[AL78]

MPs

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I know my 1NT overcall is ugly but as it was looking like we were going to be on the wrong end of a set of biased hands (and we were), I wasn't disciplined enough to pass.

Partner leads the ♣7, dummy wins with the jack, then ♥Q, covered, declarer winning, followed by another heart to my jack. How do you continue?

I'll try and edit the hand as the bidding and play have to go in reverse with the way it has come out which is confusing.

[AL78]

AL78, on 2023-January-13, 04:52, said:

MPs

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I know my 1NT overcall is ugly but as it was looking like we were going to be on the wrong end of a set of biased hands (and we were), I wasn't disciplined enough to pass.

Partner leads the ♣7, dummy wins with the jack, then ♥Q, covered, declarer winning, followed by another heart to my jack. How do you continue?

I'll try and edit the hand as the bidding and play have to go in reverse with the way it has come out which is confusing.

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For the purpose of seeing the hand from my perspective at the table, this is better.

[TMorris]

What did declarer play to trick one?

[AL78]

TMorris, on 2023-January-13, 07:02, said:

What did declarer play to trick one?

The jack.

[TMorris]

Declarer, not dummy.

[AL78]

TMorris, on 2023-January-13, 08:30, said:

Declarer, not dummy.

The five.

[mikeh]

You know the club suit. Playing the Jack if declarer has the stiff seems far to weird for us to cater to it.

I wish I knew the heart suit but I assume declarer exited a small heart….ruling out holding, say, A109xxx, where the normal play, after the queen is covered, is A then the 10)

There’s some interesting inferences that we can tentatively draw from the bidding. Declarer has shown 6 hcp so far, and surely won’t have both missing kings (that would/should start with double). Thus partner has one or both missing kings, yet passed. We can be certain that declarer has at least one spade…with KJxxxx partner would bid 2S even without the diamond K.

I think for now we lead the lowest club we have.

Win the presumed diamond and now play the club 9, to get partner to return a spade. We now have 5 tricks in and need to decide…spade to partner’s hoped for king or diamond, cashing one or two if that’s his King. We can’t lose if he has both

I don’t think it can be wrong to play a diamond. If partner has the spade king and not the diamond, declarer is either 2623 or 1633 or 3613 (he can’t be 4603 by this time…he didn’t ruff the first diamond) declarer can’t get to dummy to pitch a spade. Meanwhile, if partner has the diamond king and not the spade, a second spade may be fatal…Kxx Axxxxx xx Q104….his diamond goes away. Yes, I can see that if partner holds Kxx in spades, we’ve blown a trick already, but we we can’t cater to every possible lie of the cards.

One could argue that partner can help us. He could, for example, play the diamond King, having ruffed clubs twice, before honouring our spade signal. That might not be great if declarer held Qxx in diamonds.

It’s probably safer to play the spade King….I obviously have the Ace and if declarer is 1=6=3=3 he can’t get to dummy after ruffing the second spade…and in any event, the queen isn’t good.

If he’s 1624 (possible since my club spots were suit preference rather than count), partner either has the diamond king (so will win it later) or declarer has it.

But I’d not expect a typical club player to work all that out at the table. So I don’t think we should draw any inference from his failure to play either King after the second club ruff.

A caveat: I’m writing this while very spaced out on narcotics. I had dental surgery today and am ‘enjoying’ the benefits of what was, pre-medication, significant discomfort. So if I’ve messed something up, I’ve already given my excuse😀

[AL78]

MikeH provides a good analysis as always and again I didn't think it out to that depth, but I played partner for a singleton club and proceeded to get a bottom when the club layout turned out to be as follows:

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I'm looking at this again, maybe she put a top honor up instead of the jack, the latter is completely crazy. What happened was I got in with a trump and played partner for a singleton club so led one hoping to give partner a ruff and instead gave declarer two diamond discards. Sorry my post-session memory is very hazy at times.

[dokoko]

AL78, on 2023-January-14, 06:05, said:

MikeH provides a good analysis as always and again I didn't think it out to that depth, but I played partner for a singleton club and proceeded to get a bottom when the club layout turned out to be as follows:

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I'm looking at this again, maybe she put a top honor up instead of the jack, the latter is completely crazy. What happened was I got in with a trump and played partner for a singleton club so led one hoping to give partner a ruff and instead gave declarer two diamond discards. Sorry my post-session memory is very hazy at times.

The normal plan for declarer is: win T1 with a top club, discard a diamond on the other top club, then play on trumps to make 9 tricks - regardless of your defense.

If he won the first trick with the jack (unlikely) he should have made 10 tricks by discarding both diamonds immediately on the top clubs.

I guess he took a top club at the start and now your partner could have helped you with a trump signal. Back in the old days the so-called trump echo (hi-lo in trumps) showed a 3rd trump and a desire to ruff. If you had that agreement, partner could tell you by following upwards that he cannot ruff. Playing that way you would go for your side-suit winners thereby holding declarer to 8 tricks.

[AL78]

dokoko, on 2023-January-14, 07:15, said:

I guess he took a top club at the start and now your partner could have helped you with a trump signal. Back in the old days the so-called trump echo (hi-lo in trumps) showed a 3rd trump and a desire to ruff. If you had that agreement, partner could tell you by following upwards that he cannot ruff. Playing that way you would go for your side-suit winners thereby holding declarer to 8 tricks.

This is an example of where I misdefend given two options and choosing the wrong one. I decided that partner almost certainly had led a singleton but thought about cashing the diamond ace first and observing partner's signal. Had I done that, he would have encouraged with a high spot card and we would have cashed our diamond tricks. Instead I came up with the fantasy that I lead a low club for partner to ruff, he returns a diamond and I give him a second ruff. That might have been a good try at IMPS but maybe a too narrow target to aim for at MPs.

[mikeh]

Nowadays most good players don’t (usually) give count in trump. It is more common to give suit preference. So partner, if playing that style, would follow in trump up the line, suggesting you lead the lowest suit. With his actual hand, he should play his middle trump then his lowest, to suggest diamonds.

There are exceptions. For example, if we lead a stiff, partner wins and immediately gives us a ruff, obviously we don’t need to signal for that suit anymore now, we’d give count in trump to let partner know whether, should he get on lead, we have another ruff available.

Just in case anyone thinks that this sort of approach is a lot of work for little gain, consider this hand. It’s definitely worth being able to tell partner ‘I can ruff clubs’ or, as in this case, I have a good diamond card and can’t ruff clubs