[inquiry]

Scoring: IMP

Pass (Pass) 3♦ (4♠)
All pass

In response to you vulnerable 3♦ opening bid, partner starts with diamond Queen, when dummy plays low, it is your turn to play to trick one.

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13 imps exchanged hands on this one. and hte commentors had a variety of views about what it the correct "diamond" to play. Let's discuss your views (feel free to speculate on how Roman, udca, and stardard carding play may be different, if it is).

[luke warm]

i would play the jack, hoping for a club shift... the obvious shift is hearts, and low would ask for that, eh? the jack is very unusual, there are other ways to ask for continuation

[cherdano]

I would have played the T as "unusual" (J looks like a normal honor signal to me), like Justin. But: If your 3♦ absolutely promises 7 diamonds, then the diamond layout is completely known after declarer follows with his singleton. In that case, we may or may not play suit preference here, which would mean ♦2 is correct...

Arend

[inquiry]

luke warm, on Jun 21 2005, 04:03 PM, said:

there are other ways to ask for continuation

This is where I am going with this. The hand caused some disagreement between the commentators on how to defend. But none addressed a myraid of questions. Justin solution (and yours) probably will work fine. But lets state the problem clearly.

In Roman Signally, an odd card as for continuation, an even card for switch, and the size of the even card points to which suit. Here, you have no odd card, something your partner maybe able to figure out. In theory here, playing Roman discards the heart 2 calls for a club.

In standard, a low card ask for a switch, a high card ask for continuation. In UDCA reverse those. So just as justin pointed out, a low or high heart (depending upon UDCA or standard) would convey the desire that partner lead something else. Partner should not have much trouble working out what.

But is there better? Misho convinced me of another way, and Reisig correctly pointed this out to me again today.

In a situation like this where you are known to have a long suit. The carding should be middle for no switch (that is continue), High ask for switch to higher suit, low to a lower suit. Here the diamond two would not only ask for a switch, but a swithc to a club....

Now the roman guys do similar. Here with all even cards, they play very high one for swithc to hearts, very low one for switch to clubs, and middle one to continue (since on odd dismond).

[Fluffy]

Iplay UDCA, adn would also play the impossible card: ♦10

On standard the 2 or the 10 might work, I am not sure wich one is better.

[DrTodd13]

If you use this, you owe me $100.

What I like to play is roman to the first trick when there is doubleton or longer in dummy. With singleton in dummy, low (playing udca) asks for continuation, high asks for the obvious shift, and ridiculously high (like wasting an honor) calls for the lead of the non-obvious shift.

Todd

[mike777]

luke warm, on Jun 21 2005, 03:03 PM, said:

i would play the jack, hoping for a club shift... the obvious shift is hearts, and low would ask for that, eh? the jack is very unusual, there are other ways to ask for continuation

GOT IT PARTNER CLUB ON THE WAY, CLEAR AS A BELL. SHIFT TO CLUBS.

Ben this is a eons old debate as I am sure you know. World class bridge is littered with this issue of attitude, suit preference or count at trick one in these types of situations.

I note even "OS" has shifted slightly on this issue.
1) versus a slam, on the lead of an A-K we give count. As Marlon Brando said "the horror, the horror"
2) lead of trump, suit preference.

Many play shifting methods at trick one depending on level, suit vs nt and if there is a void or stiff in lead suit. I agree with the argument this is too confusing to keep track of. Better to simplify on one basic style.

[jikl]

Perhaps this has been over analysed, look at all the pips. Partner either has Q73, Q7 or Q3 or Q. Let's quickly discard the first one, if it is this, declarer is ruffing and partner would seem to need a quick ♠ trick. Let's remove the last one. Partner knows that you are unlikely to overtake with A, so therefore you will be giving a suit signal in case it is singleton. Let's look at the other 2. Your partner will now know you had no odd cards and should now know that you knew this if declarer has followed.

Does this not mean you now signal the suit you want lead using whatever easiest means possible, ie, the 2 saying lowest suit? There are two trumps in dummy so it is unlikely you are playing for a tap on declarer.

Sean

[luke warm]

as mike aluded, the jack is the right card if you want a non-obvious shift.. since there are only 2 suits to worry about, and since a low card (playing standard carding) would ask for a heart, the jack has to ask for clubs.. either the 10 or the 8 would ask for a continuation, tho the 10 might make partner think about a club, suspecting south with the jack

btw, the 8 would only send the message that partner doesn't have heart values for a shift there, it isn't an order to continue diamonds - though partner might do so

[jikl]

After I posted, I realised my mistake in the assumption that I have 7 ♦, I could easily have 6. There is still mileage in remembering that the only 2 oustanding ♦s are the 7 and the 3 though. If partner has 2 of these it is no issue. If partner is singleton, then will be looking for a switch. If partner onnly has one of these is when it is important.

Perhaps we should be looking for what it will mean to partner when missing each of these cards.

Missing the ♦7, this is easy. Play the ♦4, declarer can not hide the 3 and 2. You can not have 5 ♦s for your bid.

Missing the ♦3 is more difficult. Here declarer can hide the 3 by playing the imaginary other pip when you have only 6 ♦s. So now the ♦4 is not good enough. Is the ♦6 a good enough card to cover both jobs?

Now with only 6♦s AJ10876 is the only way ♦6 is your lowest one. The worst suit you can have is A76432 (but this isn't a real preempt vul). So therefore the 4 is still relevant.

My first reaction was that this was trivial, but I now think that an attentive partner can read the ♦4. However, I foresee huge tempo problems with this one at the table, fast cards and slow cards are going to be ugly.

