Duck or Grouse

[lamford]

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16-board match converted to VPs

 

Partner leads the king of spades against South's doubled contract, and you discard the ten of clubs. South wins with the ace, plays the jack of diamonds, overtaken, and two more high diamonds, discarding the seven and king of clubs, and then leads a heart off dummy. Partner has played nine, two, five in diamonds. What do you play on the heart and why?

[rhm]

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On the first layout you better duck

On the second you better go in with the ♥A

 

The examples are not exhaustive

I leave it to super expert bermuda bowl partnerships why the diamond play 9,2,5 favors one layout for West over the other

 

Rainer Herrmann

[Zelandakh]

I leave it to super expert bermuda bowl partnerships why the diamond play 9,2,5 favors one layout for West over the other

Presumably 9-2-5 from such a pair would favour the second layout with H-M-L showing a high heart honour but we were not given any carding agreements so that would be something of a leap.

[rhm]

Presumably 9-2-5 from such a pair would favour the second layout with H-M-L showing a high heart honour but we were not given any carding agreements so that would be something of a leap.

Interesting.

I made this comment, because I favor very basic carding agreements having been burnt frequently by misunderstandings.

But if you use Bridge logic you could argue as follows:

 

From trick one it is abundantly clear that East can not play a second round of trumps. So West must signal whether he got an entry to play more trumps and where.

 

High card : heart entry

Low card : club entry

Middle card : no entry

 

So with the second layout I would play ♦5 followed by the ♦2 (no entry)

With the first layout I would play ♦8 followed by ♦2 (The 8 rather than the 9, because ♥K is not guaranteed to be an entry)

So for me the actual carding would favor much more the first layout.

 

That's the trouble with Bridge logic. There is more than one logic you can have in mind. That's why I keep my carding basic. Too much trouble at the table for too little gain. But then I rarely play big tournaments.

 

Rainer Herrmann

[Zelandakh]

Surely once declarer discards on the diamonds and discards the ♣K, the key feature is whether a high heart is held? If all 3 diamonds are indicative of suit preference (and no count is given on the first round) then I imagine we can get an awful lot of detail into a signaling scheme. Again, we need to know the carding agreements as to what logic we can ascribe to each combination. Do you think any pair would have such detailed agreements that, for example, 9-8-2 would show ♥A and 9-5-2 the ♥K, perhaps with 9-2-5 showing the Q? That would certainly be impressive but well beyond the level I have ever played at. Naturally what is simple for one is illogical for another - I also regard my typical carding agreements as (overly) simple.

[lamford]

Surely once declarer discards on the diamonds and discards the ♣K, the key feature is whether a high heart is held? If all 3 diamonds are indicative of suit preference (and no count is given on the first round) then I imagine we can get an awful lot of detail into a signaling scheme. Again, we need to know the carding agreements as to what logic we can ascribe to each combination. Do you think any pair would have such detailed agreements that, for example, 9-8-2 would show ♥A and 9-5-2 the ♥K, perhaps with 9-2-5 showing the Q? That would certainly be impressive but well beyond the level I have ever played at. Naturally what is simple for one is illogical for another - I also regard my typical carding agreements as (overly) simple.

The actual partnership of Bell (a very fine player who has won two or three major events in the last year or so) and Gold is relatively new, and I would expect them to card in the way partner expected, without having discussed every nuance. In my view, the nine of diamonds is a command to win the first heart (if possible), because partner has three trumps tricks. There are six ways of pussy-footing around with the other hearts to convey varying degrees of suit preference, if you do not have three trump tricks. Ducking was a fumble, as they say in American football.

[wank]

The actual partnership of Bell (a very fine player who has won two or three major events in the last year or so) and Gold is relatively new, and I would expect them to card in the way partner expected, without having discussed every nuance. In my view, the nine of diamonds is a command to win the first heart (if possible), because partner has three trumps tricks. There are six ways of pussy-footing around with the other hearts to convey varying degrees of suit preference, if you do not have three trump tricks. Ducking was a fumble, as they say in American football.

 

you're signalling differently to the rest of the world. everyone else signals what they have, not try to tell partner which cards to play to which trick.

 

9 of D should show the king. the susbsequent play of the diamonds is perforce confusing as one would expect it to be followed up with other high ones. perhaps this should show a club card as well.

 

bit of a stretch, especially as north south are a conservative pair, but declarer could have ajxxx qjxxx j jx.

[lamford]

you're signalling differently to the rest of the world. everyone else signals what they have, not try to tell partner which cards to play to which trick.

