Interesting Defensive Disaster

[pclayton]

You are the jury for this defensive crime.

 

[hv=d=w&v=b&n=sqj8hkq95dj74cq73&w=sat97ha64d6cjt864&e=s6432h7d9532cak95&s=sk5hjt832dakqt8c2]399|300|Scoring: IMP[/hv]

 

Auction is 3 passes to South who opens 1♥. 2♣ rev drury by North, 2♦ by South, 2♥ by North and 4♥ by south.

 

EW play udca and 3/low leads.

 

T1. ♦6, 4, 2, A

T2. ♥10, 4, 5, 7

T3. ♥4, A, 5, ♦3

T4. ♠A, 8, 6, 5

T5. ♣J, 3, 5, 2

 

Making 4.

 

What can EW do differently to obtain the setting trick?

[Guest Jlall]

I'm sure many people will post about signals and inferences etc etc. As usual logic prevails and easts defense was not good.

 

South won the ace of diamonds. If he has 3 diamonds, he has AKQ of diamonds. If south has 5 hearts the clubs wont go away (south has 5 black cards so at most overtaking and playing a diamond costs 1 undertrick).

 

If south has 3 diamonds and 6 hearts and 2-2 in the blacks that gives partner AT9x Ax Txx JTxx. Would he really lead a diamond? Would he really then play the ace of spades and a club after we pitched the 3 of diamonds?

 

West must have a stiff diamond otherwise nothing makes sense.

 

East is guilty of a felony, failure to think. Yes West could have won the heart immediately and cashed a spade and got out the 8 of clubs to make things crystal clear to partner. He is guilty of a misdemeanor, not helping a person in need.

[luis]

I'm going to be very simple, the play of the club jack is just terrible. If you want your pd to win the trick and let you ruff a diamond why are you leading the Jack?

I think west is 90% guilty but as Justin said East could have reasoned and reach the right conclusion.

[ArcLight]

I think the lead of the Club Jack was the mistake.

You can say East should have won anyway and given West the ruff, but maybe he though West had Jxx and South would later make the Q.

 

The key lesson is:

 

When you know the right play, take your pard by the hand and guide him

Don't make him think, he may go wrong on occasion.

[Winstonm]

Hard to say exactly without knowing your agreements...count, attitude, O/S or what...but when in West is OK until the club play...the right move is to lead something other than the J depending on how you play...the 10 if you are denying the King or as I prefer simply the 4 to give count....but whatever you have to force East to win the club and maybe he'll figure out what to return.

 

BTW, I like East's carding: 2 of diamonds to show cound, 3 of diamonds to indicate clubs, and 6 of spades to deny the King.

 

Winston

[Guest Jlall]

This is really one of my pet peeves. West is getting the blame for not signalling well, and east is getting off for not even thinking. I really sometimes think people would be better players if they played no signals for a year. It would get them into the habbit of thinking about the hand and not the signals. East had more than enough info to get this one right.

[Winstonm]

I'm sure many people will post about signals and inferences etc etc. As usual logic prevails and easts defense was not good.

 

South won the ace of diamonds. If he has 3 diamonds, he has AKQ of diamonds. If south has 5 hearts the clubs wont go away (south has 5 black cards so at most overtaking and playing a diamond costs 1 undertrick).

 

If south has 3 diamonds and 6 hearts and 2-2 in the blacks that gives partner AT9x Ax Txx JTxx. Would he really lead a diamond? Would he really then play the ace of spades and a club after we pitched the 3 of diamonds?

 

West must have a stiff diamond otherwise nothing makes sense.

 

East is guilty of a felony, failure to think. Yes West could have won the heart immediately and cashed a spade and got out the 8 of clubs to make things crystal clear to partner. He is guilty of a misdemeanor, not helping a person in need.

I rarely disagree with Justin but here I think West's infraction is the more severe. While it is true East did not keep up with the play and should have reasoned it out, West is the one who knew 100% the correct action and to do anything other than force East to win the club is a clear-cut hanging offense - kind of like smoking in California. :(

 

Winston

[Trumpace]

I agree with Justin here. Here, both East/West had all the information required to make the right play. OK, so west led the ♣J. If East had thought a little, he could "save" partner from the "horrible" ♣J lead by overtaking and returning a diamond for a ruff.

 

On the other hand, If E-W are regular partners, the blame lies with West. He knows that East does not think! So he must play a low ♣. :D

 

Maybe it was declarer's fault. He didn't play the ♣Q on the J :(

 

On a serious note, why do people think that leading a low club would have helped? East, who does not seem to think would probably have tried to cash a second ♣ for the setting trick.

[mcphee]

I believe the JC is a mistake. As a defender it is your duty to help partners who may be sleeping as was the case here. Sure it is somewhat obvious to win the C and play a D. It is more obvious to lead your low C and prevent this from taking place.

