Who's blame

[Flame]

This hand was posted in november's israely bridge magazine, In this section they see a little disaster and ask and latter analyze and assign the blame.

I didnt agree with the analyzing but maybe i was influence by knowing the player who was blamed there, and also my believing in the ovious shift princple.

I also post this as a response to a post about signaling in the begginer's section.

So its goes like this

[hv=n=s106haj2d54cq98632&w=sk8hq10743dakq9cj4&e=s72h965d7632cak75&s=saqj9543hk8dj108c10]399|300|[/hv]

The bidding

W N E S

-- -- -- 1♠

2♥ P 3♥ 3♠

4♥ p p 4♠

p p D all pass

It was an individual experts tournamnet west leads the A of diamonds and east plays the 2 agreed as discarage.

West switched to heart and the contract was made.

West thought east should play the 3 and on the next round the 2 which would ask for a club shift, the east player and the analyzer in our magizine think the 3 is not good since it can be from 32 doublton and think the 2 is just fine.

What do you think ?

I think the 3 is not high enough, declarer can easily hide the 2 and west wont be in a much better place (although still better) i woul play the 7, i think with no heart honor when dummy has Ajx and i supported the suit, any discarage in diamond would ask for heart switch, andd playing the 7 is simply showing clubs, and on the next round of diamonds the 2 of diamond will even makes this clearer.

[Free]

Why don't you play the 6 followed by the 7? 6 is first meant as encouraging, but after his 2nd ♦ it will be clear you want an unusual switch => ♣

[whereagles]

The 3 from a doubleton 32? And declarer has a 7-5... right :)

[Flame]

To be clear, west didnt play the K of diamond, if he would i think he would know partner want a club switch anyway, this is why they blame him, but it seems to me that after the 2 of diamonds there are ressons not to continue with the K. You dont want to help declarer ruff diamonds and prefer heart to partner and spade back.

[EricK]

Isn't this an example where West should be asking for count?

 

Once East shows an even number (almost certainly 4) West can count 3 certain tricks (♦AK ♠K) so only needs one more.

 

On the bidding and play, South has probably 7♠ and 3♦ and probably 2-1 in ♥/♣. If he has a singleton ♥, a ♥ switch can't help. If he has a doubleton, then the ♣ switch wins immediately of East has ♣A. If South has singleton A♣ and no ♥K, I don't see how he is making the contract on a ♣ switch either.

 

Not having a way to ask for count on the opening lead does make it harder.

 

Eric

[Flame]

Isn't this an example where West should be asking for count?

 

Once East shows an even number (almost certainly 4) West can count 3 certain tricks (♦AK ♠K) so only needs one more.

 

On the bidding and play, South has probably 7♠ and 3♦ and probably 2-1 in ♥/♣. If he has a singleton ♥, a ♥ switch can't help. If he has a doubleton, then the ♣ switch wins immediately of East has ♣A. If South has singleton A♣ and no ♥K, I don't see how he is making the contract on a ♣ switch either.

 

Not having a way to ask for count on the opening lead does make it harder.

 

Eric

Your analizing is a post lead analyzing, could west know that before he led so he could have led a card asking for count ? maybe

Could they know this hand will come before they agreed to play attitude and not a hand which would be better not to play count ? maybe

Anyway they agreed to play attitude and not count.

[EricK]

Isn't this an example where West should be asking for count?

 

Once East shows an even number (almost certainly 4) West can count 3 certain tricks (♦AK ♠K) so only needs one more.

 

On the bidding and play, South has probably 7♠ and 3♦ and probably 2-1 in ♥/♣. If he has a singleton ♥, a ♥ switch can't help. If he has a doubleton, then the ♣ switch wins immediately of East has ♣A. If South has singleton A♣ and no ♥K, I don't see how he is making the contract on a ♣ switch either.

 

Not having a way to ask for count on the opening lead does make it harder.

 

Eric

Your analizing is a post lead analyzing, could west know that before he led so he could have led a card asking for count ? maybe

Could they know this hand will come before they agreed to play attitude and not a hand which would be better not to play count ? maybe

Anyway they agreed to play attitude and not count.

With AKQx when do you ever need to know attitude? If you are looking for an entry in partner's hand in ♦, then the Q is probably the correct lead (then eg partner can play the J from JTx to show it is safe to underlead the ♦ on the second round)

 

Anyway, don't many pairs play A asks for Attitude K for Kount (or vice versa). It is odd that experts wouldn't have some sort of agreement on this.

 

I think if they are playing attitude signals only, then West has got to lead the second ♦ to get a suit preference signal from partner. So East should play the 2 then the 3.

 

Eric

[Flame]

Isn't this an example where West should be asking for count?

 

Once East shows an even number (almost certainly 4) West can count 3 certain tricks (♦AK ♠K) so only needs one more.

 

On the bidding and play, South has probably 7♠ and 3♦ and probably 2-1 in ♥/♣. If he has a singleton ♥, a ♥ switch can't help. If he has a doubleton, then the ♣ switch wins immediately of East has ♣A. If South has singleton A♣ and no ♥K, I don't see how he is making the contract on a ♣ switch either.

 

Not having a way to ask for count on the opening lead does make it harder.

 

Eric

Your analizing is a post lead analyzing, could west know that before he led so he could have led a card asking for count ? maybe

Could they know this hand will come before they agreed to play attitude and not a hand which would be better not to play count ? maybe

Anyway they agreed to play attitude and not count.

