Is there a standard?

[pclayton]

[hv=d=s&v=b&n=s73ha83dj962ckq62&e=st852hk92dqt7c753]266|200|Scoring: IMP[/hv]

 

Playing in a TG with a star that has close to 10,000 MPs. Bidding is 1N - 3N.

 

Pard leads the ♥Q; you play the 2 (udca)

 

Pard continues the ♥J. Declarer ducks a 2nd time.

 

What is pard's heart holding, and how do you continue?

[Guest Jlall]

Pard has QJx. What did declarer play on the second heart.

[pclayton]

I approximated the heart spots.

 

Dummy actually had: A-5-3.

 

Declarer follows with 4-6

 

Your spots were correct.

[jillybean]

Can QJx include the 10 and if not... why not?

[jdonn]

It's supposed to be QJx because a longer holding would continue with a low card. But I have seen lots of people wrongly continue jack from QJTx.

 

I think overtaking to switch to the spade 8 is perfectly reasonable.

[pclayton]

It's supposed to be QJx because a longer holding would continue with a low card. But I have seen lots of people wrongly continue jack from QJTx.

 

I think overtaking to switch to the spade 8 is perfectly reasonable.

Is a low card safe? Couldn't I have started with a stiff 2?

[Guest Jlall]

With QJTx partner will play the ten or low. Q then J says do not overtake. Q then T says OMG PARD YOU BETTER UNBLOCK. In this case with QJTx he would have to play a low one next since you may have Kx or 9x.

[jdonn]

Pardon I meant to say lowER card.

[Guest Jlall]

Couldn't I have started with a stiff 2?

No of course not. Another honor is not safe.

[pclayton]

Pard actually held: Kxx, QJTxx, Kxx, xx (Declarer held: AQJx, xx, Ax, AJ9xx). My spade 8 shift at T3 was not a success.

 

He was not pleased, but I was amazed the ♥10 hadn't hit the table.

 

I think bridge 'logic' is probably on his side. Why would declarer duck twice with ♥xxxx.

 

But these positions are supposed to be easy to solve, and thats why the 10 helps pard; exactly how Justin describes.

[skjaeran]

Absolutely agree wiht Justin and Josh.

Partner should have QJx.

Overtaking the jack and switch to ♠8 seems automatic.

[whereagles]

It's true declarer's play suggests pard to have a better holding than QJx, but it's also true that pard was simply too LAZY to play the non-ambiguous ♥10...

[jdonn]

Of course declarer would duck twice with xxxx. He sets up his 4th one if they are 3-3, he loses the tricks early while his hand is hidden, and he keeps the opponents on lead while they are still in the dark. And if someone shows out he gets that information too, as well as what they pitch. I don't think there is even the slightest inference declarer doesn't have that.

 

One other point to note from this that many people don't know is if you have QJT alone, you should continue jack, not ten. That way partner can distinguish it from QJTx(x), and overtake and switch in a case like this one. From partner's perspective, the fact you hold the ten surely won't make a difference.

[mikeh]

This is an area in which there is room for agreement, but (in my limited experience) the default agreement is that continuing with the second honour is a warning to partner NOT to unblock, whereas continuing with the lowest touching honour is a request to unblock... indeed, in my most-detailed set of partnership notes, we explicitly cover this.

 

These situations come up rarely, so that it is not surprising that the majority of players do not know what the std expert treatment is. And maybe the std expert treatment in other parts of the world is different :P

[Stephen Tu]

This is an area in which there is room for agreement

 

Is there? I don't think so. I think any other agreement is unplayable, if you are leading top of sequences. If partner decided to lead from QJx, he absolutely has to lead the J to unblock on many layouts (when A is in declarer's hand not dummy). And if third hand is going to be unblocking from Kxx, it's rather comical for declarer to pick up 3 tricks from Axx vs. xxxx.

 

Not unblocking when the second touching honor is played is covered in the basic defensive texts (Root, Kantar); it should be intermediate standard not just expert standard. But apparently there are a ton of players who don't learn from books & don't pick up details like this.

 

Also on this hand it's nice to pick up the extra undertrick if partner happens to hold AQ of spades, this would be the right defense from AQ QJTxx, purposely block the suit in case partner has Kxx & force the spade return.

