Tough defense problem?

[rduran1216]

[hv=pc=n&w=skq52hk6dq752c953&n=s8763h84dt8ckqt64&d=s&v=0&b=11&a=1n(11-14)ppp]266|200[/hv]

 

Imps

 

You lead a spade, which goes x 6 J A

 

declarer returns the spade 10, plan the defense.

[dave_w]

I don't lead a Spade at all. I lead a Diamond. Anyway, I suppose dropping the wrong card on the table at trick one hasn't worked out too badly. I'm going to win this trick obviously - and I'd love to know if partner follows suit.

 

If he does then I think we should switch to a count club card. Partner will know it's count if he's looking at the Ace, otherwise this contract looks hard to beat as declarer has 5 Clubs a Spade. We'll need partner to have AQJxx Heart and the Ace of Diamonds (not impossible) and for him to signal clearly what we should do when we win the next Spade.

[MrAce]

Declarer obviously have ♣A since he is working to get a ♠ trick next year instead of working on clubs, which makes his tricks 5♣+♠A and he would have made it anyway if he had another Ace. Unless they open weak NT with 5 card major pd holds at least 5♥ (probably just 5 due to his silence or 4 only but doesnt matter since we should play declarer for not holding another ace) If we need to defeat this we need to find pd with a hand like this i guess. Jx AQJx Axxx xxx or Jx Axxxx AKx xxx. Pd cant go wrong if we play K of ♥ and another, he may think we hold KQxx ♥ but then we would not encourage when he cashes ♦K.

 

 

I would play K of ♥ and another

[dkham]

I wouldn't have thought of it myself but I like the reasoning behind leading the King of Hearts.

 

Also, and I'm new to these forums so this might be a old issue, is it possible to put West and North in the right relative positions in the hand diagram?

[dave_w]

Declarer obviously have ♣A since he is working to get a ♠ trick next year instead of working on clubs, which makes his tricks 5♣+♠A and he would have made it anyway if he had another Ace. Unless they open weak NT with 5 card major pd holds at least 5♥ (probably just 5 due to his silence or 4 only but doesnt matter since we should play declarer for not holding another ace) If we need to defeat this we need to find pd with a hand like this i guess. Jx AQJx Axxx xxx or Jx Axxxx AKx xxx. Pd cant go wrong if we play K of ♥ and another, he may think we hold KQxx ♥ but then we would not encourage when he cashes ♦K.

 

 

I would play K of ♥ and another

 

Your play is wrong for two reasons:

Firstly, it's not obvious that declarer has the ♣A. If declarer has two small Clubs then why would he play on Clubs? There's no entry.

Secondly, if declarer does have the ♣A then there's no hurry to play the ♥K - we can do it ourselves after winning our second Spade trick.

 

The only thing that can be critical to switch to now is a Club to kill an entry to the long Spade when declarer has two Clubs without the Ace.

[inquiry]

win spade, lead a count club.... if partner shows out on the 2nd spade use my last spade honor to deny an entry to dummy by ducking the nine or flying high on a small spade from south.

[gszes]

assuming p follows to the 2nd spade---

 

rho 11-14 the same as partners

 

we need to find hands that will allow us to set

the contract and play for them to exist (at imps

anyway not as clear at mp since 1n might be

a very normal contract). It is not reasonable to

assume p has something as good as xx AQJxx Axx xxx

since they would balance with 2h (same situation if

they have long diamonds). We need p to have some

card combination similar to

 

xx Axxxx Axx Axx

xx Jxxxx AJxx AJx

xx AQxx Axxx Axx

xx xxxxx AKx AJx

xx QJxx Axxxx Ax

xx AQJx Axxx xxx

xx AQJx Txxxx Axx

 

note 7 examples of p hands that require different switches

to set and/or avoid disaster. The only way to tell is to

play a 3rd round of spades and let partner signal what

we need to do. Note that a dia seems safe for all of them

but it can be a disaster for hand 7 since p has to underlead

the AQJ of hearts to set the contract when they win the club A

and thats after you lead a low dia VERY hard to do.

[MrAce]

Your play is wrong for two reasons:

Firstly, it's not obvious that declarer has the ♣A. If declarer has two small Clubs then why would he play on Clubs? There's no entry.

Secondly, if declarer does have the ♣A then there's no hurry to play the ♥K - we can do it ourselves after winning our second Spade trick.

 

The only thing that can be critical to switch to now is a Club to kill an entry to the long Spade when declarer has two Clubs without the Ace.

 

You are correct, i was tired and actually exhausted when wrote this. Declarer can easily have something like

 

AT9

AQxx

Axxx

xx

 

or

 

AT9

AQxx

Kxxx

xx

 

 

Good solution Dave

[wanoff]

Unlikely to beat this if declarer can get the clubs going. So I'll play partner for Axx clubs and lead a club before the 8S is established.

[Phil]

This is a good problem and takes a little thought. I got it wrong when RD gave it to me last week.

[JLOGIC]

The main point is that in either of timos constructions (hands where we can beat it when declarer has the CA), there is no rush to switch immediately. Declarer still only has 6 tricks, and our tricks are just cashers. Hands where declarer has no CA are definitely the relevant hand types.