With AKQx when do you ever need to know attitude? If you are looking for an entry in partner's hand in ♦, then the Q is probably the correct lead (then eg partner can play the J from JTx to show it is safe to underlead the ♦ on the second round)

 

Anyway, don't many pairs play A asks for Attitude K for Kount (or vice versa). It is odd that experts wouldn't have some sort of agreement on this.

 

I think if they are playing attitude signals only, then West has got to lead the second ♦ to get a suit preference signal from partner. So East should play the 2 then the 3.

 

Eric

Your exactly proving my thoughts that someone who isnt into the ovious shift principle think differently then the way i do (even when no playing ovious shift)

The way i play attitude and suit preference are basicly the same, if i lead from AKQ i still want attitude meaning suit preference, here it is between clubs and heart, discaraging diamond is exactly as suit preference for heart (well not exactly but it strongly suggest heart)

[mike777]

Free has this exactly correct. First the 6 then the 7 asking for Non -obvious shift suit, in this case, clubs.

[EricK]

The way i play attitude and suit preference are basicly the same, if i lead from AKQ i still want attitude meaning suit preference, here it is between clubs and heart, discaraging diamond is exactly as suit preference for heart (well not exactly but it strongly suggest heart)

If I understand you correctly (and I genuinely don't know if I do), what you are saying is that if you discourage immediately you are asking for the obvious shift (here, presumably a ♥, becuase of your bidding) but if you want partner to switch to the non-obvious suit (in this case ♣) you have to encourage to begin with so that you can throw an "unusual" card on the next round.

 

I am not sure that that system is better than one in which you give your genuine attitude on the first round and hope that partner can work out which switch is required. Especially in the case where partner's continuation of the suit you have falsely encouraged sets up a trick or two for declarer

 

Both seem markedly inferior to the commonly played system of being able to ask for count or attitude from suits headed by AK.

 

Eric

[Flame]

Eric you are 80% right, some like free maybe f\play what you decribed but i dont.

I play attitude which assume there will only be 2 suits in question, this is usually the case, when dummy goes down there is a suit which we usually know there is no point in switcing to, usually its the longest suit, this leave 2 suits, and when there are two suits , suit preference is the way, this is why i explained that my attitude is almost as playing suit preference. Now when there is a third suit we are in a little truble, and the way to solve it is considering the least of evil, i will ask myself what will make more damage, incaraging which might cose partner to continue diamond, or discarage which might cose him to switch to heart, in this case i think discaraging is worse because a heart switch seems much more likely to be bad. The side benefit is when i incarage a suit partner knows i cant want, he know i want the third suit , the non ovious one , here clubs.

I usually give count on my second card to a suit, but i used to play the second to be suit preference which means i would have played the 7 then the 2 to ask for clubs.

btw today i also play K asks for count, but i dont like it much since declarer with AJx can easily hold and win them both when partner cant discarage.

[EricK]

btw today i also play K asks for count, but i dont like it much since declarer with AJx can easily hold and win them both when partner cant discarage.

When playing A attitude K count, you should also play that Q asks for attitude. So with KQx(x) where you are worried about declarer's AJx you should lead the Q. Partner encourages with the A or J and discourages with neither.

 

Eric

[Flame]

Anyone wants to guess who was the player with the west cards ?

You all know him or else i wouldnt ask, and no its not me.

[Flame]

Ok ok since no one is guessing i'll tell you, it was Fred Gitelman. (maybe he will want to add something)

[luke warm]

i'd also play the ♦6 then the 7, it shows i like diamonds and/or i hate the obvious shift... i "obviously" don't want a heart lead else i'd play low... the trouble with the 7 then the 6 is, it makes partner think i'm interested in a ruff...

[the hog]

Eric has this right. Lead the DK asking for count. When East follows with the 2 & 3 of ds, the K switch is easy.

[luke warm]

this makes me wonder about obvious switch... since some excellent players view this differently, does that mean playing obvious switch in wrong, or inferior in some way?

 

i guess what i'm asking is, where does it lose out and does this loss occur more or less often than other methods?

[Free]

You don't have to play the "obvious shift" principle to know what suit your partner will lead if you discourage. After such bidding, he'll give you something in ♥ if you discourage ♦, and that's something we don't want. Conclusion: fake-encourage ♦, partner will continue ♦ and then you can discourage (6-7 low-high sequence) which will make clear something is going on and partner shouldn't do the normal thing. The normal thing would be to play ♥ (no rules or principle needed to know this is "obvious"), so there's only 1 thing left: ♣.

 

I can't see any advantage of playing the 2 or 7 at trick 1, and the 3 isn't a good card either since declarer might be falsecarding...

[Flame]

I also dotn see the problem, yes we had a bit different approach to the second trick but that just a matter of agrement, i play the second as simply showing suit preference so when i play the 2 on the second round its ovious i wan club, i dont need to play an excpetional card like the 7.

[beatrix45]

You really don't want the heart shift unless partner has the KQ. I would probably play the 3 at trick one with the idea of playing the 2 on trick two, and hope all those low cards put partner in the mood for a club shift. But, really, playing the 6 on the first trick followed by the 2 is likely the best. Playing the 2 at trick one is just wrong, wrong, wrong. You are suggesting the obvious heart shift.