[inquiry]

I posted probably what should be Advanced Defensive Play five in the interesting hand forum, entitled thanks eric. That is because that was a hand I defended correctly based upon reading Eric's Rodwell's book "rodwell files". I should have read that book a little more closely, because here is a hand I screwed up, but his book actually points the correct defense. I will remember this hand, and the lesson from his book that I forgot when I played this and get these right in the future.

Bonus points, what did eric name the play you need to do on this hand?

Matchpoints.

On the auction, 2♦ was non-forcing, and implied (due to lack of support for hearts or clubs) a six card suit in your methods. You are using marshal Miles idea that a rebid of 2nt on competitive auctions like this is the strong way to show something at the three level and the direct bid at the three level (in competitive auctions) is the weaker way. Your 3♦ bid was "competitive". The double of 3♠ may not have been well advised, but you held out hope that 3♦ was making when you bid it, so you want to protect your score in case 3♠ is down only one.

Partner led the ♣7 to the Ten. Dummy was a HUGE SURPRISE!!! How do you play. In your planning, declarer will start spade ace and a spade as soon as he gets in. IF you need a signal from partner to plan the defense, tell me when and what kind of signals you expect.

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[MrAce]

Lead is obvious stiff.

Dont cover with ♣J and when in with ♠K dont give pd a ♣ ruff but try to kill ♥A entry.

Declarer probably have something like

QT9xx
xxx
Qxx
Kx

Now he cant go to dummy without overtaking his own K, and if he does then he doesnt have enuf tricks to make i guess.

EDIT : i am not sure if we can defeat this if pd doesnt have ♥Q

[Fluffy]

I don't find an alternative to heart switch, just that switch to ♥K because maybe partner has ♠Q and not ♥Q

[inquiry]

Well done on this one.... everyone got it right, but me.... Here is the hand.

Ducking the first trick in this situation has been covered in two or three of the Defensive play series in the beginner/intermediate forum. This is well known strategy, and Rodwell has a single descriptive word for this... futility. It is the first of many reasons he gives when it is wrong to play 3rd hand high (and the most obvious) one. Yes, I got that PART right.

At this point, after the first 3 tricks, two lines of defense work, and both lines require your partner to have the diamond Ace and the heart queen. You can shift to any heart or any diamond. IF you led a diamond, then the next trick has to be heart. Like a monkey, after getting trick one right, I returned a club. IT was matchpoints, but I didn't think this one out. That can never be right.

A small technical point perhaps, perhaps not, you might should cash the ♦king then play a heart. Perhaps even getting some kind of signal in diamonds if partner has the heart queen... after all, if you shift to the heart king and delcarer has the heart queen, they will make 12 tricks (all the clubs, two hearts and 4 spades), but it is the same matchpoint zero BECAUSE of the double. The heart king (or jack or ten, or small) seems best.

This hand has a number of lesson found in rodwell's book. Futility we already discussed, but also the not giving partner a ruff. If parnter ruffs the king of clubs, your side is out of trumps, and the heart and diamond losers all get thrown away on the remaining clubs. He discusses this situation in the chapter 7 when discussing to ruff or not to ruff. Attacking the entry to the dummy's long suit is covered in several places, and has a lot of different names, but lets go with the simple attack the side entry to dummy's long suit from chapter 9, countering a menacing side suit.

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