[FrancesHinden]

You are West, dummy is North

Scoring: IMP

1NT P 2D P
2H P 2NT P
4H all pass

---

1NT = 12-14 balanced, may have a 5 card major or 6 card minor
rest obvious transfer sequence

You lead your systemic club, and partner plays King, Ace and a third club, declarer ruffing in hand.
Declarer runs the queen of hearts, partner following.
Declarer plays a heart to the 10, and partner discards a low diamond
Declarer runs the Queen of spades, 7, 3, King

You play standard count & standard attitude signals.

Now what, and more importantly, why?

[Fluffy]

EDIT: misscounted stupidly.

Now a spade so I can discard my last spade when declarer ruffs a diamond and cut comunications for the trump coup

[keylime]

I'm scared to death of a club return here.

Partner has shown up with A-K of clubs. Declarer has everything else due to the range of the NT (there's a small chance of a J out there). Breaking a new suit is likely to not benefit us (us holding T-x of diamonds is a bummer).

I'm going to try to get out of my own way. I am playing partner for 9xxx of spades because any other exit is probably giving up the contract. TS is my exit.

[Free]

Declarer will try to shorten his trumps in dummy, and finesse our ♥K en passant if he can. This is what we have to stop somehow. We know declarer has ♦AQJ and ♠A. He has shown 2♣ and 3♥ so he has 5-3-3-2/4-3-4-2 or 3-3-5-2.

What can be the problem? If declarer can somehow manage to shorten his trumps, get back to his hand and make you ruff in front of him, you're screwed. Therefor he'll need his ♠ entry, and the possibility to discard his last ♠ in dummy on a high ♦.
- Leading ♣ is suicide: we help declarer shorten his trumps!
- If we lead ♦, he'll play ♦K, A and x (ruff), return to his hand with ♠A and play ♦Q! If we don't ruff this one, the ♠ goes away and 4♥ makes.
- What if we lead a ♠? Now this little trick doesn't work anymore. On the 3rd ♦ we can discard our last ♠ and declarer will be stuck in dummy.

So lead a ♠!

The only way declarer makes his contract is if he has 5 ♠s (he can ruff one, return to his hand with ♦A and discard his ♦ on his 5th ♠. Playing a ♦ in that case doesn't help, so I don't think you can defeat the contract in that case...

[hatchett]

I don't think I can beat this for sure.

i the 7 can't be highest from a 4 card suit
.
ii If the 7 is lowest from 789 then declarer has

Axxx Qxx AQxx xx

now I need to return a spade attacking his entries; I can discard a spade on the third round of diamonds. If you play a diamond, declarer plays K,A, ruff a diamond spade A and top diamond making easily.

iii If the 7 is from a doubleton then declarer has
Axxxx Qxx AQx xx

now we need to play a diamond. On a spade declarer plays spade, spade, ruff a spade, crosses on a diamond to play the fifth round of spades. A diamond attack his entries as in (ii) enabling us to discard a diamond on the fourth round of spades.

Discounting (i), (ii) a spade, works when partner 789 exactly in spades, while (iii) a diamond works when partner has 74,76

I haven't done the exact maths but I would assume that the two doubleton combinations are together higher than the one 3 card combination, so I would play a diamond.

[hatchett]

by the way if you signal second highest with 4, then partner could have 4 spades, but this gives declarer AQxxx diamonds, and he would play on diamonds before spades.

[FrancesHinden]

hatchett, on Aug 23 2007, 05:26 PM, said:

.
ii If the 7 is lowest from 789 then declarer has

Axxx Qxx AQxx xx

If declarer has this hand, then he has just gone off in a cold contract. He could have made by playing diamonds at once: K, A, Q. If you ruff the third round he over-ruffs, draws trumps and sets up the spades. If you discard, he discards a spade from dummy, ruffs the 4th diamond in dummy and takes a spade finesse (or plays a spade to the ace and a spade).

[Trumpace]

Tricky!

I tend to agree with Hatchett. Given partner's diamond discard and the spade 7 (would he not play a higher one if he had 4 carder? Some ppl play 2nd best in these cases sometimes though, say from 97xx), seems that we need to play declarer for a 5 carder spade suit.

But, with Axxxx, Qxx, AQx, xx would declarer open 1NT? Even if bidding goes 1S - 2C he has an easy 2NT rebid. Why would he open 1NT instead of 1S then? Is 1NT a better bid than 1S here? (Sorry if the question is too dumb).

[Codo]

I am confident that declarer has Axxxx, Qxx, AQJ,xx
He did bid 4 Heart over 2 NT so he should have all missing HCPS (including the jack of D. But after he played the trumps, he did not play on his diamonds to discard his spade loosers. So I give him just a three card diamond suit.

Okay if this is true, how can I beat it? I try a dimond and discard a spade on the possible third round of diamonds.

[Fluffy]

Damn, I missed this problem twice? . I'll say on my defence that nobody around here ever opens 1NT with 5c Major.

[FrancesHinden]

Yes, declarer is 5-3-3-2 (I forgot to tell you he had the jack of clubs to get his HCP up to 13). You have to play a diamond now which corrupts his entries for the trump coup. My team-mate didn't find this, but to be fair it is not obvious until you play the hand out that a diamond actually stops the trump coup.

As hatchett pointed out, you can deduce his shape from the play so far. If he were 4342 he's misplayed it trivially; if he were 3352 partner's diamond discard is bizarre.

To answer Trumpace's question, playing weak NT, 1S - 2H - 2NT shows 15+ HCP which is why some people like to open 1NT with a 5-card spade suit. Similar to strong NT methods where 1S - 2C - 2NT shows a weak NT, and some people like to open 1NT with a 5-card spade suit...

At the other table we bid 1S - P - 1NT - 3D; P - P - 3S - P;3NT all pass. At least the play was quick!