awm, on 2012-May-30, 00:16, said:
How about an ordinary small club? If declarer continues club from dummy, I will win the king and exit a spade. If he cashes dummy's diamond at any point I am pitching a small club. Declarer will get four diamonds, the heart ace, the club ace, and two spades. I will get three spades, the diamond queen, and the club king.. unless at some point declarer calls a heart from dummy in which case we should have no trouble scoring two hearts, a diamond, a club, and a spade.
It is superficially appealing to unblock the club king, but partner could easily have a hand like ♠xxx ♥KQJ9xx ♦x ♣JTx in which case he will be endplayed by three rounds of clubs and forced to give declarer a trick with the heart ten.
Declarer would hardly have played that way with
♣Qxxxx, nor should partner play the
♣J from
♣JTx.
In your layout declarer would not be so keen to unblock the
♦T on the first diamond. This gives the show away that he does not have the
♣Q.
After
♦K dropping the
♦J, declarer would try to establish clubs. Now unblocking the
♣K on the
♣A at trick 3, which is not so easy, would become necessary to beat the contract.
However, partner might hold
♠xxx
♥KQTxxx
♦J
♣QJx or
♠xxx
♥KQJxxx
♦J
♣QJx , where tossing the
♣K gives away the contract now.
phil_20686, on 2012-May-30, 03:45, said:
The only layouts where it is right to unblock are those where declarer has a second heart trick. Could partner have led from KJTxxx? In that case unblocking is necessary as they only need to establish one spade trick, and that cannot be prevented if you keep the club K, as you need to bare it on the last diamond.
For me playing the
♣J in this position denies the
♣T or
♣9. But whatever partner has in clubs, how does it help to unblock the
♣K assuming that partner has
♥KJTxxx?
Why can I not discard a spade on the fifth diamond? "Unblocking" the
♣ K does not help, only allows declarer to establish clubs for an overtrick.
I see no layout where you have to get rid of the
♣K now.
If partner has played a weird
♣J from
♣QJ9 or
♣QJT, discard a spade on the fifth diamond, play low on the club from dummy and the
♣K on the
♥J.
Rainer Herrmann