[eagles123]

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partner leads the 7 of spades to the 3 J K

declarer returns the 4 of clubs to 6 J A


firstly, is there a sensible reason to duck this? If not, what should I play at trick 3

many thanks

Eagles

[kenberg]

I am thinking we need partner to have some heart cards, and that would seem likely from the spade lead. Now a question or two.

What can we make of the lead of the spade 7?
Given that he is leading a spade, what would he lead from 976?
How about 9764?
Or 764?

What I am getting at is: Can declarer develop three spade tricks? If he holds the 9, then yes. If he has three develop[able tricks in spades and four tricks coming in clubs we have a serious problem here. Of course no one says declarer has to have the club Q so maybe he has only three club tricks available.

Anyway I am in fact tempted to duck the first club. If declarer started Qxx he will just lead back toward it, but at leas there will be some clarity from that.

I am going to defend assuming that we have some heart tricks coming and that declarer needs the club suit. But I do want to hear about the spade 7.

[KurtGodel]

Scoring? Strength of NT rebid? 4/5cM? Leads?
With the limited information available I'll just play a heart.

[mikeh]

More tricks are lost by giving away this sort of club holding than are ever lost by adopting the policy that 'when in doubt, duck smoothly'.

Ducking without a full analysis of the hand can end up being 'wrong', but there are going to be many situations in which giving away one's holding, by hesitating is going to be costly. It is best to try to slow down at trick one and anticipate the play. For example, here it should be obvious that declarer may well lead a club at trick 2, and one should not let declarer turn over the spade K until we have thought about the hand.

As for what I would do: I would duck and let declarer give me more insight into his hand.

Thus, if he pushed another club from dummy, he will hold Qxx and by holding off until the 3rd round, I let partner give me info. For example, if partner holds 97xx AJ109 Axx xx, he pitches a discouraging diamond.

There are too many permutations to set out in advance what I would do if he plays something other than a club. I would pop the spade, of course, if he plays low back to his presumed 9x in the suit, which he almost certainly wouldn't do if he has Qxx in clubs. And I'd pretty much have to play a top of nothing heart: partner will certainly infer the club A, so the defence should be virtually double dummy thereafter.