Mbodell, on 2012-May-20, 15:40, said:
Q4, What was the defensive question? There were a decent number of places where we could have set them more than 1. Obviously winning the first round of spades and then clearing S's clubs and then playing on diamonds does it. So does pitching the spade 9 instead of the 5th diamond from S. So does cashing the clubs before playing on the diamonds. But I'm not sure if the diamond and club positions are clear to S.
As you point out, there are several ways to take an extra trick. We can go over the logic of each one, but lord knows I made enough defensive errors I don't want to caste stones least I get buried in a return avalanche.
But there are some questions about trick 7 and your carding from the defense on this hand (I have not looked at other defensive hands for you guys) i wanted to ask about.
- Trick one. The ♦2 surely looks like udca.
- Trick two. The low heart by north COULD BE (but because of later defense must not be) trump suit preference showing club value or nothing of value
- Trick three low heart by north should be pointing now to club value, certainly denying spade value?
- Trick four, declarer shows out on 2nd round of trumps. North makes far sighted unblock of the intermediate diamond (nine).
- Trick five, club discard by south seems to be on a winning track (keeping long diamonds)
- Trick six, the ♠4 confused me, normal count and inverted attitude maybe?
- Trick seven, all is obvious. Declarer had 5♥, 1♦ and didn't raise spades. Presumably south has accurate count on spades (if for no other reason than he ducked trick 8). All the trumps are in, so the defense can win at this point 1♣, 3♦, and 1♠ in the six card ending. South throws a diamond and lets the ♠J win trick eight. This is a 100% lose option. It LOSES even if west has the club king, because now declarer makes instead of easy down one. Throwing the diamond was a clear mistake
- Trick eight, south wins the spade Jack. The hand is double dummy now. You are going to score two diamonds and the club Ace. If declarer has the club king, he will make. i think bang the club ace to see what partner plays (encouraging card or not) seems reasonable. But the easy defense was already screwed up when the diamond was pitched on the last trump.
What would help the defense is if north could, at sometime, have signaled a club value. There was several chances to do so. i actually think North defended the hand very well (assuming normal count signals) with his sequence of plays, including the excellent unblock of the
♦9, would have convinced me north had the
♣King. Any way, at trick seven, south knows the hand is down one if he throws a spade, and down two if partner happens to hold the
♣K. The line of play he took allows it to make if declarer has the
♣King, and only managed to set it one when he didn't.
So the questions i had were, what signalling methods were you using (and could you show a club value), and why did south discard the certain setting trick on the last round of hearts?