[CSGibson]

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The context is that you are playing in the district GNT superflights against one of the best partnerships in the room.

In the auction you've denied a 4 card major, and have shown a non-minimum. Partner does not necessarily have a 4 card major for this auction, this is the only way for him to show an invitational hand.

You get the 7♥ lead (4th best or 2nd from a bad 4 or 5 card holding), and when you play low from dummy, Righty pops Q. Any thoughts on the best line?

I'll give some continuations later.

Edited to make South declarer.

[Hanoi5]

I'll try the diamonds for 4 tricks, 7 to the Ace and 2 towards the Queen.

[FrancesHinden]

 Hanoi5, on 2011-May-22, 00:01, said:

I'll try the diamonds for 4 tricks, 7 to the Ace and 2 towards the Queen.

.....and guessing spades, or finding one hand with both the KJ

[hatchett]

 FrancesHinden, on 2011-May-22, 04:44, said:

.....and guessing spades, or finding one hand with both the KJ

Most of the time ♦s play for four tricks I don't have to guess spades. Only when RHO switched to a ♠
when he wins the ♦K and he has the ♣A do I have a spade "guess" and even
then I have to guesswrong twice.

[FrancesHinden]

I must be missing something.
You play a diamond to the ace and a diamond up. Rho switches to a spade. You guess wrong, playing the 10 (say) and LHO plays the jack. If you take this, you are cut off from the diamonds, so you duck; now you need LHO to have the KJ so when he plays another one you can duck that round to your queen. Or as you say if he has the KJ he can play a club across for another spade through.

I'm not sure what the right line is, but if the opponents know what they are doing, then I would have thought that 'most of the time' RHO has Kxx or Kx of diamonds you will get a spade through.

[gnasher]

I'd play two rounds of diamonds anyway. If LHO has ♦K, they can't get at the spade entry, so we'll still be making if RHO has ♣A and ♠K.

[AlexJonson]

The only choice (IMO) is diamonds as already suggested, or Queen of clubs then diamonds.

[gnasher]

I can think of two other reasonable lines of play:
- Duck one diamond, then if we still have a spade entry play a diamond to the ace. That picks up ♦Kx in either hand; if that doesn't work we can still play for diamonds 3-2 and an extra black-suit trick.
- Duck two diamonds unless LHO has ♦Kx, then manufacture an extra trick from the black suits.

This post has been edited by gnasher: 2011-May-22, 14:24

[CSGibson]

The popular line appears to be diamond to the ace, and diamond back. Righty started with KJx of diamonds, and pops K on the 2nd round, switching to the ♠3 after a long tank. Is there any reason to guess this one way or another?

[MrAce]

 hatchett, on 2011-May-22, 11:06, said:

" and even
then I have to guesswrong twice.

No

 FrancesHinden, on 2011-May-22, 04:44, said:

.....and guessing spades, or finding one hand with both the KJ

Finding ♠KJ with lefty wont help either. When he is in with J, he simply tables K. So u basically end up with 2♠+2♦+3♥ tricks and needing 2♣ tricks with one move left from dummy.

 CSGibson, on 2011-May-22, 22:51, said:

The popular line appears to be diamond to the ace, and diamond back. Righty started with KJx of diamonds, and pops K on the 2nd round, switching to the ♠3 after a long tank. Is there any reason to guess this one way or another?

Some defenders may table ♠ K if they have it, to kill entry for ♦ when held with ♦K, this gives a little edge to play ♠ T if RHO shifts small. That works if declarer has Qx ♠. Playing small gains when declarer has QTx ♠, with other holdings what RHO play wld be irrelevant i think. But from Jxx(x) they all would play small.


But i would personally go with one of Andy's 2nd post with an additional 3rd alternative of starting with ♦ Q ducking when covered. If RHO has stiff J or T it is jackpot, if RHO has stiff K we can still score 3♦, if LHO has KJTx we still can score 3[diamomds]. After all LHO annoys us less than RHO when switch to ♠ and if RHO has 4♦ the A and then to Q wont help us much anyway. Basically i wld go for 3♦ tricks and try to score 3 black tricks. This also may cause a panic in defense and we may get a ♠ move from lefty.

Not sure which line is superior among all these posted though.

