Slam defence

[thepossum]

Dear all

 

I recently was defending 6S. I think it was a borderline slam and nobody else actually bid it. But since I like leaps of faith and borderline slams myself I'm not complaining and congratulated ops for bidding and playing it. However I believe it can be brought down if my partner knows what I and declarer hold on last two tricks. Since partner had to choose which king to discard. Please advise if there is a way I can signal this or discard better in my hand. When I say borderline I mean that it didn't seem that the auction explored hands enough to know. West had ver good hand and was given the additional Ace, but they only had 7 trumps and didn't know they had K. However I was quite impressed since nobody else went close to bidding it. NT slam attempts went down. 6D is possible etc

 

Regards Possum

 

[hv=https://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?sn=thepossum&s=S86HQ96542D84C975&wn=Joss1963&w=SAQJ5HTDA9632CAQJ&nn=robalo7&n=ST943HKJ8DQTCKT42&en=ella116&e=SK72HA73DKJ75C863&d=n&v=o&b=1&a=P1DP1SP2SP4NP5DP6SPPP&p=C2C3C9CJS5S3SKS6S2S8SJS4SQS9S7H2DADTD5D4D2DQDKD8DJH4D3H8D7C5D9STHJHAH5HTC6C7CAC4SACTC8H6D6CKH3H9CQHKH7HQ]400|300[/hv]

[The_Badger]

I'll let others answer you at length on here about discards, but it actually comes down to your partner remembering what you played at trick 1 to his lead. Then he'll know what king to throw at the end.

[Tramticket]

This has nothing to do with discarding and everything to do with counting the hand and placing the cards. Your partner knows that you don't have the ♣Q (you would have played it at trick one), so declarer must have ♣Q and he must keep the ♣K.

 

He has to hope that you can control the hearts, else the contract is not being defeated. But in fact, if he is counting the hand he will have worked out that declarer started with four spades and five diamonds (partner showed out on the third round). He also started with three clubs (ace and jack have been played and he knows that declarer has the queen), so declarer only started with one heart. Now it is easy to see that the ♥K is of no value and can be discarded.

[Cyberyeti]

OK, after the opening lead, declarer has 12 top tricks when the diamonds behave, he just forgot to draw the last trump.

 

Others have covered why N should get this right.

[Tramticket]

after the opening lead, declarer has 12 top tricks when the diamonds behave, he just forgot to draw the last trump.

 

Agreed, a heart lead and a forcing defence is needed to really trouble declarer - I don't think there is any realistic way to bring home the contract on this defence.

 

But I can't really fault a club lead on this auction.

[pescetom]

I would have been more impressed if they had bid carefully to 6♦.

Not everyone would open East's hand let alone rebid 2♠ here.

[Cyberyeti]

Agreed, a heart lead and a forcing defence is needed to really trouble declarer - I don't think there is any realistic way to bring home the contract on this defence.

 

But I can't really fault a club lead on this auction.

 

Can be done, but you have to play N for pretty much his actual hand.

[Tramticket]

Can be done, but you have to play N for pretty much his actual hand.

 

Is that a challenge? My double dummy solution is.

 

You would need to:

- Eliminate the hearts.

- Eliminate the diamonds.

- Draw precisely three rounds of trumps.

- Run the long diamonds, allowing North to ruff-in at a time of his choosing, when he will be end-played into leading a club.

 

Notes

- Eliminating hearts involves ruffing hearts twice in hand and declarer coming down to fewer trumps than North.

- You will need to delay drawing trumps until after you have ruffed hearts twice.

- You will also need an entry to dummy to draw the last trump as well as two entries to ruff the two hearts. One of the entries can come in trumps, but two entries will need to be in diamonds (before you have drawn trumps). This all means that you need diamonds to be 2-2, playing North for the queen and taking a first-round finesse in diamonds

 

This all seems a bit unlikely!! I think that I would be more likely to play three rounds of trumps, hoping for a 3-3 trump split. :)

[HardVector]

The easy answer is at their first opportunity, south should discard a discouraging club. If you are playing standard, discard the 5♣, if playing upside down, the 9♣. At that point, north MUST hang on to the K♣ to the end.

[dokoko]

The easy answer is at their first opportunity, south should discard a discouraging club. If you are playing standard, discard the 5♣, if playing upside down, the 9♣. At that point, north MUST hang on to the K♣ to the end.