[Free]

I agree with everyone here, but most with Justin: East didn't think before ducking the ♣J, but West's ♣J puts a lot of confidence in his partner (he shouldn't do that apparently).

 

West plays ♠A to see if he can reach his partner in ♠, and then switches to ♣J. Ok, he could've easily played the T or small... East should think 'what the hell is my partner doing, just cashing ♠A?' and come to the conclusion he needs a ruff. So in what suit would that be?? There's no reason to be greedy at this point, since another ♣ trick (if there is one) will come later, after the ♦ ruff. If south has the ♣T he'd probably cover ♣J as well, so West must have the T. West didn't take his ♥A immediatly so he should still have a trump. With 5 ♠s from A and perhaps something else, he might overcall, so I'd give him only 4 ♠s. 4♠, 3♥ and 1♦ give West 5 ♣s...

 

What happens if East only has ♣K and West plays small ♣? Then we can make a new thread on what happened and everyone would say West played small and East couldn't play the 9.

 

Nobody is banned from thinking. So I blame East completely. West was just doing what's right. Signals aren't everything, but good signalling can help a lot. However, it's not always because your partner encourages a suit that you have to play it. For example, yesterday my partner had bid and encouraged ♣. I had Q2, dummy J93. I didn't touch that suit, with result: if declarer had to play them he loses 2 tricks, if we play them he loses only 1 trick.

[whereagles]

Since when would a small club be a request for a diamond shift? That's nonsense.

 

Still, common sense dictates that a singleton is just about the only reason for pard to lead in opener's suit.

[hotShot]

Why did West lead ♦, and when at trick does not follow ♦?

It does not matter which ♣ W played, E has to take it and switch to ♦.

Playing the J♣ should promise the T, so E can expext W to play ♣ again to cut out the Q later, if possible.

[Echognome]

I also believe it's a case of both parties to blame. The ♣J was not the right card to play. Simple as that really for West. East should be able to work out the hand though.

 

I like Justin's idea of not using signals for a month. My partner and I did this without intention. We played this stupid defensive system for a couple months. The idea was if the first card played from dummy was even, then we'd play right-side up signals and if the first card played from dummy was odd, we'd play upside-down signals. We did this mainly because of declarer's asking at about trick 8 what signals we used and asking "so what does the club 7 mean then?" It was also worth the comedy of declarer trying to remember what card was played at trick 1. Of course, most of the time declarer never asked any questions and we were sitting there trying to remember ourselves what had been played at trick 1. We then had to figure out the defense on our own as we couldn't figure out partner's signals showed. We gave up the signals in the end because they were quite silly, but it turned out to be a good exercise in defense. :)

[mikeh]

I assume that S's 2♦ was natural: it would not be for me, but the posts all seem to assume that is was, and S's hand and bidding suggests it was.

 

This is important, because, if 2♦ was natural, then the lead is clearly shortness, and East should be signalling his entry, not giving useless count or ♦ attitude.

 

So the ♦2 at trick 1 was the 'correct' card but maybe E was, as one poster suggested, giving count :(

 

As for the rest of the defence, I agree with Justin. East never put his brain into gear: the failure to win the ♣K was an enormous error, reflecting an absence of any effort on his part.

 

While many here seem to blame West, I strongly disagree. I am all in favour of making partner's life easy, but I would lead a ♣ other than the Jack only if I heard my partner snoring or saw his eyelids drooping. On one level, a count card is better than the J, but I do not like count leads after trick one so almost never make them. Furthermore, any East sufficiently absent from the table as to get this wrong might, as another poster mentioned, attempt to 'cash' the second ♣ :)

 

If your partnership style is to make count leads in mid-defence, then West gets a small share of the blame: maybe 15%.

[Finch]

Forget the auction for the time being.

 

This is a good example of the sort of instructional hand that should stop after trick 1, and East be asked what the diamond layout is. Partner has led the 6 playing 3rd/5th leads. We can see the 5432 so we know it's from an odd number.

 

If it's from 5 then partner led low from KQ1086 which is not the standard lead from that holding.

 

If it's from 3 then partner has

KQ6

 

K106

K86

Q106

Q86

 

1086

 

From the first of these, partner would have led an honour.

From the next two of these, declarer would have won with the Queen.

From the next of these, declarer would have won with the 8 in hand (or the J in dummy).

From the next of these, declarer would have won with the 10 in hand.

 

That leaves 1086 or singleton 6 as the only possible diamond holdings.

 

Now we come back to the auction. If 2D was natural, I would assume as East that the opening lead was a singleton without even doing these calculations. No other reason to lead declarer's suit, certainly not from 10xx. But, like MikeH I don't play 2D as natural here.

 

This tells us why west was correct to switch to the CJ rather than a low one. He knows is partner is trying to work out if he's led from a singleton or not. By switching to the Jack, implying J10, he says "I had a club sequence but I chose to led diamonds instead."

[Chamaco]

Nice and interesting thread, thanks Phil :P

[bearmum]