[ezyang]

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You elect to lead the D6; partner discourages with the D8, declarer dropping the D4. Declarer now advances the HK, partner winning the HA. Partner shifts to the C6, declarer playing the C9. What do you play?

[Free]

deleted rubish

[MrAce]

ezyang, on 2015-August-27, 20:56, said:

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You elect to lead the D6; partner discourages with the D8, declarer dropping the D4. Declarer now advances the HK, partner winning the HA. Partner shifts to the C6, declarer playing the C9. What do you play?

Duck of course! Since you asked it declarer must have QT98(x) ♣

[phil_20686]

MrAce, on 2015-September-05, 11:01, said:

Duck of course! Since you asked it declarer must have QT98(x) ♣

This just feels odd. Why did partner win the first heart? why did partner switch to a club when you lead a diamond and hit AK on the table? partner is basically guaranteed to have a stiff diamond unless he has 5 clubs, but why did declarer play the 8? Playing the T or Q from QT98x would be much more normal to disguise the position.

the spades are going to 3442, and clubs are 5225, then partner has a stiff diamond and 6 hearts, which is impossible.

I feel like if we can beat this by ducking the club, then partner must have done something very wrong. A club from shortage is such a weird switch with a safe diamond, and, if he doesn't have AQ9x of hearts, a safe heart switch.

Ducking the club is really assuming that both rho and partner have played quite bizarrely I think?

[MrAce]

phil_20686, on 2015-September-08, 08:30, said:

This just feels odd. Why did partner win the first heart? why did partner switch to a club when you lead a diamond and hit AK on the table? partner is basically guaranteed to have a stiff diamond unless he has 5 clubs, but why did declarer play the 8? Playing the T or Q from QT98x would be much more normal to disguise the position.

the spades are going to 3442, and clubs are 5225, then partner has a stiff diamond and 6 hearts, which is impossible.

I feel like if we can beat this by ducking the club, then partner must have done something very wrong. A club from shortage is such a weird switch with a safe diamond, and, if he doesn't have AQ9x of hearts, a safe heart switch.

Ducking the club is really assuming that both rho and partner have played quite bizarrely I think?

I do not understand some (most) of your comments. If clubs are 5225 we call the TD If he doesn't have AQ9x ♥? 9 is in the dummy. And RHO did not play ♣8, he played ♣ 9 although I am having hard time to understand what difference does it make? What was he supposed to play from say QT98(x) or Q987

I said "we duck of course" because the way problem was asked. I expect pd to hold something like 5422 5413 4423.
We need him to hold ♠AJ or declarer has too many tricks (3h+2sp+3d+1cl) If pd has AJxxx ♠ and AQxx ♥ he would have overcalled 1♠ so he probably has 4 spades only.
I do not understand what ducking ♥ will do for us. I assume you said this because you did not see ♥9 in dummy.
About why pd did not play ♦. Maybe he saw that it won't help him to delay the ♣ shift and he does not know who has the club spots, it may as well be you holding KJ98 KJT8 and he wanted to play right away. Sorry but I am having hard time to see anything too weird about defense of pd and play of declarer.

Give pd AJxx AQxx xx xxx and I see nothing wrong with ♣ shift.

[alok c]

Duck.As it appears North has 3 quick entries in his hand & trying to establish 2 club tricks in partner's hand.Otherwise the game is cold.

[MrAce]

alok c, on 2015-September-08, 13:22, said:

Duck.As it appears North has 3 quick entries in his hand & trying to establish 2 club tricks in partner's hand.Otherwise the game is cold.

♣6 is interesting though, we need to know the leads in the middle, I said we should duck because of the way problem was asked. I do not think OP asked this problem at this stage of the play so that we will know to play J.

Say pd has QT7(6) ♣ and no ♠A then ducking would be awful.

[ezyang]

MrAce is spot on. Full deal:

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(Yes, at the table partner lead the CT, but I don't think you have any reason to figure it out in that case.)

[phil_20686]

MrAce, on 2015-September-08, 12:27, said:

About why pd did not play ♦. Maybe he saw that it won't help him to delay the ♣ shift and he does not know who has the club spots, it may as well be you holding KJ98 KJT8 and he wanted to play right away. Sorry but I am having hard time to see anything too weird about defense of pd and play of declarer.

Give pd AJxx AQxx xx xxx and I see nothing wrong with ♣ shift.

Um lead could easily be from QJxxx diamond with partners only entry in clubs? If declarer has QT9 of clubs you can be taking away a guess from declarer in the club suit. He might place ace and another giving your partner two club tricks.

On the given hand, ducking the first heart, winning the second looks pretty normal to me, just to make communications more difficult for declarer. Then return a diamond. What can declarer do? He will probably play a spade to the ace and a spade to the Q. When that holds, if he tries to cash the diamond Q pitching a club he is trivially off, as you still have stops in both majors, so he will probably try a spade to the ten. At that point you can just win the J and return a low spade. Whatever he does you will not come to 1c and 4 major suit tricks by stranding him in dummy. Even if he has the QJ of clubs it doesn't help him, as if he finesses in clubs, you can use one major suit tempo to clear the club ace, and another to get the club K.

Lets imagine instead that he decides to establish hearts. You win the second heart, return a diamond, win the third heart. This is a stronger line from declarer as now east has to switch to a club, but at this point its obvious to partner what is happening, so he can duck this club easily.

Ducking one heart feels like the default here. If you don't duck and switch to a suit into Ax it feels like you know exactly how the defence should go and its because you have long clubs yourself. its what you might do with AQx heart and Qxxxxx clubs or something, although that's not very consistent with the bidding. It just doesn't feel consistent with a hand that isn't really sure whether to go active or passive. On your hand, if you give partner those club pips to go with the diamond honour that he promised, is he not basically 100% to go off unless dec has the Q9 of spades and guesses the spade J right, and returning a diamond to make partner the possible danger hand with long cashing diamonds should encourage him to get the spade wrong!

I guess that is what feels weird. Partner winning the heart ace and switching to a suit that isn't mine feels like he is strongly indicating that he feels the most likely way to beat this is with club tricks, in which case ducking would be pretty bad. Partner could easily be switching himself from QT86. If I duck to the 9 in this situation my partner will chop off my head!

[Zelandakh]

Is everyone ok with the diamond lead here? On a club lead the defence is pretty much automatic despite partner not holding the cards there we would like.

[MrAce]

Zelandakh, on 2015-September-16, 05:03, said:

Is everyone ok with the diamond lead here? On a club lead the defence is pretty much automatic despite partner not holding the cards there we would like.

♦ lead looks almost auto to me. But you know what I think of my leads so....