[kenberg]

My apologies for the careless way that this was first posted. Hopefully I have it fixed now.

I got this wrong, but perhaps it is of interest. I'll make a comment or two about discarding agreements, and I'll be interested in any thoughts.
Matchpoints, casual pick-up, std cding.

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Partner led the club 3 to the 5,J,K
Club 6 on my left, 2,A,?


I suppose that clubs began as 5-5. Lho presumably holds at most three spades. I will, for now, play declarer for 3=2=3=5. I figure to let him break his own spades. I play the spade 4, standard.

Comment: I have never agreed with the claim that udca allows you to hold on to your high cards. Rightly or wrongly (and it was right) I want to discourage spades and I am happy to be able to play the 4 to do so.

Heart 5 from dummy, 2,A,4. Some evidence my shape guess is right.

Club T, 4, D2,H3

Club 9, Q, S3, ?

And here is where I made my error, playing the D7.

Club 8 from partner! H7,D3, C7! (Declarer presumably lost track of club spots but in fact he had no good options.)

My trusting partner now played the king of diamonds, holding, and then a small diamond into declarer's AJ.

My error. If I play my diamonds low up, there is at least a shot he will work out to play a heart and we will beat 1NT for a very good score.

After the hand partner commented about how he really prefers o/e discards. Yes? So if my 4 were a 5 I have to pitch the spade T at trick 2? Rather not.


At any rate, the real issue here, as it is so often, is selecting the correct message to send. The sending part is often easy enough.

Thank you for your patience with this.

[barmar]

I'm not sure what problem you're complaining about. Diamonds is your best suit, isn't that the message you wanted to send? And it's the message partner got, but he didn't do the right thing with it. He has to figure out that that the right thing to do is end-play declarer. If you have the ♦K it doesn't matter, it's not going away, but if you have the Q he's finessing you.

And I really don't understand your question about o/e. ♠9 would encourage spades, which is not the message you want to send. ♠4 would discourage, and suggest diamonds. But partner still has to figure out what to do with this information.

[kenberg]

I corrected the last part about the spades. My intended point was that with KT9x I want to discourage with the x, whether it be odd or even.


My point with the diamonds; I have figured out the hand, partner hasn't. And so, if I think about it, I know I want partner to not lead a diamond. I want him to get off play with a heart. So I should do whatever is systemic to discourage a diamond. Any diamond, and any spade, gives declarer seven tricks A heart does not. Playing my diamonds in discouraging order may get him at least thinking, and it should not be too difficult for him to work out that I have the now bare J of hearts.

Maybe he should get it anyway, but playing diamonds in an encouraging order didn't help him.

[Phil352]

Personally I think by the time you're discarding diamonds the discard no longer gives attitude but should be count. You've already discouraged spades and presumably gave count on the play of the heart. Pitching a small diamond here would be a count signal to my mind.

P.S. Would have been easier to follow if you'd shown us dummy too.

[kenberg]

 Phil352, on 2011-August-02, 15:28, said:

P.S. Would have been easier to follow if you'd shown us dummy too.

My error! Absolutely. Will fix.