Sean

[TheoKole]

A strategy that I use with my regular partner is a Lightner double. If I preempt and then double their game, I have a void, and it is up to partner to find it.

Whatever suit he chooses (hopefully Clubs) , the opening lead will be Suit-Prefernce.

If this situation happened and he still lead Q of diamonds, he either forgot our convention or has a singleton Q and his entry is in diamonds with a ruff.

Anyways since we play standard carding I'm signalling with the 2.

Cheers,

[mike777]

TheoKole, on Jun 21 2005, 11:16 PM, said:

Anyways since we play standard carding I'm signalling with the 2.

Cheers, 

It seems no one read my post.

This is exactly the kind of muddy thinking that gets bridge players in trouble.

What the heck is standard carding here? What the heck does the 2 mean.

Do you play count, attitude or suit preference at trick one or do you play all three and expect partner to know what is when?

To repeat my point, if there was a standard here this is not a problem...all 50 million worldwide bridge players know what to play.

[whereagles]

There is one convention among experts which states something like "when pard leads Q, dummy has Kx(x), and 3rd hand has the ace, then 3rd hand gives count". Whether or not it should apply in this case is debatable, but one thing is certain: it will be very hard to convince pard to switch to a club, so why not try your luck by overtaking the diam queen and shooting back a high heart (discouraging)?

[FrancesHinden]

As has been pointed out, there's a lot that really depends on partnership understanding, rather than simply saying "standard". It's also important to realise that you simply cannot get these situations right every time. Depending on your hand (and to some extent on the auction) you might want to give partner count, ask for the lower suit to be returned, ask for the higher suit to be returned, ask for the suit to be continued, suggest a trump switch. You don't have enough cards in your hand. While you might sometimes be able to play an "impossible" card, you don't always have one. Or declarer might have it.

On this particular hand, you are I would imagine pretty much certain to have exactly 7 diamonds (a red pre-empt on a 6-card suit is pretty rare even in third, and 8-card suits are not usually opened at the 3-level). So here, my normal agreements would work - namely when I have shown length in a suit, high and low cards are McKenny and a medium card says please continue (or do whatever you think is best).

Why did declarer duck the opening lead? Is it because he has a doubleton? In that case there's something to be said for taking the Ace of diamonds and returning the 2 for partner to ruff. Partner's club back now will tell us whether to play a heart or try and cash the ace of diamonds. Although it looks like it's costing an undertrick when declarer has doubleton diamond, it's not completely trivial to construct a hand where it lets the contract through (i.e. I couldn't do it in a minute or so of trying).

Now, declarer could have something like AKQxxxx Kxx x Ax when he's ducked because he is worried about your getting a heart ruff. So what's the relative likelihood of that hand, against partner getting it wrong if you don't take the first diamond?

[inquiry]

Scoring: IMP

This is the full hand, rotated so that declerer is South. As you can see, the duck of the first diamond, even with a singleton gave the defense a chance to go wrong. Takes a club shift now to beat 4♠

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A question for the "obvioius" shift to the a club people. With KQJx in dummy, is clubs really all that obvious? I would gess if I got a don't lead diamond signal from partner, I probably would shift to a club. But could partner not have Kx (or if my hearts and we need to cash 3 hearts quick? Anyway, even if clubs is obvious here, it is not impossiible to draw up hands were the suit to switch too is not at all obvious. This is why the suggestion by misho, reisig, and Francis is dead on. When you promised a long suit (as here), consider the implications of three different carding schemes... 1) unnecessarily high, 2) unnecessarily low, and 3) a middle card. IF you haven't promised legnth -- even if you have it --- then go back to "standard" attitude and if you want a switch discourage in suit lead. Then, let partner work out to what. For sophisiticated players, you can use the High-middle-low from an undiscolosed long suit if from bidding and dummy it becomes reasonable to assume that your partner can work out that you are long in that unbid suit, but this is risky without very sound understanding.

Ben

[reisig]

Your carding methods have nothing to do with the problem. When partner opens 3♦ - Vul missing the King and Queen - partner has 7 card suit. When the Queen wins at trick one..do I need to tell my attitude? So - at trick 1 -- play high card for higher suit shift and lowest for lower suit and middle ..says - I have nothing to ask for...play more ♦s. - (from my point of view).

[luke warm]

inquiry, on Jun 22 2005, 07:55 AM, said:

Scoring: IMP

This is the full hand, rotated so that declerer is South. As you can see, the duck of the first diamond, even with a singleton gave the defense a chance to go wrong. Takes a club shift now to beat 4♠

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A question for the "obvioius" shift to the a club people. With KQJx in dummy, is clubs really all that obvious?

actually no, clubs is not the obvious shift.. looking at dummy, hearts is the obvious shift suit.. so a low diamond would ask for a heart... a high diamond asks for a continuation, or at least it asks that leader not shift to hearts... an unusual honor (except for the queen, which promises the jack) asks for the non-obvious shift, which in this case is clubs... so if the ♦8 had been played, leader can continue diamonds or, maybe, switch to a trump... one thing he probably won't do is lead a heart or a club

in os methods, there has to be some way to ask for a shift to the obvious suit... they use attitude to show this... the trick is to determine which suit is obvious, and there are rules for this

[SoTired]

I'm not so sure the obvious shift is a heart, because the bidding went 3D 4S. That likely marks declarer with all outstanding honors. Even with 7 solid spades, for the 4S bid instead of the KH, the heart shift requires declarer to have ♥xxx and ♣Ax. Seems to me it is much more likely that declarer has ♣Axx to make the club shift right in both cases.