[kenberg]

I wouldn't call this situation so rare. It seems to come up with some frequency. While we should all discuss lots of things, the fact is that we play a lot of pick-up. Here it seems to me: If his second card is the ten you will surely know he started with QJT at least and you will easily grab the king (or pitch it under the ace if declarer rises T2) and lead another heart. If his second card is the Jack, you at least will not be certain that he holds the ten, and if you think about why he didn't make this clear when he could have, it's likely you will conclude he didn't play the ten because he doesn't have it.

 

In short, in a pick-up game or otherwise, the ten is the correct play. Third hand frequently is called upon to decide whether the Jack is played because he doesn't have the ten or just because he doesn't know any better. I guess 10000 points ain't what it used to be.

 

I see this as far more matter of logic than of convention.

 

I make lots of errors. When I do, I try to say "my error" instead of telling partner what he should have done.

[paulhar]

1NT-3NT. Does partner have any reason to lead a short suit? My 5-point hand tells me that partner is likely to be leading his own suit rather trying to hit my suit. Partner should be strong enough to realize that trying to hit my suit is unlikely to work since I'm unlikely to have entries to enjoy it (else you're so far outgunned that 3NT just can't be beat if partner has only 3 hearts.) This inference is so strong IMO that I would need a very solid agreement to override my bridge judgment here.

 

All the above applies because you said it was IMPs. In matchpoints, you have a real problem.

[Winstonm]

Partner should hold QJx. I overtake and lead the spade 8. Partner will have to win his supposed J or K and then switch to a low diamond. I place the declarer's hand as this:

 

AQ9

xxxx

Axx

AJx

 

Edit: Obviously I had not read the other posts when answering, but agree that 10 is the right play. As to the logic debate, it is wrong IMO to distrust partner and assume declarer's play logical than to always assume correct declarer play and sloppiness from partner.

 

Now if partner is sitting there occassionally nodding off, the defence becomes more problematic. :)

[kenberg]

Mistakes happen, probably even at the highest levels, although they may define "mistake" somewhat differently than the rest of us. When something goes wrong, it is critical for a partner to ask himself what he, not his partner, might have done to avoid it. Here it's simple. If opening leader thinks for even a moment he will realize that the ten at trick 2 would have avoided this snafu. He needs to acknowledge this. If not, his partner will think that first hand believes the J is the proper continuation with this holding and so third hand will always hesitate in overtaking the Jack, even when he should.

 

After the error of leading the Jack is acknowledged, then the partnership can, if they like, discuss whether third hand should have worked it out anyway. Third hand could be gracious and acknowledge that he at least might have done so.

 

Often I see one partner going on about "you should have, or you shouldn't have, ..." when he would do much better to look at his own contributions to the poor result. Better for him, better for the partnership.

[Winstonm]

Mistakes happen, probably even at the highest levels, although they may define "mistake" somewhat differently than the rest of us. When something goes wrong, it is critical for a partner to ask himself what he, not his partner, might have done to avoid it. Here it's simple. If opening leader thinks for even a moment he will realize that the ten at trick 2 would have avoided this snafu. He needs to acknowledge this. If not, his partner will think that first hand believes the J is the proper continuation with this holding and so third hand will always hesitate in overtaking the Jack, even when he should.

 

After the error of leading the Jack is acknowledged, then the partnership can, if they like, discuss whether third hand should have worked it out anyway. Third hand could be gracious and acknowledge that he at least might have done so.

 

Often I see one partner going on about "you should have, or you shouldn't have, ..." when he would do much better to look at his own contributions to the poor result. Better for him, better for the partnership.

Good points, Ken, and I have seen this type argument many times at the table. My take on it is that iit is psychologically based, projecting anger at self for a clumsy mistake onto partner for not "reasoning it out."

 

It usually takes players of gargantuan talents (Bob Hamman comes to mind) who would rather accept the blame for a careless play (although we might have to go back to 1960 for his last) than try to scapegoat partner with a lack of bridge reasoning. (Lew Mathe comes to mind)

 

There is no win in the type argument unless one takes appropriate blame, apologizes for carelessness, and vows not to repeat the same type error so the pair can put the event where it should be - in the past - and play the hand that is "At the table".

 

(This should be worth at least a $20 fee from Hamman for touting his book. Justin, can you talk to him about that?)