Defensive Play FIFTEEN

[inquiry]

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pc|CA|pc|C9|pc|CJ|pc|C8|

pc|CQ|pc|HA|pc|S2|pc|CT|

pc|HK|pc|H2|pc|H5|pc|C4|

pc|HQ|pc|H3|pc|H6|pc|C5|

pc|H7|pc|h4|pc|h9|pc|S6|

pc|hJ|]400|300|

Click Next to follow the play. Played cards are displayed in the hand diagram for South and East. Carding is UDCA.

 

A lot of cards have been played, which should make this one easy as you haven't made a mistake yet, and not many possibilities to go wrong can happen now. Still, see if you can figure out what the trap will be. What card do you play now, and what is the necessary play you have to find later in this hand? [/hv]

Edited September 8, 2011 by inquiry
display carding

[MrAce]

Whats our carding ?

[inquiry]

Whats our carding ?

 

UDCA....

[MrAce]

I think declarer has a hand like Qxx JTxxx xx Txx. Assuming declarer has 5♥,If he has ♦K too we cant defeat this, he has 5♥+1♣ruff+3♦+1♠. Pd has to have ♦ K. Also pd has to have ♠ J too since we already discarded a ♠ declarer can easily establish this suit. As long as we do not discard another ♠ we should be fine, declarer can play ♠Q pinning pd's J and we have to cover this, if he takes with ace he has no entry to hand for another ♠ play to dummy, if he ducks this we will play ♦ and again he can not come to hand.

[Antrax]

MrAce, that's what I thought, but then I got wondering why S would accept a game invite with that hand.

[MrAce]

MrAce, that's what I thought, but then I got wondering why S would accept a game invite with that hand.

 

I maybe totally off on this one, As i said mine is based on declarer holding 5 trumps, of course it would help how many trumps pd's count showed in their agreement. When declarer has 5 trumps pd has to have ♦K and ♠J or i cant see how we can defeat this.

 

 

Perhaps declarer has x JTxxx 9xxx Txx this looks like a Q less but better shape to accept invite. If thats the case then we can not discard a ♦.

 

[billw55]

 

I place declarer with five hearts and three clubs, hence five pointy suit cards. We need two tricks out of those five, so I must assume partner holds the ♦K. If declarer holds ♠x ♦xxxx or ♠- ♦xxxxx (likely based on partner's ♠2), we need to be sure we get our second diamond trick. So I hold onto ♦JTx, pitching my last club and spades as necessary.

 

And if declarer happens to hold six hearts, then he may hold ♠x ♦9xx, and the situation is similar. Although the sixth heart may squeeze us .. ugh.

 

[quiddity]

It looks like declarer started with 5 hearts so he has 6 trump tricks and 2 aces. If he has ♦K then he has 10 tricks, so assume partner has it and give declarer the remaining honors (♠QJ). If he has ♠QJx then we're already dead; he can take the spade finesse and then concede a spade to establish the tenth trick in dummy.

 

If he has ♠QJ tight then we can set him by pitching a club here and covering the first spade; if he wins the ace then spades are blocked and he can't establish them, but he can return to hand with the remaining spade and play the last heart. We will have to pitch our diamond and hope that partner has the ♦9.

 

If he has stiff ♠Q and ♦9xxx then we can still set him by pitching a club here (to prevent him from establishing diamonds while he still has a trump entry) and then pitching a diamond on the last heart. Partner can hold up the diamond king to prevent him from scoring a long diamond in hand.

[inquiry]

I asked what is the trap on this hand. Perhaps I presented the hand wrongly, as it has turned out to be more difficult than I suspected. Don't look at the spoiler if you want to still work on it.

 

 

 

[hv=lin=md|2SHJ965DCT82,

SKT86DJT7CAKQ654,

SA975HAKQ7DAQ5C93,

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pc|CA|pc|C9|pc|CJ|pc|C8|

pc|CQ|pc|HA|pc|S2|pc|CT|

pc|HK|pc|H2|pc|H5|pc|C4|

pc|HQ|pc|H3|pc|H6|pc|C5|

pc|H7|pc|h4|pc|h9|pc|S6|

pc|hJ|pc|c6|pc|s5|pc|h8|

pc|SQ|]400|300|

Click Next to follow the play. Played cards are displayed in the hand diagram for South and East. Carding is UDCA.

