Swiss hand #1

[Guest Jlall]

[hv=n=sxxxhkdaq87xcjtxx&w=saqhxxdkj9xxca976]266|200|[/hv]

 

You opened 1D, pass, 4H from partner, 4S on your right, you X all pass. You lead a heart, partner shifts to a trump. You cash the Q and A everyone following and exit with the DJ. Declarer thinks for a while and hooks, following with the ten. Now he plays the jack of clubs, queen, king, ace. What's your play?

 

edit: sorry i got the directions wrong, but dummy is on your left obviously.

 

Edit: fixed (changed NORTHEAST with NORTHWEST). Gerardo

[awm]

(1) Declarer has six spades, unless he's a complete lunatic (i.e. junior) and would bid spades on a decent five card suit and a poor hand.

 

(2) Declarer thought a long time about the diamond play, so odds are he has a singleton diamond.

 

It seems likely that declarer's distribution is something like 6313 or 6412 or 6214. I think 6313 is most likely (6412 gives partner only six hearts and a flat hand, a weird 4♥ bid, and 6214 is possible but partner might not return a trump holding this many hearts).

 

Declarer's plan is to ruff a heart in dummy, pitch a heart on the diamond ace, and come back to hand by ruffing a diamond. He can now run all his trumps, and I am guarding both minors (partner's sole remaining club will fall under the ten). This positional squeeze will allow declarer to take all the remaining tricks (one down). If I return a heart or a diamond, this is what will happen to me.

 

The only possibility to break up the squeeze is to return a club. If partner has the club eight, then communication is broken and declarer will go two down. If partner has a small club declarer can let my club return ride to his eight for one down, but he has to guess to do this.

 

What if declarer started with 6412? Besides partner's bidding being weird, there are 2-1 odds that partner holds the club eight in which case a club return is fine. The club return only costs if declarer started with 6412 including the (now singleton) club eight, and guesses to run this trick to the eight, and dummy does not hold the club five (which would allow the squeeze to operate in any case).

 

What if declarer started with 6214? Well he can still ruff his second heart and pitch a club on the diamond ace, and run the same squeeze against me. At least if I return a club he might guess wrong and put up the ten.

 

I like a low club return.

 

Added later: In fact, there is a double squeeze if declarer pitches a club on the diamond instead of a heart, protecting against situations where partner has three clubs (or from declarer's view, where partner might have had three clubs). In any case the club return remains the only way to break up the position.