[rduran1216]

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First looking at the west hand decide what you will lead, and what kind of signals partner should be giving you and I'll go from there.

[Fluffy]

lead ♣Q and partner will encorage with ♣J, since ♣J is in dummy he will encourage with ♣10

[gnasher]

Regarding trick one: what Fluffy said, though to beat this we're going to need four clubs tricks anyway.

On the second round of the suit I play the ace as suit preference.

If anyone plays the 10, I play clubs from the top, in case partner has five of them. Otherwise, I play a low club to partner's 10, and he returns a spade to save me from the endplay.

That works unless declarer has something like AJx Kxx AKxxx 9x. Unfortunately, I can't distinguish between partner's 108x and 108xxx - he'll show an even number remaining in both cases.

[lamford]

gnasher, on 2011-January-17, 15:55, said:

Regarding trick one: what Fluffy said, though to beat this we're going to need four clubs tricks anyway.

On the second round of the suit I play the ace as suit preference.

If anyone plays the 10, I play clubs from the top, in case partner has five of them. Otherwise, I play a low club to partner's 10, and he returns a spade to save me from the endplay.

That works unless declarer has something like AJx Kxx AKxxx 9x. Unfortunately, I can't distinguish between partner's 108x and 108xxx - he'll show an even number remaining in both cases.

If she is an expert and realises that when the queen holds and she has shown the 10, she will show an original holding of four (when she has five) to save you a problem. So, if she shows the ten and an even number remaining, you know she started with three.

[FrancesHinden]

Maybe this is too late at night for me, but what endplay?
After we cash four (only) clubs, partner has at most an outside jack. Declarer has 3 hearts, at least 4 diamonds and the ace of spades. I have an obvious and safe heart exit. What exactly is declarer going to do after trick five?

[FrancesHinden]

The only other way to beat it is if declarer has Axx KJ AK10x 10xxx and is on a spade guess and doesn't endplay us in clubs instead if we go passive but I'd prefer to beat a contract by force than by a possible misguess

[gnasher]

FrancesHinden, on 2011-January-17, 17:51, said:

Maybe this is too late at night for me, but what endplay?
After we cash four (only) clubs, partner has at most an outside jack. Declarer has 3 hearts, at least 4 diamonds and the ace of spades. I have an obvious and safe heart exit. What exactly is declarer going to do after trick five?

The endplay would (or might) occur if partner had 10xx of clubs. I play two top clubs, then a low one to partner's 10. If partner doesn't return a spade, declarer cashes seven red-suit tricks and then puts me in with a club.

Lamford said:

If she is an expert and realises that when the queen holds and she has shown the 10, she will show an original holding of four (when she has five) to save you a problem. So, if she shows the ten and an even number remaining, you know she started with three.

Regardless of what card partner plays, I won't be able to distinguish 108xxx from a specific 108x, will I?

[ewleongusa]

rduran1216, on 2011-January-17, 14:44, said:

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First looking at the west hand decide what you will lead, and what kind of signals partner should be giving you and I'll go from there.

Partner has at most a jack if he has anything at all.
To beat 3NT you have to hope you can collect the first five club tricks when declarer is 3=3=5=2.
If you can take the first five club tricks you have to hope declarer is 3=3=4=3.
If declarer has four clubs to the ten he shouldn't go down as when he leads a small spade to dummy he needs to play the queen since he can't afford to let his RHO in.
If declarer has 9xxx in clubs and less than five diamonds you have to guess a specific holding for partner in clubs and diamonds. I see no way to distinguish between partner having xxxx or 10xx so I just play clubs from the top.

Eric Leong

[rduran1216]

Nobody plays foster echo?

[gnasher]

FrancesHinden, on 2011-January-17, 17:52, said:

The only other way to beat it is if declarer has Axx KJ AK10x 10xxx and is on a spade guess and doesn't endplay us in clubs instead if we go passive but I'd prefer to beat a contract by force than by a possible misguess

We can cater for that too, as long as we can read partner's second-round signal. Partner discourages on the first round, and on the second round he shows an even number remaining, so we switch and hope for the best.

[lamford]

gnasher, on 2011-January-17, 18:24, said:

Regardless of what card partner plays, I won't be able to distinguish 108xxx from a specific 108x, will I?