 

After playing 9♣ to the first trick, wouldn't it count as revoke if you later discard it? ;)

[rmnka447]

I agree with the others that after the first trick that partner should also know you don't have the ♣ Q. Playing simple defense (third hand high), it would be the card you should play to that trick if you held it.

 

Also, on the third round of trump, you might consider playing ♥ 6 (start of a high/low) showing something in ♥. It doesn't necessarily show the ♥ K but an honor in ♥ against a slam. Your side isn't like to hold a lot opposite a slam, but any honor, especially a K or Q, is likely to be valuable. So showing it might help partner if partner has a discarding problem.

 

Finally, on the second last trick or whenever, when you get down to having to discard one of two possible guards, you should keep the suit that only you can guard and hope for help from partner in the other suit.

[Cyberyeti]

Is that a challenge? My double dummy solution is.

 

You would need to:

- Eliminate the hearts.

- Eliminate the diamonds.

- Draw precisely three rounds of trumps.

- Run the long diamonds, allowing North to ruff-in at a time of his choosing, when he will be end-played into leading a club.

 

Notes

- Eliminating hearts involves ruffing hearts twice in hand and declarer coming down to fewer trumps than North.

- You will need to delay drawing trumps until after you have ruffed hearts twice.

- You will also need an entry to dummy to draw the last trump as well as two entries to ruff the two hearts. One of the entries can come in trumps, but two entries will need to be in diamonds (before you have drawn trumps). This all means that you need diamonds to be 2-2, playing North for the queen and taking a first-round finesse in diamonds

 

This all seems a bit unlikely!! I think that I would be more likely to play three rounds of trumps, hoping for a 3-3 trump split. :)

 

Pretty much covers it, and is why I said what I said that you had to play him for his exact hand, 3-3 trumps or the club finesse looks more likely.

[thepossum]

Hi all

 

Thanks for the discussion. I'm still fairly basic at carding, mostly attitude in my experience. I thought maybe I should have followed partners opening lead with a lower club but that risked a low C trick to declarer so I played my highest which is what I'm used to. I need to learn more about count etc. But I certainly was not questionning partner's defence

 

I thought declarer and partner played well (at least to me). Declarer would have expected more from dummy and partner probably thought I had almost nothing so I just wanted to show I had something that could be useful

 

thanks P

[mikeh]

Others have explained why North knows, beyond any reasonable doubt, that declarer has the club Queen by virtue of trick one. Note that had declarer played the Queen at trick one (which is clearly the correct play....if South held J109, then North would not be sure where the Jack was, at least not at that stage), the result would be the same, since South would not play the 9 from J9x, not seeing the 10 in dummy.

 

Also, of course, as has been pointed out, declarer was cold on a non-heart lead once diamonds behaved....North had no business scoring a trump trick (which deprived declarer of a diamond trick).

 

So on the actual hand, it is trivial to defend 'correctly' after the initial lead, and trivial to play the hand for 12 tricks. Both N and W erred, in fundamental ways, and yet the score was (given the lead) par.

 

There will be other hands where the clues aren't as clear, and the OP is, I think, looking for help in defending such contracts.

 

On this hand, the simple solution is for South to think about what he knows. The lead of the low club (to which I will return, since it seems me to be a clear error), tells South that partner has at least 3 clubs and maybe 4 (assuming 4th best leads). Declarer topped the 9 with the J. Partner won't have KQ, since he would lead the King. Therefore opener has either AKJ or AQJ. He may have 3 or 4. In any scenario, South's clubs are irrelevant and everyone at the table knows this.

 

So it behooves him to tell partner what is going on in the suit. He does this by pitching his remaining 2 clubs as soon as possible...and from high to low, to give count. There can be no ambiguity in doing this, because he cannot be signaling attitude....his play of the 9 at trick one denied any honour. So the pitching of the 7 cannot be 'attitude' any more than following up with the 5 can be completing a 'come on'.

