Defense 2

[Guest Jlall]

[hv=e=skxxhxxdxcaqjt9xx&s=sat9xxhjxdqtxxckx]266|200|Scoring: IMP[/hv]

 

1N pass 3N. Partner leads the diamond 7 playing 4th best and 2nd best from bad holdings. 1N was 15-17. At trick 1 you have to decide whether you're going to duck the club when declarer leads one if partner doesn't play the highest spot (you play udca). Will you or won't you?...

 

As expected LHO wins the diamond king and plays a club to the queen, partner contributing the smallest spot card. If you win what do you play?

[whereagles]

Take club, ♠A, ♦T.

 

That should avoid embarassments when declarer has 3 clubs and/or pard fails to play a spade after cashing out the diamonds.

[Finch]

I would win the club and try and cash diamonds.

I probably play back my original 4th highest diamond, rather than the 10, but I might want to have a closer look at my pips first.

 

The probability of partner's card being a singleton or doubleton depends on exactly which pip he plays (the 7 is a singleton or 78 doubleton; the 6 is a singleton or 67 or 68 and so forth).

 

The difficulty is that you simply can't think for long about this. You can think briefly at trick one, but if you think for a long time declarer may guess that is your problem and cash the CA on the second round anyway (hoping that the SK is an entry as an alternative to the clubs coming in)

[mikeh]

Assuming that partner led 4th best, the ♦10 back can hardly cost and may be needed: give declarer KJ32 and if my spots are 54 (or equivalent spot distribution) and he ducks my 4 and now partner has to guess which major to play.

 

As for the ♣ suit, one may ask why declarer did not lead 8 from 8xx or 8x. But that is a red herring. If he has 8xx, low to the dummy makes sense because he can hardly lack communication in both reds and he might get you thinking too deeply into the hand with Kx, as indeed we are tempted to do here.

 

Maybe partner played low from xx, either without thought or for some deceptive purpose or to tell you to play ♦s or whatever... but if he holds a stiff ♣, then we need to win for obvious reasons... and we can be reasonably confident that we need to play a ♦, since on this auction, he probably wouldn't lead a ♦ from a weak, one entry hand with Jxxxx (at best) and a side 4 card major.

 

So win the K, cash the ♠A, to prevent catastrophe when ♦ are 4-4 and partner leads a ♥.. and table the ♦10.

 

I suspect I've missed something, since this seemed relatively easy :)

[Apollo81]

i'll also jump on the ♣K, ♠A, ♦10 bandwagon

[Guest Jlall]

For those cashing the spade ace, what if partners hand is xxx Axxx J987x x? I really dislike the spade ace play because

 

A ) It can cost the contract when partner has the HA and DJ

B ) We will be able to signal for spades. After the diamond ten we'll high 2 diamond spots left. When we play high then low partner will know we want a spade.

 

As far as leading a low diamond back instead of the ten, that CAN lead to a guess for partner if he has A987 of diamonds. We won't have had a chance to signal and he won't know which ace we have.

 

Mike brought up the point that was ringing in my head. Declarer didn't lead the 8 of clubs. My general feeling is that 99.99% of declarers who are somewhat competent would lead the 8 from 8xx. It's just natural because you may need to retain the lead against Kxx on your left. Of course they don't have to and SHOULD vary their play, but at the table I really felt like there was no way they had 8xx and I should duck. I wasn't able to convince myself of this fast enough so I won and led the DT, and partner had J987x of diamonds and the KING of hearts (not the ace). He had 2 clubs of course.