You will be able to decide which is more likely if partner plays the right card. Let us say that partner has 1074 and encourages with the seven; you cash the ace and partner plays the four. With 1074, partner has to play the four. With 1074(3)(2) partner should always play the lowest card, showing four cards in the suit, either current count, or false current count so you can rule those out. In fact when partner continues with the six, you can be certain, with an expert, that he has started with exactly three. With 107654, partner has to play the 4 on the second round and you cannot tell. Like all signalling, you may not be able to tell, especially if declarer can false-card effectively. But you can give yourself a better chance.

[gnasher]

lamford, on 2011-January-18, 06:03, said:

You will be able to decide which is more likely if partner plays the right card. Let us say that partner has 1074 and encourages with the seven; you cash the ace and partner plays the four. With 1074, partner has to play the four. With 1074(3)(2) partner should always play the lowest card, showing four cards in the suit, either current count, or false current count so you can rule those out. In fact when partner continues with the six, you can be certain, with an expert, that he has started with exactly three. With 107654, partner has to play the 4 on the second round and you cannot tell. Like all signalling, you may not be able to tell, especially if declarer can false-card effectively. But you can give yourself a better chance.

Yes. I was really quibbling with the phrases "she shows" and "you know" in your previous post.

Would we ever play partner for 10xxxx? We have the information that opener has no 4-card major. At the table I'd assume that this was enough to outweigh any inferences from the size of partner's spot cards, unless I thought declarer wasn't up to falsecarding. Having said that, it might be hard for declarer to falsecard correctly, especially if he hasn't considered that with five cards partner might show only four.

The actual odds, before considering the rank of partner's club spots:

Declarer is 3334/3244/2344 = 1/4 * 0.1054 + 2/12 * 0.2155 = 0.062
Declarer is 3352 = 1/12 * 0.1552 = 0.013

So declarer is nearly five times as likely to hold four clubs as two. (I ignored 2254 and (32)62, but they roughly cancel each other out anyway.)

[FrancesHinden]

rduran1216, on 2011-January-17, 21:47, said:

Nobody plays foster echo?

Well I'd never heard of it, but a quick google tells me that this is "a lead carding method to show count against opponent's Notrump contract as well as attempt to unblock the leader's suit. If third hand cannot overtake opener or dummy's played cards, the third seat player:

Count Play

3 Second highest card on first lead, then highest card

4 Second highest card on first lead, then third highest card."

As that seems to imply that partner plays middle then the 10 looking at 10xx, it would be a poor choice of method to be playing here.

[gszeszycki]

Upside down attitude to OUR suit leads.

Lead the Q

Before seeing the dummy we want to know if P has the J.
When the Jx hits the table P can encourage with
Txx Txxx or Txxxx (note they do not encourage ever by
using the T. The T is only played as a singleton or
any Tx.

Once P encourages I continue with the A (suit preference)
and P plays either their lowest card from Txxxx or the T from
T9xxx or any other card (except the T) from txx or txxx.
This has to be clear since I need at least 4 clubs for my plays
in the club suit to make sense and it is hugely important for me
to KNOW if continuing clubs from the top is right or not. It is
impossible to get this wrong since declarer will have to throw
the 9 on trick one or two whenever p has 5 clubs
(or when P plays the T from T9xxx). If I did not have the 8
declarer could throw a monkey wrench into the works by tossing
9 from 98xx at trick 2). With the 8 the situation is 100% clear.

I would also encourage using this same
method with any 5 clubs even w/o the T)

Yes signalling at NT is different from signalling in suit contracts.

[han]

Assuming that partner's signal at trick 1 is attitude on our lead of the queen, partner would give count at trick 2. I know that (thanks to Meckwell) it is becoming more fashionable to give standard attitude at trick 1 on the lead of an honor (or is that only on an ace or king?), I don't play that yet, so partner would give upside down attitude, hopefully low. At trick 2 he would give original upside down count, so high if he started with an odd number. No wonder I had to read lamford's post three times before I understood it.

If partner's carding is consistent with holding 10xxxx and declarer would have to have falsecarded accurately if partner had 10xx, then I'd probably play partner to have 10xxxx. Otherwise I'd play low.

The alternative of leading the king is also interesting, partner would give count at trick 1 and attitude at trick 2. It seems to me that the signals can be harder to read in this case. For example, with 1084 partner would play the 8 (odd) and then the 4 (positive), but with 842 partner would also play the 8 (odd) and then the 4 (negative). On the lead of the queen we'll at least always get the attitude, and I think we'll get it right more often.

Also, I would be worried about partner unblocking the jack if I led the king, which I play as power-lead.