[Walddk]

Scoring: IMP

South: 3NT
Lead: C2

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This deal is from the English Championships about 45 years ago. The bidding went (North dealer):

1♦ - 1♠
2♥ - 2NT
3NT - pass

North overbid a couple of times, but that is not a concern of yours. You lead ♣2 to partner's ace and declarer's 5. East continues with ♣7 to your jack over South's 8. At this point the player in the West seat erred and let the contract through.

Can you do better? What do you lead at trick 3 and why? Again hidden text would be nice, but it's not a must.

Roland

[whereagles]

Disagree. Bidding is fine and commendable As for the play..

Spoiler

Play spade ace. If pard has the king he'll encourage to play back a club. Otherwise you'll switch to hearts, playing pard for the king. In this case declarer has 5 diams, 1 heart, and hopefully 2 spades only, so he'll still go down after the heart finesse.

[Walddk]

whereagles, on Jun 3 2005, 03:25 AM, said:

Disagree. Bidding is fine and commendable As for the play..

Spoiler

Play spade ace. If pard has the king he'll encourage to play back a club. Otherwise you'll switch to hearts, playing pard for the king. In this case declarer has 5 diams, 1 heart, and hopefully 2 spades only, so he'll still go down after the heart finesse.

If a reverse on a 15 count is no more than you require, then fine with me, but that is obviously not the point. I can tell you, however (others should not peek), that your defence is wrong.

Roland

[whereagles]

Oh well.. bidding is my strong point anyway.. lol

[joker_gib]

Spoiler

Small ♠ !

- If declarer has the ♥K, I can still beat the contract with partner having the ♠K
- if partner has the ♥K, declarer has only 7 tricks

Alain

[PMetsch]

Spoiler

3 of spades, playing partner for heart king or spade king

[Chamaco]

Spoiler

If declarer has 4 hearts tricks, instead, the only hope is that the club Q drops under my K. In that case, even returning a spade would leave declarer with 10 top tricks.

If pard has a heart stopper, it seems to me declarer is down regardless of how he plays.

My guess, however, is that declarer has started with 4 clubs and 4 spades.

So I will play a passive defense, playing a diamond, and sitting waiting for our tricks. This will be wrong if declarer has started with Qxx of clubs, and seems correct instead if declarer started with Qxxx.
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Alright after some more careful thinking I understood why it's better leading a spade...

[Free]

Small ♠ can't do any harm. ♠A on the other hand can! Small ♠ it is.

[Jurek S]

Spoiler

x S, can't see any reason to play ♦, ♥ will give the contract if decl has the K, and I can always argue about this 7 of ♣

[Fluffy]

my thoughts:

Spoiler

There are 3 ways of defeat:

-partner having spade King
-partner having heart King
-partner having club AQ874, this is not likelly looking at the bidding, but anyway its possible.

If south has !sKQ9x and !cQ8xx(x) playing any spade gives the contract, if he has instead !sK anything but a spade gives the contract.

What doesn't give the contrtact is cashing the club King!, with some luck partner may signal his King and we will switch to the correct suit, declarer making 1♥, 5♦ 2♣=8.

So all in all I play ♣K :-P

[shanbari]

Spoiler

SJ,
if declear had KQ9x in spade, i want to block it..

shan

[luke warm]

ok, i'll try

Spoiler

if i arbitrarily give south 8-10 hcp, partner has 5-7... he's played 4 of them, so can possibly have a king... i don't think it's likely, but it's possible

i think partner is 3253 so declarer is 5314.. if he has a king, odds are it's 3/2 it's in spades... in spite of this, i lead the ♥9.. if he has the ♥K and gets in, i want him to know where my entry outside of clubs is

[Winstonm]

[HIDDEN] If both red suits are coming in and declarer holds the King of spades there is no chance. So it seems the problem is to let partner know what suit to lead back when he gets in. If I lead the spade 3, when declarer holds the KQ, partner may take me for AQ3 and the QJ42 of clubs and return a spade through, playing declarer for KJxx. I think the play of the J of spades caters to all these possibilities - if spades were our future, I would certainly play a low one, so partner, if he can see that diamonds and clubs are coming in, should go in with the King if he has it, on hope that it will hold, and return a club...if declarer wins this trick and tries the heart finesse, pard will surely now know what to do.[HIDDEN]

WinstonM

[slothy]

lol well hidden winston

[Winstonm]

I am such a stupid.....LoL

[Al_U_Card]

Spoiler

Always like to punish the overbidders. Pard is not quite broke, he could have Jx(x) of H and we know that they have 9 tricks if they play S so we must get a low H on the table and hope.

[Winstonm]

[QUOTE]If partner has the king of spades and a doubleton club the jack of spades has just blown the contract

Spoiler

[As much as I respect you, Justin, I think you might be in error, here. If partner has that holding, and the king of spades holds the trick, all he has to do is play a spade back to my ace so I can cash the K of clubs for the settting trick, no? Even if declarer held: KQ9x, Jx, xx, Q8xxx, after the J of spades, what will he do - I can win a second spade, cash the Club King, and endplay him in dummy. I liked your line a lot except that it allows declarer to rattle off 9 with the most normal-looking hand: Q9xx, KJx, xx, Q8xx or Kxxx, Jx, xxx Q8xx, and my question is if he held: KQ9x, Kx, xx, Q8xx, why wouldn't he jump to 3N as 45 years ago was before Lebensold I believe.

My line takes 2 or 3 clubs in partner's hand if he holds the K of Spades, or 3 clubs if he holds the King of hearts, as best as I can figure it, and steers partner toward the winning line. Regardless, I wouldn't want to play you for cash, JL, LoL.

WinstonM