Defensive signalling

[Finch]

You are South, dummy is East

[hv=d=e&v=n&e=s63hqj107dkq54ca65&s=sk975h43dj10972c72]266|200|Scoring: MP

1♦ P 1♥ 1♠

2♥ 2♠ 4♥ P

P P[/hv]

 

RHO dealt, you are vulnerable against not at MATCHPOINTS.

 

Partner leads the ace of spades, and you encourage in whatever is your systemic manner.

 

Partner continues with the queen of spades. Plan the defence.

[ArcLight]

Response hidden:

 

 

West likely has 2=4=4=3 shape.

There is no need to give pard a dime ruff, that 4th round loser is not going away.

 

What we need to do is protect pard from being end played.

 

If the opps have a club loser it wont run away. Don't lead clubs and save them a club guess for the Q.

 

I have dimes covered, hopefully pard has clubs, no squeeze.

 

Overtake the Q, return a trump.

 

[firmit]

Why the Q of spades? Looks like he wants a diamond return. Thus, I'd return ♦7 or 9 expecting partner to ruff. He is not likely to loose a natural trumph winner here given he has already shown 6hp - may have a club honnor. So signaling a club return with a small diamond, may be fatale.

 

But heck - I don't know :)

[y66]

Agree with Firmit - overtake, return middish diamond

[cherdano]

I disagree with the comments so far. If partner had a diamond void, he would be playing his second-highest remaining spade. This forces us to win, and we will read his highish-card as asking for a diamond return.

[Codo]

How many tricks do I gain exactly if pd can ruff a diamond?

 

About zero.

 

There is really no place the diamond looser can escape.

Declarer has 2 Spades, 4 Hearts 4 Diamonds and 3 Clubs.

If he has 1444, it realy does not matter much what we do now, he will ruff. :)

 

So what else should be done? Declarer has a weak NT hand with 11-14 HCPs.

 

He has no points in Spade, 7 in diamonds what left 4 to 7 in clubs and hearts.

 

IF he has AK of Heart, he has nothing in clubs, but in that case, pd may had prefered a club lead from KQJxx to the riskfull spade lead.

 

So, pd has one high trump and declarer something like:

xx

Axxx

AKxx

??x

 

In club, he may have the jack, Jack and queen, or the King. He cannot hold more, as he had opened 1 NT with more HCPs.

 

Pd holds AQJxx, Kxx,??xxx with at least 3 HCps in Club, maybe 4 or 5.

 

So I will overtake and lead a club. If declarer has QJT, it does not matter, if he has just one honour, it may develop a trick.

 

And there is an extra chance: If pd has the Ace of Heart instead of the king, he may win the first Heart and let me ruff the third round of club , holding KJxxxx ....

 

[Finch]

Codo,

 

Dummy - the hand you can see - opened 1D and raised responder's 1H bid to 2H.

All you know about declarer's hand is that it responded 1H and bid 4H over partner's raise.

[ArcLight]

I disagree with the comments so far. If partner had a diamond void, he would be playing his second-highest remaining spade. This forces us to win, and we will read his highish-card as asking for a diamond return.

Arend,

Assuming we signal encouragement on trick one, pard will suspect (and soon know) we have the K.

If pard plays the J, are we not forced to win the K, in case declarer holds Qx and pard AJTxx. We can't know pard has the Q.

 

I think leading the Q is not a suit preference signal, it gives us the option of overtaking or ducking

[david_c]

Dummy - the hand you can see - opened 1D and raised responder's 1H bid to 2H.

Oh, I was looking at that wrong too.

 

Can I recommend that when writing an auction, you put your own bids on the right, the way they appear on BBO:

 

 -   -   1♦ P

1♥ 1♠ 2♥ 2♠

4♥ AP

 

Now RHO's bids appear to the right of LHO's bids! I find this much easier to read.

[Codo]

Codo,

 

Dummy - the hand you can see - opened 1D and raised responder's 1H bid to 2H.

All you know about declarer's hand is that it responded 1H and bid 4H over partner's raise.

this is why I post at the BI Forum :)

 

It looked so easy....

[Guest Jlall]

I disagree with the comments so far. If partner had a diamond void, he would be playing his second-highest remaining spade. This forces us to win, and we will read his highish-card as asking for a diamond return.

Arend,

Assuming we signal encouragement on trick one, pard will suspect (and soon know) we have the K.

If pard plays the J, are we not forced to win the K, in case declarer holds Qx and pard AJTxx. We can't know pard has the Q.

 

I think leading the Q is not a suit preference signal, it gives us the option of overtaking or ducking

But we would know after we win the trick...

 

If the queen is a suit preference signal, what is partner supposed when he wants to hold the lead?

