[Phil]

r_prah, on 2012-August-08, 12:09, said:

If declarer has ♠Kxx ♥Axxxxx ♦x ♣Kxx, and we continue spades at trick 2, declarer will draw trump, cash his spades and lead a diamond towards dummy, giving us no winning options; if we win the ♦A, we get endplayed; if we don't, we lose the trick, and declarer can establish a club trick.

To prevent this, we need to cash the ♦A at trick 2 before continuing with a spade.

I win the spade in hand, peel off six hearts and play a spade to the Q. In my hand I have the ♣Kxx. On the board I have the ♦KJ and the ♣J.

Cashing the ♦A on this layout simply postpones the agony.

[r_prah]

Phil, on 2012-August-08, 15:57, said:

I win the spade in hand, peel off six hearts and play a spade to the Q. In my hand I have the ♣Kxx. On the board I have the ♦KJ and the ♣J.

Cashing the ♦A on this layout simply postpones the agony.

You're right. Nice analysis.

[han]

Yes indeed Phil, very nice.

That was actually the hand. My partner signalled low, thinking it was count. I didn't cash the diamond ace and later thought I had given away the contract. So thanks for making me feel better!

I like the discussion about signals. I was playing with a good but first time partner and we didn't discuss such subtleties. Count never occured to me but it is common in this situation (Qxx in dummy) in the Netherlands. I thought I should get it "right" because if partner has the spade king, we are always beating it. Turns out that there was no "getting it right".