[FrancesHinden]

Swiss teams, imps converted to VPs. Declarer is a good player, and playing with a weak partner, an aggressive bidder.

You are South, sitting over dummy (east).

Scoring: IMP

P 1♣ P 1♦
1♠ P 2♠ x
P 4♥ all pass

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Partner leads the king of spades, which systemically asks for standard count, and you play the 2. Partner continues with the queen of spades and you play the 10. Partner plays a third spade, ruffed in dummy as declarer follows with the Jack.

Declarer plays the other low trump from dummy.

Question 1: Do you agree with your play so far, and how do you plan to beat the contract?

Question 2: Giving this as an abstract problem on BBO, I'm sure lots of people will work out what the winning defence is going to be. But question 2 is: would you expect anyone ever to have got this right, at the table, in tempo?

[Echognome]

I duck. Win the second round and play another spade hoping partner has Txx in hearts.

The only other play I guess is to prevent declarer from ruffing two clubs in dummy, but I don't see declarer playing trumps in that case.

I am really having a hard time seeing any other play or holding to cater for, so I feel I'm missing the boat here.

[Walddk]

deleted.

Roland

This post has been edited by Walddk: 2007-December-31, 06:11

[pclayton]

I think I agree with the defense. If pard was desperate for a club shift, he should have led a low spade at T2.

From the bidding, declarer is evidently 3=4=2=4, 3=4=1=5 or 3=4=3=3. I think I can discard the last one since pard probably shifts to his stiff diamond at T2 or 3.

We've only seen the ♠J and the (inferred) ♥Q in declarer's hand. For the jump to 4♥, I'm expecting another 11 or so, which only seems to be the ♦Q/♣AKQ. You mentioned dummy is the aggressive weak one? I see nothing wrong with the double - perhaps you meant declarer?

Anyway, I don't think we are beating this if declarer has both minor suit queens.

My initial reaction was to duck the heart and pump declarer with a 4th spade after declarer plays a heart back to the KJ. I haven't worked out the continuations, but I think this kills declarer. If he tries to set up diamonds by ruffing the spade in hand and is the 3424, I think pard can pitch a diamond and put aside this plan. If Declarer is 3424 and ruffs on the board with an honor, partner's Txx is promoted.

It's rather complicated but I think that if declarer had solid trump that he would just cross ruff this hand and not be drawing trump.

[Fluffy]

Do it in tempo?, well, maybe if not paying attention and just playing fast you can do it in tempo

[FrancesHinden]

pclayton, on Dec 31 2007, 05:20 PM, said:

You mentioned dummy is the aggressive weak one? I see nothing wrong with the double - perhaps you meant declarer?

Sorry if I have got these the wrong way round.
Dummy is the weak player, declarer the (compensatingly) aggressive bidder.

[FrancesHinden]

pclayton, on Dec 31 2007, 05:20 PM, said:

From the bidding, declarer is evidently 3=4=2=4, 3=4=1=5 or 3=4=3=3. I think I can discard the last one since pard probably shifts to his stiff diamond at T2 or 3.

Anyway, I don't think we are beating this if declarer has both minor suit queens.

My initial reaction was to duck the heart and pump declarer with a 4th spade after declarer plays a heart back to the KJ. I haven't worked out the continuations, but I think this kills declarer. If he tries to set up diamonds by ruffing the spade in hand and is the 3424, I think pard can pitch a diamond and put aside this plan. If Declarer is 3424 and ruffs on the board with an honor, partner's Txx is promoted.

Sorry, I should have mentioned that this is in 4-card major land, declarer can't be 3433, and as he has a maximum of 14 points also can't be 3424 (no 1NT opener/1H opening), he is either 3415 or upgraded Jxx Q(10/x)xx Qx AKQ10.

If declarer has the AKQ of clubs this suggested defence doesn't work: he ruffs the fourth spade in hand and partner can over-ruff or not as she chooses, it just has 10 tricks, I think this defence needs declarer to have neither minor suit queen.

You aren't thinking in a sufficiently convoluted way yet...

[keylime]

I'm ducking the first trump trick, and after winning the 2nd one, firing a club across the bow. If pard has T-9-x then I'm going to hate myself, but playing a 4th round of spades is likely losing to us.

The fact that declarer isn't touching diamonds infers that they have no reason to play that suit; i.e. well controlled. I'm going to cater to the 3-4-2-4 hand type because both I and dummy have 2 clubs each. Someone has five clubs on this hand and I think it's partner (3-3-2-5, and they didn't lead a stiff diamond by implication).

[Kaapo]

If anybody in the South seat accidentally had two sixes in the same suit, he would have to win the first round of trumps with the "stiff" ace without breaking the tempo. He might then continue a spade. This would likely induce declarer to play for a bad trump break.

For the defence to have any chance, then, North must hold the 10 of trumps. Otherwise declarer could simply ruff the spade high in dummy. So declarer ruffs with a low trump in hand, partner discarding.

Declarer cashes the ♦A and needs to be able to cash ♣AK. Then he continues with another high club. If North discards, declarer plans to throw a diamond from dummy. At some point North would have to ruff, or otherwise declarer would have just trumps left in his hand. Dummy overruffs, and since North must have a diamond or two left, declarer can (cash a diamond and) cross-ruff the rest.

But of course, declarer will be shocked to see South ruff the 3rd club with a newly found six of hearts.

If declarer is convinced of the bad trump break, he may play like this even when holding both minor-suit queens. But if he has the ♦Q as well, he can afford to play another round of trumps before touching the minors. In that case the ♦Q serves as a later re-entry to hand to play another ♣ in case North ruffs.

[FrancesHinden]

Looks like the answer to (2) is "no".
Kaapo has it.
The full hand at the table was not exactly as I have shown it:

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After taking the ace of hearts, South (my partner) correctly conceded ruff-discard, but declarer ruffed in hand, cashed one top diamond and started running clubs, and there was nothing we could do.

This led to a discussion: is there any chance that the ace of hearts was _not_ a singleton, in which case declarer looks extremely silly? If you really think about it, it cannot cost to rise with the ace of hearts and play a spade.... but no-one actually does.

[nick_s]

Wow! Great problem. Thanks for sharing.