When you lead the king of spades, you are known to have two trump tricks, but may have three. I agree that the 9 of diamonds tells partner what one has, and he then works out what to play. The pieces of information that you need to give to partner are as follows, in order of importance:

 

a) How many trump tricks do I have - this must be two or three; only a loony doubles with one.

b) What is my heart holding - this can be the king or queen - nothing else is relevant.

c) What I have in clubs - I think this is largely irrelevant, but the club count could be I suppose. If there is a chance we will show an even number or odd number by our diamond plays.

 

We are clearly going to play three diamonds, and the first one should be a). We play the nine of diamonds if we have three trump tricks and the two of diamonds if we have two trump tricks.

 

After that we move on to b). If we have the king of hearts we play the higher of the remaining two diamonds, if we have the queen of hearts, we play the middle one, if neither the lowest.

 

After that if we have a choice, we should play high low in diamonds with an even number of clubs and low high with an odd number of clubs.

 

So, I think Mike Bell was correct to play the nine of diamonds, and then defended perfectly by playing his lowest diamond to deny the king or queen of hearts (he does not want partner ducking the heart). Of course it is possible that he was little Johnny out of step with the rest of the world. However, little Johnny is often right.

[phil_20686]

I am a simple man, I would just win the heart ace and play a diamond, interrupting the communication needed to ruff hearts safely. Suppose now that south ruffs the diamond and plays the heart Q covered and ruffed and a club covered and ruffed and the heart J and a fourth heart ruffed with a club pitch from west. Now the position is:

 

 

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Now west always scores three trumps?

 

So go in with the ace. And play a diamond.

 

I await rhm to illuminate why this line fails on his examples.

[WellSpyder]

Now west always scores three trumps?

I must admit I haven't followed your line in detail, Phil, but you have very helpfully provided a diagram of the position after T10. How is West going to score 3 trump tricks from this position if declarer leads a C from dummy and ruffs with ♠J?

[lamford]

I must admit I haven't followed your line in detail, Phil, but you have very helpfully provided a diagram of the position after T10. How is West going to score 3 trump tricks from this position if declarer leads a C from dummy and ruffs with ♠J?

Yes, I think you need West to have the nine of spades.

[Phil]

In Ranier's first example, leading the ♠K would be...unusual. I'm more inclined to think KQT9 or KQJ. maybe KQJ9.

 

So I'd just fly ♥A. Examples without South holding the ♥K seem very contrived.

[rhm]

I must admit I haven't followed your line in detail, Phil, but you have very helpfully provided a diagram of the position after T10. How is West going to score 3 trump tricks from this position if declarer leads a C from dummy and ruffs with ♠J?

or for that matter simply discards his heart

 

Rainer Herrmann

[phil_20686]

I must admit I haven't followed your line in detail, Phil, but you have very helpfully provided a diagram of the position after T10. How is West going to score 3 trump tricks from this position if declarer leads a C from dummy and ruffs with ♠J?

 

I may have helpfully provided a diagram, but the diagram is wrong. north has ruffed two hearts and the spade K was left, so that spade 8 is singleton in dummy now.

 

Actual position is:

 

[hv=pc=n&s=sj9h2dc&w=skt7hdc&n=s8hdcq2&e=shdcat9]399|300[/hv]

 

I am not sure why I have such a block between the thing that is in my mind and the thing that appears in my posts. :)

[Zelandakh]

Actual position is:

Rainer's idea of throwing a heart on a club still looks pretty good...

[Finch]

 

bit of a stretch, especially as north south are a conservative pair, but declarer could have ajxxx qjxxx j jx.

 

This isn't necessarily true, as this was the auction and play to the first few tricks at our table as well, and every time you play us you sit down and explain to your partner that we bid with 'nothing'.

 

By the way, I disagree with the SK lead from e.g. KQ107. In fact, I disagree with the SK lead on the actual hand as well, but that's another matter (I was dummy, so I couldn't do much wrong here)

[lamford]

By the way, I disagree with the SK lead from e.g. KQ107. In fact, I disagree with the SK lead on the actual hand as well, but that's another matter (I was dummy, so I couldn't do much wrong here)

I agree on the first part of that. On the second, would you have led a different spade from ♠KQJ9 or would you have broken Burn's Law by not leading a trump against a doubled contract?

[Zelandakh]

would you have broken Burn's Law by not leading a trump against a doubled contract?

I thought Burn's Law was "When declaring, the total number of trumps on our side should be greater than the total number of trumps held by the opponents", often provided with the additional observation that "you can't make 3NT on a cross-ruff".