 

Let's work it out. Partner did NOT give us a signal in diamonds. So who has the ♦King? From the bidding who has the ♦K. If you decide (correctly) that South must have the ♦K how are you going to set this? If South has Five trumps, he will win his five trumps, the club he has ruffed, the spade ACE and three diamonds (AKQ). That is 10 tricks.

 

Once you come to the realization that the defense has no chance if South has five trumps, you play him for ♥J9xx only in hearts. If partner has the ♠Q for his ♠2 discard, all will be well. The question/problem is what do you do when South leads the ♠Q to the next trick! This is what happens and what the trap is. [/hv]

 

If you cover the ♠Q, then the ace wins, and partner follows suit. Now declarer leads a spade from dummy and what is your partner to do? If he ruffs, declarer plays a low spade, and will win 2♠, 4♥, 3♦, and 1♣-ruff. Now we see what partner's ♠2... it was count! The defense is to duck the ♠Q. This is counter-intuitive but even if your partner started with ♠J2 doubleton, ducking will work. On the next round of spades, you force dummy to play the ♠A, which partner ruffs.

 

Summary:

1.) Partner does not have ♦K (both bidding and partner not signalling on the 3rd ♣ a diamond card.

2.) If South has 5 trumps, he has 10 tricks

3.) If you cover the ♠Q, south can score his ♠J by an en passant (to use a french phrase from chess).

 

For discussion. How DOES partner show he has five trumps? What signals do you play in trumps with small trumps? A side note, when playing standard carding, the meaning of a "high low" in trumps is reversed. In UDCA if you were going to give count in trumps, would you reverse the normal signal (I don't give trump length signals). Is all the declarer has five hearts due to the sequence of plays in heart by partner?

 

[quiddity]

I found it difficult because declarer's line (drawing trumps when it leaves a defender with trump control) is non-intuitive. I just assumed he had 5.

Anyway, the ♠2 signal should have woken me up. Nice problem.

[billw55]

Gosh there inquiry, I never imagined partner's ♠2 as count without any further info. Perhaps if you had reached the point of declarer leading the ♠Q in the original problem. Then I would have a chance to rethink the signal and the location of the ♠J, and perhaps would choose to cover the last equal on principle (although I probably could not work out all those details correctly).

[han]

Inquiry, did you once read a book where some world class player said that he gives the signal that partner needs? If so, I think you took it too seriously. I don't think that any world class pair would play the spade 2 as count on the fly. It is possible that there is such a pair that often plays a first discard as count, but I don't think that any pair that has the agreement that the first discard is attitude would suddenly decide to discard count in the hope that partner figures it out.

 

Perhaps I'm wrong and there are some world class pairs that function this way. But I am sure that this is completely ridiculous in a B/I problem.

 

It would be a much more reasonable problem to let partner discard the spade 4 and have declarer lead the spade queen. We don't have to figure all of this out before declarer leads the queen, it's not like we have to play low in tempo as we would need to do in some other situations.

[han]

Also, do we really need partner's count signal?

[inquiry]

Inquiry, did you once read a book where some world class player said that he gives the signal that partner needs? If so, I think you took it too seriously. I don't think that any world class pair would play the spade 2 as count on the fly. It is possible that there is such a pair that often plays a first discard as count, but I don't think that any pair that has the agreement that the first discard is attitude would suddenly decide to discard count in the hope that partner figures it out.

 

Perhaps I'm wrong and there are some world class pairs that function this way. But I am sure that this is completely ridiculous in a B/I problem.

 

Does it matter if it is count or not. Once your partner has denied the diamond king, and on the bidding you know he doesn't have it, how else are you going to set this contract? I think it is not too complicated for an intermediate problem, other than working out the need to duck the spade queen. True, if South leads an unsupported spade queen, and your partner has the spade jack, the duck is not effective. So rather or not the ♠2 is count,

 

In fact, I didn't "think" it was count and made a nod to that fact, when I said.... :. "if partner has the ♠Q for his ♠2 discard, all will be well. The question/problem is what do you do when South leads the ♠Q to the next trick!"

