[inquiry]

After a series of minor swings in the favor of team BBO Forum, we had a small lead (13-0) when board 6 came along. Both tables had the same auction, the same opening lead (small diamond) won in dummy with the nine, and the same trick two (diamond to the king-ace). I managed just 8 tricks costing us 12 imps as 9 tricks were won at the other table.

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[Mbodell]

There is obviously nothing you can do here. We had the same auction and same first two tricks with the ♣2 and ♣3 discards. At our table partner tried the ♠7 and now there are 5♦+2♠+1♥+1♣ for 9 sure tricks. I don't have to have so much in hearts and so little in spades, especially because dealer is known to have just 2 spades, but could have 3 hearts. That said, I don't really like the spade because even if my strength is in spades and not hearts (say KJT-fifth of hearts and the heart A) it is hard to see how we set it before declarer sets up extra club or heart tricks to go with the diamonds. Also the club pitches sort of suggest hearts since the first 2 discourages clubs and the 3 then has vague suit preference possibilities (but really quite vague for us). But I didn't get a chance to ask Alan about it.

[mike777]

?


I thought the defense was not that hard but ok....

in other words switch to h(dummies weakest suit) but maybe I miss something deeper.

[gszes]

n should have been able to tell that our side is unlikely to
set 3n if you dont have something in hearts and they should signal
for a heart switch (however you do that in your system). Absent
a heart signal I think a spade switch is perfectly resonable since
your p is marked with 5 spades and probably cant afford to throw
them away.

[barmar]

Seems like a good hand for Lavinthal discards. North playing his lowest ♣ on the first two tricks should ask for ♥ switch.

[Mbodell]

 gszes, on 2012-May-20, 10:14, said:

n should have been able to tell that our side is unlikely to
set 3n if you dont have something in hearts and they should signal
for a heart switch (however you do that in your system). Absent
a heart signal I think a spade switch is perfectly resonable since
your p is marked with 5 spades and probably cant afford to throw
them away.

We play natural discards. I didn't think I could discard a spade (EW can quite likely lose 1 spade and set up 4 tricks with the ♣Q as entry) nor discard a heart (they could be 4=3=3=3 around the table where my 4th heart is the setting trick). As I said the first club discard of the 2 discourages clubs. The second discard of clubs should be suit preference, but we certainly aren't consistent in giving that second signal, so a default next lowest club could certainly come when I didn't care between spades and hearts.

What is the holding where a spade switch sets them and a heart wouldn't that is consistent with the bidding and play to date?

[MrAce]

This board has nothing to do with you, Ben. Nothing you can do and imo you guys did well in bidding. Perhaps teammates could have made a better choice of discards at T1 and T2 in other room, which would make T3 choice easy for defense.

[Mbodell]

 MrAce, on 2012-May-20, 22:27, said:

This board has nothing to do with you, Ben. Nothing you can do and imo you guys did well in bidding. Perhaps teammates could have made a better choice of discards at T1 and T2 in other room, which would make T3 choice easy for defense.

What T1 and T2 discards would you make?

[MrAce]

 Mbodell, on 2012-May-20, 23:40, said:

What T1 and T2 discards would you make?

Playing natural discards and asking for ♥, i either A-play high heart (which i wouldnt with this) or B-play small of 2 other suits

♣2

♠2

If i was your pd, i would take your 2nd ♣ discard as SP, but from your hand i would not discard a 2nd ♣ for various reasons.

[gnasher]

If South is unsure what to switch to after winning the second diamond, he could try not winning it.

[Codo]

Like Andy, I doubt that the ace of diamond will be ruffed out.

And it must be right to discard a spade. Declarer will nearly never need 4 spade tricks to make his game.

[han]

The discouraging club discards were all that south needed to find the heart switch. Declarer has 5 diamond tricks, the club ace and the spade ace, and the club queen behind the king. The defense can never take more than 1 spade trick. If declarer has 2 heart honors the contract cannot be beaten.