Defending 3NT

[Bbradley62]

[hv=d=w&v=b&n=sj8ha96dj8743ckj5&e=sa654hk5d5cqt7643]266|200|Scoring: XIMP

P-P-P-1NT

P-3NT-all pass

 

First trick is ♥36K4.

As East, what do you do next?[/hv]

[aguahombre]

thinking is over rated. partner can have qT fifth, and she has some other points. Returning her suit will make things better at home, later.

[Cyberyeti]

I presume from the fact that this has been posed as a question, partner has something like:

 

xxx, Qxxxx, xxx, Ax, and if you don't return a club, declarer will make 9.

 

But I return a heart, Kxx, Q10xxx, xxx, xx is just as likely as is him holding KD and Q10 H.

[gwnn]

what Aguahombre said. I never think, especially not in defence :P

[mcphee]

Partner is no doubt delighted to see me win the KH and I see no reason not to play another H now.

[Fluffy]

A ♣ just needs partner to hold ♣A and any ♥ honnor except the 10, or a diamond stopper.

 

A ♥ requires 2 heart honnors including the queen and something else except ♠Q. Heart seems more likelly.

[pooltuna]

Dealer: West Vul: Both Scoring: XIMP

♠ J8 ♥ A96 ♦ J8743 ♣ KJ5   doc/images/table.png ♠ A654 ♥ K5 ♦ 5 ♣ QT7643

P-P-P-1NT P-3NT-all pass   First trick is ♥36K4. As East, what do you do next?

An ugly situation indeed. Choices look to be a 4th best ♣(or whatever your standard ♣ lead is), a ♥ return, or a 4th best ♠(or whatever your standard ♠ lead is).

 

A ♥ return looks like it requires first for partner to have a 5 card suit. This is far from certain in spite of the missing ♥2. A good declarer holding xy42 will play the 4 to keep the waters muddy for our side. Secondly his suit will have to be headed by either JT or QT. With the former of course he might have started with the J.

 

With a ♣ return we are putting all our eggs in one basket but unlike the ♥ return he only needs one important card, the A. Of course he has to not only have it but a second one as well to return the lead otherwise we won't set declarer.

 

With a ♠ lead partner will need to hold 4 to the Q because our spots are so bad and a ♦ or ♣ stop.

 

All in all I think we ought to lead a ♣ because it requires less than the others. But if we want to win the post mortem you need to lead a ♥ :P

[ONEferBRID]

I too like the option that requires little or no thinking.

[aguahombre]

Returning her suit will make things better at home, later.

I didn't say I wasn't thinking, only that it is over rated. I was just thinking with the other head.

[Rodney26]

I'd track back my fourth best spade. Partner's on a lead guess with 4-4 in the majors. I personally hate leading from Qxxx. Hopefully p has Qxxx Jxxx Qxxx x. Heart back seems like it is aiming at a fairly small target; partner has to have a fairly specific heart holding to make it correct.

[gwnn]

fairly specific?? what percentage of declarers falsecard often enough in your opinion?

[Rodney26]

fairly specific?? what percentage of declarers falsecard often enough in your opinion?

You need QTx3(2) or QJx3(2) and an outside entry to set up partner's suit. Any holding headed by the jack or ten will not be good enough; any holding headed by queen empty will not be good enough.

 

For a spade shift, Qxxx or Kxxx will suffice. Partner might have the latter holding with 4-5-3-1 shape. It seems more likely to me.

 

To me, all this talk about playing back a heart and winning the post mortem is bizarre. Partner led from a five count. Partner probably wasn't expecting to beat it alone.

 

I consider the false card in hearts routine enough that it could go either way; the OP didn't mention the level of competition so who knows? I still need QJ or QT ♥ regardless.

[Bbradley62]

Choices look to be a 4th best ♣(or whatever your standard ♣ lead is), a ♥ return, or a 4th best ♠(or whatever your standard ♠ lead is).

[hv=d=s&v=b&n=sj8ha96dj8743ckj5&w=s9732hqj732d96ca8&e=sa654hk5d5cqt7643&s=skqtht84dakqt2c92]399|300|Scoring: XIMP

1NT-P-3NT-all pass

First trick ♥36K4[/hv]

 

All three of Tuna's choices work. EastGIB switched to the A♠ followed by a low ♠. I put this in this section because I was more interested in hearing what y'all thought the best play was than in reporting GIB.

[gwnn]

nah, reporting GIB's misdefences? GIB plays alright to be honest, his bidding is 100 times worse than his play.

[bluecalm]

I feel in real life most declarers routinely hide the lowest spot which makes it more likely partner has exactly 4 hearts. I think it's very close it would be very nice to have a program which would generate layouts with given constraints and calculte the best return based on this constraints. Since I haven't heard of such a software what is left is naive estimations.

 

For ♣ return to be right we need: (assuming partner has 6hcp max if 1NT is 15-17)

 

A♣ + Q♥ or

A♣ + J♥ or

A♣ + Q♦ or

A♣ and 5 hearts

 

For ♥ to be right we need 5 hearts always headed by QT/QJ and K♠ or Q♦.

To me club return looks better.

[gwnn]

In real life most declarers play the lowest spot and then think75 oh, why didn't I play the second to lowest spot. Of course it's difficult to argue about this but this is what my experience tells me... I guess our difference is maybe I think only 25% do it and you think it's somewhere between 50 and . Probably due to a difference in quality of matchpoint tourneys we play in :P Fair enough

 

BUT

 

those were exactly my thoughts too, a dealer program is what we need. I really should learn how to use them... :)

[bluecalm]

I did the following:

 

I generated 100 hands with the following assumptions:

 

N/E hands : given

S is 15-17 balanced with possible 5M or 6m

W has 4 or 5 hearts and no suits longer than hearts

 

Then I generated 100 hands. Then chose hands where 3NT doesn't make and W would make ♥ lead. Then I exluded hands where declarer made very obvious blunder by ducking hearts (2 or 3 hands).

There were 35 hands left. I made very quick analysis on those (so may be wrong cause I didn't use DF). The results are as follows:

 

♠ return was right on 10 hands

♥ return was right on 18 hands

♣ return was right on 4 hands

 

on 3 hands ♠ or ♥ return was right.

I could have made mistakes of course but from generated hands it really seems like ♥ if right with ♠ being quite close second and club being the worst by far.

 

I now changed my opinion to ♥ but I believe that GIB made reasonable play. It doesn't have time to generate that many layouts probably and it's quite possible ♠ was right on quite a sample.