But if it means I got something in spades, or whatever (other than lavinthal showing showing something in a lower suit, in this case diamonds), I think the defense is clear (like I said, forget the signal part if you like). Surely, you will agree with this assessment? Again, as long as ♠2 is not lavinthal, whatever it is.

[billw55]

Should I be so convinced that partner's failure to signal in diamonds necessarily denies the K♦? He could hold Kx, or maybe K98 and worry that the signal will not be clear.

 

For me the primary signal is attitude and that's how I take the ♠2 until further notice. OK, when the ♠Q is led that is further notice .. but that wasn't in the problem.

 

As for the bidding, people bid all kinds of lunatic contracts against me. Given the choice between trusting partner's signal or declarer's bids, I know which I pick.

 

I guess this problem was just above my level.

[inquiry]

Should I be so convinced that partner's failure to signal in diamonds necessarily denies the K♦? He could hold Kx, or maybe K98 and worry that the signal will not be clear.

 

For me the primary signal is attitude and that's how I take the ♠2 until further notice. OK, when the ♠Q is led that is further notice .. but that wasn't in the problem.

 

As for the bidding, people bid all kinds of lunatic contracts against me. Given the choice between trusting partner's signal or declarer's bids, I know which I pick.

 

I guess this problem was just above my level.

 

Let me deal with the lack of a diamond signal here. Declarer held 3♣ for certain. He held at most 5♥ and possibly only four. And you see declarer lead the ♠Q. What is the minimum number of diamonds partner can hold. If declarer is 1♠=5♥=3♣, he can hold, at most, 4♦'s. So that leaves partner with a minimum of three diamonds. So partner holding ♦Kx is eliminated. IF he held ♦K98 can was worried that a diamond discard would be confusing, he could certainly afforded a higher spade than the two.

 

In addition, while the lack of a diamond signal should be fairly strong evidence, however, equally strong evidence should be the bidding. Can you imagine south bidding game on this auction without the ♦K, even if he had the ♠QJ?

 

That would give him something like this at best....

♠QJx

♥Jxxxx

♦xx

♣xxx

 

or

♠QJ

♥Jxxxx

♦98xx

♣xxx

 

Is either one of those a 4♥ bid? So you have two clues, 1.) the lack of a diamond signal, and 2.) the bidding.

 

Since you mentioned unreliability of the bidding of the people you play against ("As for the bidding, people bid all kinds of lunatic contracts against me. Given the choice between trusting partner's signal or declarer's bids, I know which I pick"), let me say this. While this might be true, to improve as a player (not you specifically, but everyone), you have to learn to visualize the the unseen hands (partner's and opponents) from clues available. This includes cards partner chose to lead (and not lead), lines of play opponent picks to play, and especially bidding (or lack of bidding). If opponents hand is weaker it should be from the bidding, all is well. Le't imagine this hand where partner DOES have the ♦K, what does that mean? IT means they are going down no matter what you play. If declarer has the hand shown above, he will win 1♦, 5♥, 2♠, and 1♣ ruff. Your side will collect a spade and a diamond still. If declarer has a singleton diamond and four spades the QJ, your side just gets one spade and no no diamonds in the ending. If he has four diamonds and one spade, you win two diamonds (thanks to your ♦7 even if south has 986x of diamonds).

 

You are CORRECT to think the ♠ was attitude. As i said (in so many words) in the original post, when declarer lead the ♠Queen that was a surprise to you (and would be to me, as well). I would also take the ♠2 as attitude, which is why the ♠Q is a big surprise, since attitude would be the correct normal card here. However, that doesn't affect the logic of the ending. Which is declarer has the ♦King and partner must have five hearts to set this contract.

 

I happen to very much like this problem but, due to your an han's complaint, I will leave it out of the next PDF of defensive play problems.

[inquiry]

Also, do we really need partner's count signal?