 

Once South has shown that he began with 975 of clubs, North knows that declarer began with AQJ. Of course, on this hand we already knew that. But imagine South had J75 and declarer AQ9...now South plays the J at trick one and declarer wins the Q. It may well be necessary for North to decide whether declarer began with AQ in clubs and Qx in hearts or a stiff heart and AQ9 in clubs. Since South's Jack denied any other honour (he might have had the Q but for declarer playing it!), he can again see his clubs as irrelevant and therefore go out of his way to tell partner that he began with 3...pitch the 7 then the 5.

 

As for the lead: when the opponents have a power auction to slam (as they, wrongly, did here....West has no business bidding 4N but probably has no clue as to how to bid good hands other than by jumping to 4N) one should tend to make a passive lead. Note that North has no reason to believe that West has long diamonds but every reason to place West with some side Aces. Lead a spade!

 

Not just any spade...lead a small one. If the opps have all the top spades, you aren't taking any tricks, but if partner has a stiff honour, you are (almost) sure to take a trick by leading low...the only way you don't is if dummy has HHxx in spades, and the odds are very much against that, since that means declarer used 4N with at best Axxx in spades.

 

Now, on the hand, the spade lead does no good, but it is still the correct lead imo. Btw, I am usually a very aggressive leader, but not when the auction tells me to go passive, as I think it does here. One could easily be blowing a trick...imagine dummy with xx in clubs...so Kxxx Axx KJxx xx and declarer with AQJx Qx Axxx AQx

[thepossum]

Thanks all

 

Confirms I should have played clubs differently

 

I also think in post mortems its easy to forget that we were beginner or intermediate level, you see much less information than all four hands, it can be easy to forget an early play, and also that even if earlier play was not perfect you have to adjust play to dynamic circumstances.

 

It's often harder for four intermediates to make decisions than if it was four advanced who had bid and played perfectly up to that point.

 

But thx all. It confirmed that my misgivings about my C play were valid. Also shows me that even with that S hand against a slam I had to be on my game too and not just be passive with no regard for discards

 

P

[aawk]

In the first trick you didn't play the Q so partner should know west holds the Q of♣.

[thawp66]

Is that a challenge? My double dummy solution is.

 

You would need to:

- Eliminate the hearts.

- Eliminate the diamonds.

- Draw precisely three rounds of trumps.

- Run the long diamonds, allowing North to ruff-in at a time of his choosing, when he will be end-played into leading a club.

 

Notes

- Eliminating hearts involves ruffing hearts twice in hand and declarer coming down to fewer trumps than North.

- You will need to delay drawing trumps until after you have ruffed hearts twice.

- You will also need an entry to dummy to draw the last trump as well as two entries to ruff the two hearts. One of the entries can come in trumps, but two entries will need to be in diamonds (before you have drawn trumps). This all means that you need diamonds to be 2-2, playing North for the queen and taking a first-round finesse in diamonds

 

This all seems a bit unlikely!! I think that I would be more likely to play three rounds of trumps, hoping for a 3-3 trump split. :)

I believe if N has a 3rd D instead of the 4th C, your DD solution is still valid.

[GrahamJson]

There has been no comment regarding the play of the 9 by south at trick one when, sitting over the 863, the 5 is an equal and hence the normal play. Play of the 9 risks partner placing declarer with AQJ7 and therefore holding on to his fourth club in the end game (maybe not an issue on the actual hand, but could well be on a different lay out).

 

This hand illustrates a common point on BBO; before worrying about signals make sure you understand basic card play, e.g. the lowest from equals in third and fourth position, the highest from equals in first and second. The same applies to bidding; get your basic hand evaluation and bidding right before adding on lots of conventions.

[zhoraster]

You don't have to blame yourself for the defense. Your partner made a terrible lead (imo), which highly likely will present declarer a trick, given the bidding. He then discarded the K♣ knowing that you didn't have the Q♣. The robots on BBO often defend very poorly, but you partner had managed to defend even worse here.

 

You did make a huge mistake though, but in the bidding, when you failed to overcall with 2♥. You know by you partner's pass that your opponents have at least a game balance, and they will certainly find the right game or even slam unless you interfere.

 

2♥ is not so much of interference itself. But let us imagine what happens next. Obviously, W cannot bid spades. And he has a difficult choice now: to double, showing the 4-card spades or to bid 3♥ showing huge hand with diamond support.

 

The spades are just too good to be missed, so he would most likely double. But N now raises to 3♥, again passed to W.

 

The problem became much worse.