[rhm]

 CSGibson, on 2011-May-22, 22:51, said:

The popular line appears to be diamond to the ace, and diamond back. Righty started with KJx of diamonds, and pops K on the 2nd round, switching to the ♠3 after a long tank. Is there any reason to guess this one way or another?

Sure East does not know you have the ♠T. Without it you would always put up the ♠Q, possibly from Qx. With the ♠K he might have put it on the table. So play the ♠T
Not convinced you should release the ♦A at trick 2.

Rainer Herrmann

[whereagles]

Agree with Rainer. With ♠K a good RHO might have layed it down, so play the ten on the spade switch.

[han]

RHO thought for a long time, I'm going to play the queen. It's a guess but I don't think righty has much to think about when he doesn't hold the king.

I might have ducked the diamond had righty played low on the second round. And if LHO follows with the 10 or jack on the first round and RHO pops, then you can play the queen hoping for J10.

[whereagles]

hmmm... well, if RHO is alert and trusts pard's count signal in diamonds, the blockage is easily diagnosed and laying down the spade king seems quite automatic. It only loses if declarer has JTx - if declarer has QJx he has to duck to enjoy the diamonds.

[gnasher]

 whereagles, on 2011-May-24, 05:11, said:

hmmm... well, if RHO is alert and trusts pard's count signal in diamonds, the blockage is easily diagnosed and laying down the spade king seems quite automatic. It only loses if declarer has JTx - if declarer has QJx he has to duck to enjoy the diamonds.

Don't you think that it loses on the actual spade layout too?

[whereagles]

huh... I would say "no", but did I miss something?

If RHO has Kxx he will drive out the spade ace and LHO will still make his jack. Looks like a win-win situation for defenders.

[MrAce]

 whereagles, on 2011-May-25, 02:56, said:

huh... I would say "no", but did I miss something?

If RHO has Kxx he will drive out the spade ace and LHO will still make his jack. Looks like a win-win situation for defenders.

You are wrong, when he plays K he drives out dummy's A only if you decide to take the K with Ace So u duck. However if he played small and u misguess, u will say bye bye to dummy

And in your earlier post u mentioned playing K would lose if declarer has JTx, which was also wrong, he will lose a ♠ trick for playing K but will definetely kill the entry regardless of declarer ducks or not.

[whereagles]

 MrAce, on 2011-May-25, 03:01, said:

1. You are wrong, when he plays K he drives out dummy's A only if you decide to take the K with Ace So u duck. However if he played small and u misguess, u will say bye bye to dummy

2. And in your earlier post u mentioned playing K would lose if declarer has JTx, which was also wrong, he will lose a ♠ trick for playing but will definetely kill the entry regardless of declarer ducks or not.

1. But RHO doesn't know whether we have the ♠T or not. From his point of view, the king from Kxx could be an automatic game-breaker.

2. I mentioned "loses" in the sense that it gives away 1 trick. But anyway, in this case it's the same thing regardless of what spade you switch to.

Small from Kxx works ok only if opener has QTx and guesses wrong, so I would still say RHO doesn't have the king.

[MrAce]

 whereagles, on 2011-May-25, 03:14, said:

1. But RHO doesn't know whether we have the ♠T or not. From his point of view, the king from Kxx could be an automatic game-breaker.

2. I mentioned "loses" in the sense that it gives away 1 trick. But anyway, in this case it's the same thing regardless of what spade you switch to.

Small from Kxx works ok only if opener has QTx and guesses wrong, so I would still say RHO doesn't have the king.

Whether we have ♠T or not is irrelevant, playing small still wins if his pd has the T. Playing K wins basically when we have Qx or QJ doubleton only. (Or when declarer misplays) We could avoid these back and forth posts if u read my earlier post.

But yes, thats why i also wrote it gives a little edge to play ♠T if shift is small, because when RHO does not have the K, he will ALWAYS play small, with K he has options, not an overwhelmingly strong clue but still something.

[nige1]

Ageee with everybody
At trick two, if you duck a diamond, there is a significant danger of two diamond losers and three black losers.
Declarer's actual line seems better as, when RHO has ♦K you are likely to make if there is a favourable spade position that you can guess.
RHO might lead ♠K if he had it to guard against you holding ♠Q doubleton. Hence, you should probably play him for ♠J