 

Missed this one when I was preparing my reply to the first reply of yours. Of course, you don't need the ♠2 to be count... as long as it is not lavinthal. I guess if declarer leads the ♠Jack from ♠QJ, when partner discards the ♠2 it might cause you to go wrong, which in this case turns out to be right!! (that is, duck first spade is right).

[billw55]

You are CORRECT to think the ♠ was attitude. As i said (in so many words) in the original post, when declarer lead the ♠Queen that was a surprise to you (and would be to me, as well). I would also take the ♠2 as attitude, which is why the ♠Q is a big surprise, since attitude would be the correct normal card here. However, that doesn't affect the logic of the ending. Which is declarer has the ♦King and partner must have five hearts to set this contract.

The ♠Q lead was not reached in the original post. That was my point (see post #11).

[inquiry]

The ♠Q lead was not reached in the original post. That was my point (see post #11).

 

If I had posed the problem at the time the ♠Q was lead, then everyone would have gotten it right (after some time to think about it). After all you were down to three spades (KTx) and three diamonds (JT7), when declarer plays a card to trick 7, how hard can the defense be? Do you play an honor or small in the suit lead.

 

At the table, this would be, and was, a different matter (although a lot of declarer's gave up on trumps when 5=0 split was uncovered, making the problem somewhat different, but no more difficult). People have been taught cover an honor with an honor, so when the ♠Q was lead, they covered. End of of story. Here I was wanting people to first (#1) work out first that if declarer had five hearts and the king of diamonds, no defense works, and from that piece of info, work backwards. When you get to the most likely case (given bidding and play) where declarer can go down, (#2) it will be that he has four hearts and the king of diamonds, and what would the trap be (declarer with ♠QJx). I even thought I might be giving it away by pointing out there would be trap (similar to the trap of 3rd hand high at trick one kind of thing).

 

I did admit that the "presentation" might not have been best ("Perhaps I presented the hand wrongly, as it has turned out to be more difficult than I suspected "reply 9), but I didn't want a right answer, per se, I wanted people to think about the hand and work out the problem (point one and point two above).

[han]

If I had posed the problem at the time the ♠Q was lead, then everyone would have gotten it right (after some time to think about it). After all you were down to three spades (KTx) and three diamonds (JT7), when declarer plays a card to trick 7, how hard can the defense be? Do you play an honor or small in the suit lead.

 

What's the problem with people getting them right? You have a lot of good B/I problems, this one may be one of the beginner's problems (though I bet no beginner would get this right at the table!), why make it any harder?

 

If you really want to make the problem harder, it is fine not to tell what the opponents will play next. I just disagree with the need of making the problems harder. I'll point out again that the B/I posters have stopped responding.

 

But making the problem harder by letting partner discard the spade 2 (postitive attitude!) is weird and completely unnecessary in my opinion.

[billw55]

What's the problem with people getting them right? You have a lot of good B/I problems, this one may be one of the beginner's problems (though I bet no beginner would get this right at the table!), why make it any harder?

 

If you really want to make the problem harder, it is fine not to tell what the opponents will play next. I just disagree with the need of making the problems harder. I'll point out again that the B/I posters have stopped responding.

 

But making the problem harder by letting partner discard the spade 2 (postitive attitude!) is weird and completely unnecessary in my opinion.

Well, I consider myself an "I" poster.

 

One thing I am wondering. Is it normal for a/e players to spend this much thinking to plan out how they will defend if declarer shows up with a card that partner has ostensibly shown with his signal? For example if my partner lays down a queen on opening lead (with no evidence of shortness). Should I spend a large amount of thinking to plan out my contingency if declarer later leads the jack from hand? Is that how I need to be thinking to advance? Or should I assume partner has the jack *until* declarer plays it, and then rethink?

 

:huh:

[inquiry]

What's the problem with people getting them right? You have a lot of good B/I problems, this one may be one of the beginner's problems (though I bet no beginner would get this right at the table!), why make it any harder?

 

If you really want to make the problem harder, it is fine not to tell what the opponents will play next. I just disagree with the need of making the problems harder. I'll point out again that the B/I posters have stopped responding.

 

But making the problem harder by letting partner discard the spade 2 (postitive attitude!) is weird and completely unnecessary in my opinion.

