[Walddk]

Scoring: IMP

South: 3NT
Lead: S2

---

On average you will be defending half of the times, and yet we see very few posts on defence. Nice feeling when one does the right thing, just awful when things go wrong and you could and should have done better.

Here is a test for you. South opens 1NT (15-17) and is raised to 3. You decide to lead 4th best from your longest and strongest. Declarer wins the ace in dummy, partner following with the 6, and 9 from declarer. Your agreement is reverse attitude.

Not unexpectedly, South advances ♣Q next and you are in with the king. Take over please and tell us why you do what you do at trick 3. Hidden text might be a good idea in order to give as many as possible a chance to give it a try without being distracted by other posts.

Roland

[Free]

What card did my partner play on that ♣Q? It might be helpful to show which suit he wants there...

Without a clue, small ♥ might be the winning switch if p has AJxx, but ♦ might be the winning switch as well. I guess declarer has ♠K, otherwise he'd probably play the Q in trick 1, so he didn't falsecard from 9x. Pure guess imo

[EDIT]: if we play ♥ it's indeed better to play the 8

[Walddk]

Oh, I hoped someone would ask that question. Your partner played ♣9 (reverse count) if that is of any help. You may interpret this as a suit preference signal for hearts if you prefer, but don't bet your life on it.

Roland

[reisig]

Best to think the problem all the way thru - before making a play.

[Poky]

I play back back the

Spoiler

unblocking heart eight

in case declarer has something like

Spoiler

♠KJ9 ♥Q9 ♦AQxx ♣Axx

.

[whereagles]

Why didn't I duck the 1st club? I'd take the king 2nd round and continue spades. Now if pard has the diamond ace declarer goes down due to club blockage. Hum.. wait.. if this wasn't an option it's because declarer has the diamond ace. Which means I must now play a heart. The 8, to prevent blockade.

[Walddk]

whereagles, on Jun 2 2005, 08:13 AM, said:

Why didn't I duck the 1st club? I'd take the king 2nd round and continue spades. Now if pard has the diamond ace declarer goes down due to club blockage.

I am not sure your partner will be thrilled when he shows out on the second round of clubs and your king drops under declarer's ace.

Roland

[Fluffy]

First aproach:

Spoiler

Wrong analysis :-P

[mike777]

If p has made suit pref for hearts then...8 of h as others have said.

[luke warm]

♦9 for me... his play to the first trick is discouraging (shift where?)... same for the 2nd... so it's between hearts and diamonds... i think he has 5 or more diamonds to the ace

he probably has 19 hearts tho, sigh

[Echognome]

Dummy has a 12 count and declarer has 15-17, so combined they have 27-29. You have 6, which leaves partner 5-7.

For the heart switch you be right, partner needs to have AJ7x, whereas for the diamond switch to be right, partner needs to have AQJx. The odds favour the heart switch.

[luke warm]

probably so, but i'm thinking he has ace 5th with no entry.. anyway, declarer's play to the first trick marks him (in my mind, could be wrong) with 4 spades and he could definitely also have 3 hearts.. so i'll stick to the diamond lead, hoping for AQJxx, playing declarer for 4324

i meant 3 hearts, not 4

[Winstonm]

Delarer holds the following known cards: K(J) of spades, and the A of clubs.

Question is what is more likely:

case 1) diamond switch requires partner to hold AQJx or AQxxx of diamonds, meaning declarer, for his bid needs to hold K(J), AQJx, (J)xx, Axx.

case 2( If partner holds the AJ7x of hearts, declarer has K(J), Q9, AQxx, Axx

Because case 2 requires partner to hold less high cards, I chose it and switch to the 8 of hearts to start the unblock. Partner will have to play well to read this, win the ace and return a heart for the killing 3 of heart through 106 to partner's hoped for J7.

WinstonM

[FrancesHinden]

Clearly we can't get this right 100% of the time. The various odds calculations given are not all the same, so somebody must be wrong!

Partner's club should have been suit preference, but we've just been told it's reverse count. What's the point of count when there's another entry on the table? Anyway, as he's given count it looks like he has 3 clubs. In which case I should have ducked the club. Never mind.

The first question to address is:
- Does declarer have 9 tricks if we get this wrong?
If we trust partner, then declarer has 4 spades: declarer's play a little odd missing the K, so if declarer has the KJ then partner is discouraging; but partner would play his highest spade to discourage. If partner's 6 is his highest spade then declarer has the 7 and hence 4 spade tricks. Alternatively partner is encouraging from J76, but then I don't think declarer can afford to falsecard holding K9xx because the S9 might be a trick.

So declarer has 4 clubs and 4 spades. He must have a red ace to give him the 1NT bid, so we need to play the right red suit now.

The second question is which red suit is more likely to run?

A heart is right if partner has AJ7x or AQ7x or AQJx That makes declarer exactly 4243 with the KJ of spades, the DA, the CA and any of {HQDJ,HQDQ, HQDQJ,HJDQ,HJDQJ,DQJ} i.e. 6 different honour combinations. Plus we need partner to have the H7 which will happen slightly under 2/3 of the time the rest comes true.

A diamond is right if partner has AQJx or AQxxx. AQJx doesn't give declarer enough HCP. AQxxx gives declarer KJxx AQxx Jx Axx or KJxx AQJx Jx Axx.

Now, all these different honour holding have different probabilities but 2/3 of 6 combinations seems enough better than 2 combinations that I'm not going to work it out.

Heart (the 8, of course).

[luke warm]

Winstonm, on Jun 2 2005, 10:07 AM, said:

Because case 2 requires partner to hold less high cards, I chose it and switch to the 8 of hearts to start the unblock.

i might not read the ♥8 as wanting a return.. i know there are different philosophies on this, but the 8 should say 'here's a suit i'm not particularly interested in'

[Walddk]

luke warm, on Jun 2 2005, 12:01 PM, said:

Winstonm, on Jun 2 2005, 10:07 AM, said:

Because case 2 requires partner to hold less high cards, I chose it and switch to the 8 of hearts to start the unblock.

i might not read the ♥8 as wanting a return.. i know there are different philosophies on this, but the 8 should say 'here's a suit i'm not particularly interested in'

Jimmy, here I am again. Just because you have certain agreements regarding leads, you should never stop playing bridge! If a heart return is correct, the 8 is definitely right, the 3 is never.

Partner is also at the table I hope. There is no law against thinking. He doesn't have to return a card in a flash. Maybe he will work it out if he takes his time ... if a heart switch is right that is.

I will reveal later tonight my time (it.s 7:06 pm here now).

Roland