[jdonn]

I think partner is trying to stay on lead to play a club for us, anyways I overtake and play the DJ

[cherdano]

I disagree with the comments so far. If partner had a diamond void, he would be playing his second-highest remaining spade. This forces us to win, and we will read his highish-card as asking for a diamond return.

Arend,

Assuming we signal encouragement on trick one, pard will suspect (and soon know) we have the K.

If pard plays the J, are we not forced to win the K, in case declarer holds Qx and pard AJTxx. We can't know pard has the Q.

 

I think leading the Q is not a suit preference signal, it gives us the option of overtaking or ducking

I think we agree, you must have misunderstood my post (and I should have said I disagree with y66's and firmit's answer, not yours.)

 

Anyway, partner allows for us to duck, but that doesn't yet tell us what the right thing to do is...

[jdonn]

The thing we should know for sure is partner does not want us to win and play a club unless our holding calls for it. If he had KJT or KQT of clubs he would underlead for us to be on lead. The queen means he doesn't know what's right, we can give him a suit preference signal if we need a club or diamond play ourself, or if we KNOW what the right defense is we can overtake (like if we had KQJ of clubs, or JT97x of diamonds and nothing in clubs...).

[Codo]

Okay new try:

 

Declarer still has two spades and, if pd wants a ruff, 4 Diamonds.

If declarer is 2641 without the king of Club, his Diamond looser is going nowhere.

IF he has the king, he may discard it.

If he has 5 Hearts, he is 2542. IF these two clubs are the KQ, he can discard his D looser on Club.

If he has just four Hearts, HE is 2443 and his Diamond looser is going nowhere.

 

So I go for a middle (9) diamond.

[cherdano]

The thing we should know for sure is partner does not want us to win and play a club unless our holding calls for it. If he had KJT or KQT of clubs he would underlead for us to be on lead. The queen means he doesn't know what's right, we can give him a suit preference signal if we need a club or diamond play ourself, or if we KNOW what the right defense is we can overtake (like if we had KQJ of clubs, or JT97x of diamonds and nothing in clubs...).

I agree, but the other thing we should know is that partner doesn't want us to win and play a diamond. Either partner knows what he is doing and wants to remain on lead, or he doesn't know what he should do and is allowing for us to duck or to overtake.

 

The only nitpick I have is that partner won't expect us to be able to give suit preference, as he only knows about 3 spades in our hand, not 4.

[Finch]

I think between them the responses have covered most points, but there is one thing people haven't mentioned (I'll come to that).

 

1. Partner is not expecting a suit preference signal from us on the second round of spades, because we have only shown 3 of them.

2. Looking at dummy, it looks obvious to attack clubs. If partner wanted us to win the second round of spades and play a club through declarer, he would have continued with a lower spade, forcing us to win. Thus partner does not want us to play a club through.

3. If partner had the KQJ of clubs he would switch to a club at once. If declarer can take quick spade pitches he'll just have later club losers instead; there would be no hurry to cash the second spade.

4. Thus, partner does not have a club tenace (KJ, Q10 or similar) or better. By playing the queen of spades he is offering us the chance to let him win the trick. If we do, he will switch to clubs, in case we have a holding that needs him to attack them from his side.

5. We now know that declarer is not missing much in clubs. We do not want partner to retain the lead and play a club, particularly if he has an honour holding. So we should take the second spade.

6. What do we play back? Lots of people have worked out that if partner has a diamond void, giving him a diamond ruff won't gain. That's true, but we should play a diamond anyway. We want partner to take the ace of diamonds if he has it. Returning the DJ now tells partner that we have nothing in clubs (same deductions as above) and that declarer has no guess in diamonds. If partner has the ace of diamonds he will take it.

 

Why do we want partner to take his ace of diamonds immediately? It's MATCHPOINTS. If declarer has a singleton and good clubs that will be a trick difference. That was the actual layout: declarer had

 

xx

AKxxx

x

KQJxx

 

if you do something passive such as return a trump, declarer will win in hand and play a diamond immediately. Alternatively, if you let partner win the spade and play a club, declarer will win in hand with the king and play a diamond at once. Now partner doesn't know whether to take it or not, and the reflexive action with an ace in front of the KQ in dummy is to duck. Perhaps you can prove that ducking would be wrong, but you should always make it easy for partner.

 

In a 13-table pairs event, we got a 95% board for holding 4H to 10 tricks (in some cases the auction was different, say starting with a weak NT, and there may have been a passive lead leaving the defence no chance).

 

[jdonn said most of this in rather fewer words. But then since when is he B/I?]

[y66]

Very interesting and helpful thread. Amazing how much is going on here. Will discuss this one with p.

[cherdano]

I guess it would have helped had I noticed the scoring is MPs...