 

Would discarding the spade four been any better? And if partner does not discard either the ♠2 or ♠4 then the contract will make. NOTE further, that I did not have the carding in the original problem, I added (see edit note) in response to a specific question about carding. Should I have said, carding is not relevant?

[inquiry]

What's the problem with people getting them right? You have a lot of good B/I problems, this one may be one of the beginner's problems (though I bet no beginner would get this right at the table!), why make it any harder?

 

If you really want to make the problem harder, it is fine not to tell what the opponents will play next. I just disagree with the need of making the problems harder. I'll point out again that the B/I posters have stopped responding.

 

But making the problem harder by letting partner discard the spade 2 (positive attitude!) is weird and completely unnecessary in my opinion.

 

What card EAST plays on the third round of clubs is quite a conundrum. He could discard a high diamond to deny the ♦King by then the contract will make. He doesn't have a high ♠ (having the 2 or 4, and it could be worse, he could have the 2 and 3). Would discarding the spade four been any better? And if partner does not discard either the ♠2 or ♠4 then the contract will make. NOTE further, that I did not have the carding in the original problem, I had to add the carding (see edit note) in response to a specific question about carding after the original post was made (UDCA should have been obvious from trick one.two.three, but so be it). Should I have said, carding is not relevant in response to a question?

 

I am sorry if beginner/intermediates are not responding, only one problem (17) is probably solvable by beginners. I have even asked what is a good beginner problem. I consider the bulk of them high intermediate to low advance, this one I thought was high intermediate to low advanced. I think beginners might learn from reading the thought process (logic) expressed by people as they provide their answers. Many of the problems, including this one, are from an online student that were discovered in reviewing her online play with her where she miss defended (she considers herself high intermediate). I thought other might benefit from the problems. The last thing I want to do is post problems that are inappropriate. Since the criticism of this problem has been so vocal, I have already said I was going to leave it out of the next PDF I prepare for the Defensive play problems as being inappropriate. This in spite of the fact that I think it was a most excellent problem that is quite solvable at the table.

 

As you yourself have said, han, "count signal" is not needed. And right you are. To set the contract East has to throw a spade (any spade), and West has to think what is needed to defeat the contract. An EAST worried about giving partner the correct information might waste his only chance to set the contract by discarding a high diamond. A WEST infatuated with his partner signal might confuse himself by miss defending when his partner does throw a low spade (2 or 4). This is why I stopped the problem BEFORE the spade queen was played, so the player could think about the bridge problem at hand.

[han]

Would discarding the spade four been any better? And if partner does not discard either the ♠2 or ♠4 then the contract will make. NOTE further, that I did not have the carding in the original problem, I added (see edit note) in response to a specific question about carding. Should I have said, carding is not relevant?

 

I think it was a good choice to discard a spade! :)

 

As I said before, this set of problems is very good and this particular problem really is great. Not only are they from real life, they feel like real hands and the problems you face are like real world problems. The comment about the spade 2ruins part of it for me though, not only do I really disagree with it, it is also completely useless and outside of a beginning player's scope.

 

I would give the carding on every hand, and I like that you don't stick to the same carding. I wouldn't mention whether the carding is relevant (unless you think the problem needs a hint). If the play or bidding of one of the unseen hands is really bad though, it takes aways from the problem. I'd say the problem is better if partner discards the spade 4.

[han]

What card EAST plays on the third round of clubs is quite a conundrum. He could discard a high diamond to deny the ♦King by then the contract will make. He doesn't have a high ♠ (having the 2 or 4, and it could be worse, he could have the 2 and 3). Would discarding the spade four been any better? And if partner does not discard either the ♠2 or ♠4 then the contract will make. NOTE further, that I did not have the carding in the original problem, I had to add the carding (see edit note) in response to a specific question about carding after the original post was made (UDCA should have been obvious from trick one.two.three, but so be it). Should I have said, carding is not relevant in response to a question?

 

Now you are just being silly. Even beginners realize that if you hold 42, the 2 is low and the 4 is high.

 

The rest I reacted to already. If you don't want to hear my opinion, don't ask for opinions or specify that you don't want mine.