 

He may double, partner bids 3nt - now pass? Yes, probably, and farewell to 6♦.

 

He may bid 4♥, which is not good, as this is farewell to 3nt and gives partner a headache. His partner would probably bid 4♠ over 4♥, taking them to 6♠, which are hopeless, since you would certainly lead a heart against that.

 

Bottom line: use every opportunity to hinder opponents' bidding, especially when you know for sure that they have a game balance. (Some players in my club may even psych 1♠ with your hand.)

[thepossum]

You don't have to blame yourself for the defense. Your partner made a terrible lead (imo), which highly likely will present declarer a trick, given the bidding. He then discarded the K♣ knowing that you didn't have the Q♣. The robots on BBO often defend very poorly, but you partner had managed to defend even worse here.

 

You did make a huge mistake though, but in the bidding, when you failed to overcall with 2♥. You know by you partner's pass that your opponents have at least a game balance, and they will certainly find the right game or even slam unless you interfere.

 

2♥ is not so much of interference itself. But let us imagine what happens next. Obviously, W cannot bid spades. And he has a difficult choice now: to double, showing the 4-card spades or to bid 3♥ showing huge hand with diamond support.

 

The spades are just too good to be missed, so he would most likely double. But N now raises to 3♥, again passed to W.

 

The problem became much worse.

 

He may double, partner bids 3nt - now pass? Yes, probably, and farewell to 6♦.

 

He may bid 4♥, which is not good, as this is farewell to 3nt and gives partner a headache. His partner would probably bid 4♠ over 4♥, taking them to 6♠, which are hopeless, since you would certainly lead a heart against that.

 

Bottom line: use every opportunity to hinder opponents' bidding, especially when you know for sure that they have a game balance. (Some players in my club may even psych 1♠ with your hand.)

 

I did consider a 2H interferennce but haven't done it on such a weak hand before. However I will consider it in future. That would also have aided partner in defence

[Tramticket]

You did make a huge mistake though, but in the bidding, when you failed to overcall with 2♥.

Good players are able to punish this sort of bid. This is a truly awful hand with a poor suit and no shape. You don't even have any desire for partner to lead it.

 

Your partner made a terrible lead (imo), which highly likely will present declarer a trick, given the bidding.

I think that "terrible" is over-stating this. One of the most difficult decisions for the player on lead is whether to go active or passive. This requires fine judgement and experts would not expect to get every lead right. Leading from a king is a very active lead and active leads are often the right choice against a small slam. The idea is that you are hoping that partner has a little something to help and is able to play the queen on this to promote your king as a winner, before declarer knocks out your (or your partner's) other winner. The danger in not playing an active lead is that declarer may knock out an ace in partner's hand, before your king has been set up as winner and declarer will have enough tricks from running a side suit to not need play the suit where you hold the king.

 

You should go active if you think that declarer has plenty of winners (from a side suit), but occasionally a more passive approach is needed. This will often be because declarer and dummy have is bid the slam based on high-card strength rather than shape. There is no side-suit to discard losers on. Any finesses will have to be taken, because the losers cannot be thrown on long suits or ruffed away.

 

Now re-read MikeH's comments on why he thinks that the auction suggests that the slam has been bid "on power". I think that on balance, Mike has got this right. But I certainly wouldn't say that an active lead was "terrible". On the actual hand, the only lead to defeat the slam is a heart - the other active choice.

 

You don't have to blame yourself for the defense.

Agreed. And a lot of Kudos for Thepossum, it is a common fault to get a bad result and immediately blame partner. It is far more constructive to have the attitude of "what could I have done to help partner" and a lot of credit goes to Thepossum for this. It is unfortunate that on this occasion it was partner who failed to read the cards correctly.

[zhoraster]

Good players are able to punish this sort of bid.

I've seen a lot of such "good players" on bbo. Their "goodness" is the desire to give opponents a lot of imps.

 

So please, good players, punish me! I would love to sacrifice at least two levels below your contract! This "punishment" will result in -1, sometimes -2, sometimes made, sometimes with overtricks, against a game.

 

This is a truly awful hand with a poor suit and no shape.

And this is an awful hand - I agree - for the defense! Zero defensive strength with everything breaking even for the declarer.

