How do you defend?

[mr1303]

[hv=d=n&v=n&s=sqxxhajxxdaxcjxxx]133|100|Scoring: IMP[/hv]

 

After you open this pile of rubbish 1NT (12-14) in third seat, the auction proceeds as follows:

 

P P 1NT P

2S 3C P 3D

P 3H P 4S

all pass

 

2S was a transfer to clubs. 3C was for take-out, and 3H showed both majors (apparently)

 

Partner leads the Q of hearts, and dummy hits with:

 

[hv=d=n&v=n&s=sqxxhajxxdaxcjxxx]133|100|Scoring: IMP[/hv]

 

Declarer covers with the K, and you win your ace. How do you continue?

[Codo]

May you tell us, which hand the declarer could not have according to his bidding?

He passed after your 1 NT opening. Had X been penalty, had he any possibility to show a good two suiter in diamonds and spades?

[paulg]

May you tell us, which hand the declarer could not have according to his bidding?

He passed after your 1 NT opening. Had X been penalty, had he any possibility to show a good two suiter in diamonds and spades?

Double would have been penalty (15+ HCP) and suit bids natural over the 1NT.

[Echognome]

I play a club. I want to make it difficult for declarer to establish the heart suit in dummy.

[Codo]

My pd will have at least 6 HCPS according to the bidding. But he did not preempt in his 6+card suit. So he is a favourite of having his high cards outside clubs.

This gives me three possibilities to win:

 

1: I give him a heart ruff and a we have two diamond tricks. He needs the King of Diamond for that.

2. I take three diamond tricks via ace, king and a ruff.

3. We can take our tricks slowly by making dummy ruff in the hope to cut down the communication and take our slow tricks later. But this too would not work if declarer has AJxx,x,Kxxxx,KQx, or better diamonds.

4. We earn our slow tricks later by cutting down the ruffing value. But this won´t work if we look at the long suit in dummy.

 

I think to win, pd needs the King of Diamonds, so I play the ace of diamond and a low one.

[Finch]

The only distribution that seems to add up from the auction is declarer being 4-2-5-2 and partner 2-1-3-7. My partner wouldn't lead Qx of hearts on this auction.

 

We seem to have two main possible defences:

 

a) play partner for the J or 10 of spades (HA, DA, HJ, heart). This has a slight backstop of finding partner with the DK; he can ruff the HJ to cash the DK once he has seen the ace.

 

B) go for something a bit slower, forcing dummy at trick 2. This now seems to depend on declarer's diamond suit. We are assuming he has the J10 of spades (or else we may as well go for line (a)). But now life gets a bit interesting. Suppose declarer has solid diamonds:

 

AJ10x

xx

KJ10xx

??

 

we play a club back, he ruffs in dummy and plays the DQ which we duck. Now S to the 10, S to the King, diamond... and we can win and play a third trump, leaving him a trick short. If he doesn't draw two trumps we can play heart ruff, diamond ruff.

 

So this defence needs declarer not to have any club tricks, i.e. partner to have the AK or AQ.

 

This looks a better defence, because I would have thought declarer might have bid over 1NT with two top club honours, and if partner has the SJ declarer is goijng off anyway.

[Finch]

OK, having gone through all that detailed analysis, I've now noticed that partner didn't pre-empt in first seat.

 

All I can say is that I'm now confused.

Partner is known to have a singleton heart.

Perhaps declarer is 4243, and partner isn't a fan of 6-card preempts.

 

Even more of a reason not to set up dummy's hearts, in that case, and I'll stick to the club back.