Defensive problem

[Trinidad]

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You are East.

 

The auction:

 

West   North   East   South

   -         1♠       2♣         2♥*

  3♣       3♥       4♣       Pass

 Pass     4♥       All Pass

 

* Non forcing (About 8-11 points)

 

Opening lead: ♣3 (4th best, lowest from xxx and Hxx)

 

Dummy plays low. When you win, declarer follows with the 2.

 

What defensive lines would you consider?

 

Rik

[gnasher]

I think a diamond is right, simultaneously threatening a ruff and attacking the entries for the long spade.

 

This beats it if declarer is 2533 or 2542 and partner has ♦A. If declarer tries to ruff a club, we get a diamond ruff. If he draws trumps, he doesn't have enough entries to set up and cash the long spade.

 

If partner has ♥K instead of ♦A, we may still beat it, depending on what declarer does and what his exact hand is. For example, with 2542 he can lose a trump, cash a trump, and ruff a diamond in dummy; then he has to be able to get back to hand without being overruffed.

[Old York]

Both hands have 12hcp and 7 losers, but have continued bidding?

As North, I would have respected partner's decision and defended 4♣

 

Maybe a trump at trick 2? With this type of bidding anything could be wrong

 

Tony

[Hanoi5]

I cash my club and play ♦J. My partner needs a trump trick anyway,so I rather cash the club even though it might lead partner to think I have a singleton ♦.

[Codo]

I guess a diamond is best, but after the hand I would urgently alter the leading methods.

For his raise, partner has at least xxx, or he has Hxx or xxxx or Hxxx. It cannot be right to lead the lowest from each of this possible holdings.

 

It would serve us right to find declarer with x, KJxxx,Axxxx,xx and making.

[Trinidad]

Thanks for your responses. The full deal was:

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The reason why I posted this was that there was a break in tempo before South passed 4♣. The TD ruled that this was UI to North and that North had a logical alternative: Pass. Therefore, the score for NS was adjusted to a 4♣ contract, going down.

 

This was posted as a directing problem on a Dutch forum for TDs. The main question there was: Should EW get the complimentary score or should there be a split score. After all, it was blatantly obvious that EW should get ♣AK, ♦A and the ♥Q.

 

Given the fact that the players involved were just regular club players and not world class experts, I felt that it was easy to imagine that EW let 4♥ make without any gross errors (e.g. winning trick 1 and shifting to trump). Therefore, I felt that EW should get the compliment of the NS score and a split score wasn't necessary. But not everybody agreed.

 

Therefore, I posted this defensive problem for the experts in the BBF to solve. I put up conditions that were likely given the nature of the event and the likely standard of the players (4th best leads, regardless of the situation). These conditions were not optimal for the defense, as Codo pointed out, but IMO they were realistic.

 

The outcome of this little project seems to be that at least it is not blatantly obvious to take the four tricks that you can see with all hands in view, when you can't see all four hands. This makes me conclude that it would be wrong to rule a split score.

 

Thanks all,

 

Rik

[Old York]

Perhaps declarer would have done better to refuse to play ♣2 on the lead, this is exactly why I thought the 2 was singleton (or Qxx) and partner had chosen a bad time to lead 5th high

 

It is amusing to see that any novice would have beaten 4♥ by simply cashing the "obvious" Club winners, but when any hand is presented in this way we all look for the clever traps.

It was blatantly obvious to me that something was seriously wrong with the bidding.

Justice would be served if East's (terrible) 4♣ bid allowed 4♥ to make :unsure:

 

Edit: You may have overlooked the possibility of declarer losing a trick to ♦Jack. If West (correctly) refuses to play the Ace, declarer may attempt to run the ten, then E/W have 4 or 5 defensive tricks

 

Tony

 

p.s. with a Diamond singleton, I would probably win with ♣Ace (denying the King)

[ArtK78]

IMO, down 2 is more likely than making.