[twcho]

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Team match. You have decided to try your luck and defend the 5♥XX contract.

First of all, one has to decide which suit to lead? Without hoping much from partner, you try to be passive and lead your singleton ♦9. Dummy tabled his hand with ♠J7 ♥QJT963 ♦J83 ♣97. Declarer cover the 9 with J and partner follows with 6 and declarer 4. Declarer then lead a small trump to his K, partner follows. How will you defend from then on?

Your defensive carding is udca and how will you interpret your partner's ♦6?

[jukmoi]

I think ♦6 is simply discouracing. Maybe from ♦10652. If that is the case we can count declarer 11 tricks so we should start cashing black aces. ♠A first and ♣A next and partner will show attitude to indicate in wich suit (if any) he holds the king.

I dont believe pass should be forcing here. 4♠ doesnt show any defensive strenght.

[nigel_k]

Good question.

My view is that the signal on partner's lead should normally be attitude. If that is illogical it should be count. If that is also illogical it should be suit preference. I tend to stick to this quite rigidly because in my experience you just have too many misunderstandings otherwise. It's not always optimal though and a partnership that is really in sync and/or has lots of experience or agreements can do a bit better.

In this situation, attitude is illogical when partner doesn't beat the jack. He wouldn't hold up the ace here hoping I have a doubleton and a trump entry because the contract is probably always down given my double as long as he takes the ace. Count is not illogical because it helps partner work out how many diamond tricks declarer has which can be important.

Therefore the ♦6 is count, an odd number. Since we also know declarer has the seven as partner didn't play it, partner cannot have five diamonds. So declarer has six diamond tricks and we need to cash. Maybe his hand is xxx Kxx AKQ1074 A. Declarer should have followed to trick one with the 7 but sometimes people slip up.

Some other points:
1. If partner meant the ♦6 as attitude, declarer has five diamond tricks so going passive is no good.
2. If partner meant the ♦6 as suit preference, obviously a spade is best.
3. If partner has played a bad card and turns out the have the ♦7 all along and declarer only has four diamond tricks, we still don't beat it by going passive. If declarer has something like Kxx Kxx AKQx AQx he can pitch one spade on the diamonds and then lead ♠J endplaying us.

[FrancesHinden]

Pass of 5H isn't forcing.

I think partner's diamond card is count, because as already said the attitude is known already.
We might have liked suit preference, but he might not have the pips to make it clear anyway, and he may not have any useful high black suit honours. Also, count is useful.
The missing diamonds are 107652. Partner should always make the clearest signal possible, if he has an odd number he can't have the 10 or 7; if he has an even number he can't have the 5 or 2. With an odd number he can only have exactly 652; with an even number he can have 76 or 106.

That gives declarer at least 6 diamonds.

One thing that should be uncontroversial is that partner's heart card should be suit preference (if he has more than one). So if we are only interested in beating the contract, we should duck the heart. We'll get a signal from partner either on the next heart, or on the next couple of rounds of diamonds as we discard.

If we want to beat the contract by two or more with our diamond ruff, I have to guess (based on partner's heart card) which black card he has. That depends slightly on what our double means: if it is an 'action' double just showing extra values then I would have expected partner to bid with the SK and little in the way of high cards so I would play him for the CA. However, from the auction I think he is more likely to have the SK, so perhaps our double was strict penalties.

[kenrexford]

I'm thinking about this from a completely backwards perspective.

Declarer probably knows that our diamond lead is a stiff lead, and he probably suspects that we will win the heart Ace, with a guess as to what to do next. So, let's assume these two facts for the sake of discussion. Lets also suppose that Declarer has six diamonds, as one suspects. Partner will then have three diamonds.

I also believe that partner should be thinking along the same lines.

The six of diamonds could be partner's highest diamond, from 6-5-2. In that event, partner's diamond was the highest he could play. Additionally, Declarer was stuck without any way to falsecard.

The six of diamonds could also be partner's lowest, from 10-7-6. In that event, partner is screaming as best he can that he wants a club switch. But, if that's the case, Declarer fears a club switch and might want to make that 6 possibly high. Declarer would probably play the 5 in that event.

So, I cannot imagine that partner wants a club. For partner to want a club, he has to have been dealt one specific holding (10-7-6) and Declarer must have falsecarded (not playing his smallest) but not have falsecarded in the strongest possible manner (playing the 5).

It appears, therefore, that a spade seems right.

Now, the 6 might just be a middle card because partner has nothing, and the opponents may be making, but it is too late to withdraw the redouble.

[jukmoi]

Our rules are 1. partners signal is attitude unless it is absolutely clear to both partners that attitude is useless. I was thinking about the possiblity of partner ducking ♦A playing me for ♦doubleton, when I said I believe this is an attitude situation. 2. Second priority is count. Obviously count can be useful here since it can tell me whether I can afford passive defence. 3. If both count and attitude are both useless then signal is attitude.

[twcho]

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The successful defense is winning with trump A, cash ♠A, ♠ ruff and ♦ ruff resulting in 2 off (redoubled!).

At the table, I won with trump A and returned my remaining trump which resulted in +1!! A total of 26 imps swing (the other table 4♥+2)

[nigel_k]

So what was the ♦6?

If it was supposed to be suit preference, I really don't like playing a middle card with no preference unless you are known to have many cards in the suit. It's too hard to read.