 

For play, it is much better. Having six cards in hearts is already a shape. Opposite nothing, it is at least 3 tricks more than in a shapeless variant of this hand (xxx Qxxx xxx xxx).

 

Give me seventh heart, and I'll overcall 3♥ even without the queen (actually, without the queen I'm even more inclined to overcall as I know that my opponents are stronger). Add sixth ten in clubs to this - and I'll bid 5♥ (as bidding 4♥ won't stop them from finding 4♠) or 4nt (less likely, as it gives too much information to the opponents).

 

You don't even have any desire for partner to lead it.

I don't. Equally I don't have any desire for partner to lead anything else. Do I desire that my partner leads towards my empty suits? No. I don't want my partner to be on the lead at all! And my preempt helps that too.

 

Moreover, preempts normally don't show any desire that my partner leads the suit called (sometimes he will even have a void there). What they do show is length in that suit and the desire to play rather than defend.

 

And yet moreover, further you'll contradict yourself saying partner could promote his king leading towards your queen. But we'll discuss this in time.

 

I think that "terrible" is over-stating this.

No it's not.

This requires fine judgement and experts would not expect to get every lead right. Leading from a king is a very active lead and active leads are often the right choice against a small slam.

I've seen a lot of such "experts" on bbo. Besides naming themselves experts, they frequently write "prefer fast play" in their profile, which hints at the real level of judgement involved.

 

Leading from a king is indeed often a right choice against a small slam but

The idea is that you are hoping that partner has a little something to help on this to promote your king as a winner, before declarer knocks out your (or your partner's) other winner

even a beginner needs very little judgement to understand it isn't the right choice now. He just needs to hear the bidding and count his points to infer that after the opponents reached their slam in few bids, it is highly unlikely that his partner has anything at all, not even speaking of the queen. I would say there is 95-99% probability he has zero points.

 

And what would your active lead achieve? Just helping the opponents to get clubs right. Guessing the king, guessing the ten (this can be crucial too!) So in some 70-80% of the cases your active lead is a valuable gift for the declarer, which gives him his contract.

 

And moreover, even if your partner does have a queen, your lead will in most cases only help the declarer to win his slam. Say, your partner has Q75, and the declarer, A96 opposite J83; there are two club losers unless clubs are led. It is, of course, much safer to lead from a suit headed by a king when your partner has a long queen (which he might have shown with his 2♥ bid).

[zhoraster]

I did consider a 2H interferennce but haven't done it on such a weak hand before.

 

Of course, normally you shouldn't overcall with hands like that. But after your partner had failed to open (and only after that) this is absolutely necessary, as I have explained.

[Tramticket]

I would love to sacrifice at least two levels below your contract! This "punishment" will result in -1, sometimes -2, sometimes made, sometimes with overtricks, against a game.

 

Or you might go for 1,400 or 1,700 against their game .....

 

[hv=pc=n&s=s86hq96542d84c975&w=st97hakj87d65cajt&n=sqj32h3dqjt9cq842&e=sak54htdak732ck63&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=p1d2hppdppp]399|300[/hv]

 

You might get away with it sometimes - particularly against weak random opponents on BBO. But good players will be able to punish you when it is right to do so and will not be unduly inconvenienced in their constructive auction.

 

Over-calling on this hand is poor advice to post on a Novice and Beginner forum.

[zhoraster]

Or you might go for 1,400 or 1,700 against their game .....

Of course, one might. Not with the hand you pictured, but it is possible.

 

But the probability of EW getting a higher score by setting 2♥ than by playing their own contract is very low.

 

You might get away with it sometimes - particularly against weak random opponents on BBO. But good players will be able to punish you when it is right to do so and will not be unduly inconvenienced in their constructive auction.

The "sometimes" you are referring to now is a fraction of already very small fraction of deals, like the one you pictured.

Over-calling on this hand is poor advice to post on a Novice and Beginner forum.

There's no novice bridge or beginner bridge. Bridge uses the same logic on any level. And I have given mine arguments for overcalling, they are hopefully not very involved for a novice to understand them.

 

And there can't be a universal advice which works in 100% of cases. For each advice it is possible to construct a hand, maybe even many hands, where it fails. My advice works well for an overwhelming majority of hands, so I find it suitable.

 

And you didn't comment on everything else - does it mean you agree on that?