kayin801, on 2012-April-02, 05:17, said:
Obviously N can rise with the club A, but they were worried declarer had 3 clubs to the Q and S had the spade Q and 4 diamonds (go for the throat!). Can S make N's life any easier, or should N have definitely figured it out?
It looks like north has badly misanalysed. Declarer could have made it much harder by playing a diamond back to the 8 or something like that. But when declarer puts the K on the 7 it is dollars to donuts that his suit is solid. In this case he would normally have continued drawing trumps. Also, partners diamond return is not really consistent with him holding four diamonds to an honour.
Further, north knows 100% that declarer has two spades (or more) since partner has opened a precision diamond rather than 1S, he can have at most 4.
Incidentally, south has misdefended badly by leading back a trump, which actually guarantees -1 on this layout, declarer can run the diamond into the tenace, ruff down the ace of hearts, cross back in diamonds and play the heart K pitching a club. This does seem to indicate to north that west should be 2272, since partner needs a third diamond to be sure declarer cannot get to the kH when he sets it up.
Another think is that north can see that the contract is surely cold if the club K scores and south does not have the spade ace, as now the defence can score teh club k, ruff a heart, cross back in spades, and will score 1c 1h 2s + 7 diamonds. Once you have given south the ace of spades its very difficult to avoid the conclusion that you should rise and play a spade.
Conclusion: North was at fault when he ducked the club ace, but south was at fault for not appreciating the importance of the 7D, which prevents declarer getting two dummy entries to score a heart trick. So its 100% each.
The physics is theoretical, but the fun is real. - Sheldon Cooper
Help
