[Tramticket]

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Swiss Teams. Opps are playing five-card majors 2-over-1, strong NT.

Partner leads the ♣K. Declarer wins in dummy, cashes the ♠A and leads the ♠3.

Do you split your honours? And why?


[Edited - see Lovera response].

[Lovera]

Tramticket, on 2018-July-23, 01:17, said:

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Swiss Teams. Opps are playing five-card majors 2-over-1, strong NT.

Partner leads the ♣K. Declarer wins in dummy, cashes the ♠A and leads the ♠3.

Do you split your honours? And why?

Having S four Aces N has Kings. Probably the answer is in 5♥(=2keys w/o Q) at RKB but 1 key there is ♠ K the other is by mine variant :2 keys w/o or 1key + void.

[JanisW]

I have to split my honours. The Club Looser will always disappear on ♥ or ♦. Therefore if I duck and N correctly guesses to play low, I will have to use my Trump-winner to ruff a ♦ or ♥.
If I split honours and keep a small trump, I will be able to ruff low and cash my master-trump. NS have no time to avoid that, because they have to get rid of their ♣-looser first.

[Tramticket]

Lovera, on 2018-July-23, 02:06, said:

Having S four Aces N has Kings. Probably the answer is in 5♥(=2keys w/o Q) at RKB but 1 key there is ♠ K the other is by mine variant :2 keys w/o or 1key + void.

Good spot. The response was actually 5♦ (one key card). I have edited the opening post.

[JanisW]

I assumed 6keycard-responses in this sequence, which might not be stupid at all. The ♥K will almost be as important as the ♠K in this sequence.

[johnu]

Assuming declarer has 2+ clubs, the percentage declarer play is to play for trumps 3-2 by playing 2 high trumps and run the red suits for club pitches. (what spade did partner play?) Taking a double spade finesse loses whenever East has a trump honor. Declarer should have a double heart since there was no heart raise but I guess it depends on the player involved.

[Stephen Tu]

JanisW, on 2018-July-23, 02:21, said:

I have to split my honours. The Club Looser will always disappear on ♥ or ♦. Therefore if I duck and N correctly guesses to play low, I will have to use my Trump-winner to ruff a ♦ or ♥.
If I split honours and keep a small trump, I will be able to ruff low and cash my master-trump. NS have no time to avoid that, because they have to get rid of their ♣-looser first.

BTW the term is "loser" not "looser".
I think splitting is insane. Declarer if has club loser has something like K98xx Kx KQx Jxx. He is planning to play high trumps and run hearts and hope the long spade has 3+ hearts. He is never going to deep hook the 9. If you split, then you ruff the 4th heart but then declarer just overruffs, returns to DA and puts the fifth heart through, or if you ruff high goes ahead and takes 2nd discard.

If no club loser then your only real hope is declarer forgets the safety play anyway.

[JanisW]

Stephen Tu, on 2018-July-23, 03:38, said:

BTW the term is "loser" not "looser".
I think splitting is insane. Declarer if has club loser has something like K98xx Kx KQx Jxx. He is planning to play high trumps and run hearts and hope the long spade has 3+ hearts. He is never going to deep hook the 9. If you split, then you ruff the 4th heart but then declarer just overruffs, returns to DA and puts the fifth heart through, or if you ruff high goes ahead and takes 2nd discard.

If no club loser then your only real hope is declarer forgets the safety play anyway.

You are right of course, I forgot about the 5th ♥.
I do know about the need to split honours in order to ruff low, and just assumed this was an examplary case, but the 5th ♥ means this effort is in vain.

If South were 3442, you would actually need to split honours (checked with DeepFinesse). Did not pay enough attention. My bad.

[FelicityR]

Split honours? Why? If partner has produced a ♠ on the first round of trumps, declarer is hardly going to take a deep finesse. That is just not the percentage play.

[Lovera]

Tramticket, on 2018-July-23, 02:44, said:

Good spot. The response was actually 5♦ (one key card). I have edited the opening post.

Ah, i see. Infact(=Swiss Team) i was thinking if was the case to buy a smoking.

[msjennifer]

One can see 5 Heart winners in dummy and so one must not split the honors .If one does split then it is only handing the contract on a platter( If declarer plays normally).

[thawp66]

JanisW, on 2018-July-23, 02:55, said:

I assumed 6keycard-responses in this sequence, which might not be stupid at all. The ♥K will almost be as important as the ♠K in this sequence.

The key card response is almost irrelevant because of points. Dummy has 20, you have 3 and partner presumably has 5 !CKQ. That leaves 12 for declarer who opened. It’s possible declarer might be missing the CJ but more than that would limit him to 10 maximum.

[thawp66]

Stephen Tu, on 2018-July-23, 03:38, said:

BTW the term is "loser" not "looser".
I think splitting is insane. Declarer if has club loser has something like K98xx Kx KQx Jxx. He is planning to play high trumps and run hearts and hope the long spade has 3+ hearts. He is never going to deep hook the 9. If you split, then you ruff the 4th heart but then declarer just overruffs, returns to DA and puts the fifth heart through, or if you ruff high goes ahead and takes 2nd discard.

If no club loser then your only real hope is declarer forgets the safety play anyway.

I agree with your analysis, though I would like to know what partner played on the first trump; did he follow suit?
In addition, if declarer has 5=2=4=2, the only way to make it is for you to split.

However, proper English would be “Declarer, if he has a club loser...” or “If declarer has a club loser...”. If you’re going to correct someone else’s grammar, then you should probably not make any errors of your own! 😀