[AL78]

Sadly a feature of my bridge play is, when defending, to come up with two plausible lines, which require different, but plausible layouts to work. What I cannot seem to do, is work out which is the most likely to work, so inevitably pick the wrong one and end up blowing a trick or two.

---

After my ♠A lead, I decided on one of two lines:

1. Play another spade and give partner a ruff if that 3 was a singleton.
2. Play my singleton club and hope partner has the ace and gives me a ruff.

I was wary about playing a club because if partner doesn't have the ace, it could give a trick away if partner has a couple of club honors, so decided to cash my ace and see what happened. What happened is I hit the one layout I didn't want when my partner's queen came down, establishing the jack in dummy. Having still convinced myself a club lead is dangerous, I decided to lead a third spade to neutralise dummy's jack. Unfortunately when partner ruffed low, declarer picks up the suit for no losers and makes the contract, the other two pairs managed to get it off.

I can't seem to stop myself from doing cock-ups like this . I wish Dealmaster had defense hands as well as declarer play, then I might be able to train myself to work things out better and use all information available.

[akwoo]

Why commit? You don't know which it is, so lead a heart, which might blow a trick versus the right line, but probably saves a trick versus the wrong line. It's okay to take your average and try for your top on the next board.

[FelicityR]

Blame partner - in a nice way When you lead a third ♠ it behoves partner to ruff with the ♦K. Ruffing low has no impact whatsoever.

[AL78]

akwoo, on 2020-February-15, 19:49, said:

Why commit? You don't know which it is, so lead a heart, which might blow a trick versus the right line, but probably saves a trick versus the wrong line. It's okay to take your average and try for your top on the next board.

Not committing could work out just as badly as committing to the wrong line. Knowing my luck, I'd find declarer with ♥Qx, then heart heart chuck the losing spade, partner ruffing then plays a spade, ruffed, ♦AK or A and another, 3♦= for the same bottom.