fred Posted November 29, 2006 Report Share Posted November 29, 2006 [hv=d=e&v=n&n=sk9762ha964dkq2c9&w=saq10hj2dj103ca10653&e=sj8hk10753da96c872&s=s543hq8d8754ckqj4]399|300|Scoring: MP[/hv] This was board 18 of the first semi-final session of the recent Blue Ribbon Pairs in Hawaii. I was West and my partner was Sheila Ekeblad. I opened 1C in 3rd position, North doubled, Sheila bid 1♥, and South's 1NT ended the auction. I led my 4th best club and declarer made what seems (at first glance at least) to be the reasonable play of overtaking dummy's ♣9 (Sheila followed with the ♣2 - standard carding) in order to lead a spade toward the dummy. I followed with the ♠Q (an instructive point for non-experts) and dummy's ♠K won the trick. Declarer played a second round of spades to Sheila's ♠J. She returned the ♣8, covered by declarer and won by me with the ♣A. Not knowing who held the ♣7, I switched to the ♥J, ducked to Sheila's ♥K. She returned her last club which declarer won in hand. At this point the declarer (a famous player) made the mistake of failing to cash the ♥Q, but I suppose he can be forgiven for not forseeing the consequences of this decision. Instead he exited in spades. I won and cashed my remaining 2 club winners. This was the position when I led my last club: [hv=d=e&v=n&n=sk9762ha964dkq2c9&w=saq10hj2dj103ca10653&e=sj8hk10753da96c872&s=s543hq8d8754ckqj4]399|300|Scoring: MP[/hv] Dummy had to come down to 4 cards and obviously had to keep both diamonds. If declarer had discarded a heart from dummy (to keep the spade winner he worked so hard to establish), I would have played a 2nd heart and Sheila would have had a heart to cash (for down 2) when she won her ♦A. Declarer therefore discarded dummy's last spade, but this was no better. Sheila accurately pitched a diamond on this trick, I played a diamond to Sheila's ♦A, and she returned the suit. The heart blockage meant that, in the 2-card ending, the declarer could not avoid giving us another trick. He could either win trick 12 with the ♥Q (I would win trick 13 in diamonds) or win trick 12 with the ♥A (Sheila would win trick 13 in hearts). Our +200 was worth almost all of the matchpoints. That was fun ;) Fred GitelmanBridge Base Inc.www.bridgebase.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArcLight Posted November 29, 2006 Report Share Posted November 29, 2006 Fred, 2 questions: 1. - when you led the club and pard played the 2 - was that an Attitude situation, or would count be more useful GIVEN THAT pard can't even beat the 9? 2. (for us non Experts) - You played the Spade Q to force Dummies K.Why? - establish an entry to pards hand (the J) so they could lead a club through South- to establish a tenace over declarer in Spade? any other reasons? Nice play! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fred Posted November 29, 2006 Author Report Share Posted November 29, 2006 Fred, 2 questions: 1. - when you led the club and pard played the 2 - was that an Attitude situation, or would count be more useful GIVEN THAT pard can't even beat the 9? 2. (for us non Experts) - You played the Spade Q to force Dummies K.Why? - establish an entry to pards hand (the J) so they could lead a club through South- to establish a tenace over declarer in Spade? any other reasons? Nice play! 1) You are correct. This is a count situation. It sometimes makes sense to give an attitude signal when you can't beat dummy's card. For example, if dummy has Qx you might agree to show attitude with respect to the Jack (so that partner will know it is safe to continue the suit if he led from the King). Even in this situation, however, count will sometimes be more helpful (if partner led from the Ace and wants to know if declarer's King will drop on the 2nd round). As far as I know there are not any well-established standard rules that govern these situations. Serious partnerships would have agreements such things. 2) To create an entry for partner's (hoped for) Jack. If declarer has the Jack there is no advantage in having a tenace over that card - I would have been better off in this case simply playing the 10 and having 2 spade winners with no tenace. Note that declarer can counter this Queen play by ducking in dummy, but if entries are low it may not be convenient to make such a play. Fred GitelmanBridge Base Inc.www.bridgebase.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nickf Posted November 29, 2006 Report Share Posted November 29, 2006 I was bitten by the same Q play from AQTx last week in a club IMPs game by a international defender. I completely mis-read the suit now and went down in a makeable partscore. If you're forced to break this suit then the Q is correct as it caters for J in declarers hand as well, better than low which can be run to hand. nickfsydney Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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