honors either.

So the first half of the necessary equation exist, WEST will have both missing major aces. So the second half is does he have a singleton club or a doubleton club? The a priori odds do not favor WEST having a singleton club, but to lead Q from Qx here would be too odd. So I will play west for singlton club Queen...

Now for the rest of the story? West the suprizses you big time by cashing clubs ace followed by them eventually getting both major aces... Why didn't you cover the club Queen your partner ask with tone in his voice you have nver heard before. Some expert he screams as he clicks on your name and chnage you to enemy bfore he departs the table to join another.

For the record wasn't an online hand it was during a match for the trials here in Argentina. I was south and the only thing I'm going to say by the moment is that 3 boards ago this hand appeared:

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I opened 1NT as south and reached 4s without intervention.
West lead the club queen ducked to my King.
I tried playing hA (crashing the K), h queen discarding a club and the hT discarding the other club. But eventually West played spade ace and another and there was no way to get rid of a losing diamond in dummy so this was down one. Comments on my play are welcome, maybe there was a better line.

What's the point?
Well... west succesfully lead a doubleton queen of clubs (!!!!!!!!!!)

[inquiry]

luis, on Mar 4 2005, 04:09 PM, said:

What's the point?
Well... west succesfully lead a doubleton queen of clubs (!!!!!!!!!!)

Well these auctions were quite different weren't they.

On this hand in 4♠, your partner bid 2♥ jacoby and RHO did not double (which would immediately probably put west off a heart lead if he was trying to decide). West is staring at a holding in diamonds he deosn't want to lead from, so what is he going to lead? A club.

The auction on your problem hand, west opened a spade and his partner raised him. Right off the bat this begins to suggest a spade. If WEST doesn't want to lead from some spade holding, a diamond from xx or xxx seems much more likely than a club from Qx. The singleton club lead, however (queen or not), while holding a trump entry looks attractive because maybe can under lead teh spade ace and get a club ruff.

I didn't mean to suggest doubleton queen leads are never made. Just this doesn't sound like the auction where you would get one.

Ben

[luke warm]

i'd play the cQ to be stiff, because i don't understand the lead if it isn't... east will encourage clubs, mainly cause he doesn't want a spade switch (unless he has the ace)

[HeartA]

West could expect pd to have ♣A and ♠K as later entry for him to ruff a ♣. To lead Q from doubleton is very possible. I'd rather to go down when West's Q was singleton than when West got Qx. In the later case, I would feel very silly. After all, if West's Q was singlteon, I can say "East could over take and give West a ruff anyway"

[cherdano]

What do opponents do with 4 trumps and a mixed raise opposite 1♠? If they play Bergen raises, I think I play the Q to be doubleton. Otherwise LHO didn't raise to 3♠ with 6-3-3-1 shape and 2 aces.

Arend

[Flame]

I changed my mind twice, now my final decision, even though i believe a good player has enough ressons to play A of club on the first trick anyway, i still dont see anyone leading Qx of club here, so ill go with small.

edited: im not going to change my post , just want to say leading QX when you hold the A of trump isnt such a bad idea as might sound from my post.