[lamford]

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IMPs

You lead the queen of spades against 2♥, and declarer, a strong player, wins with dummy's king, partner showing an odd number, and leads a heart to your partner's jack and ace, and then leads a low heart after a moment's thought. Do you duck?

[rmnka447]

Lots of viewers (some are me looking at it several times), but no replies so this isn't an easy problem. Guess I'll take the plunge.

Ok, it doesn't hurt to do a little analysis first. You have 10 high card points and dummy has 5. If declarer has an absolute minimum, say 11 HCP, that adds up to 26 total outside of partner's hand. So partner could have at most 14 HCP. Opener's hand is limited by the failure to make a game try so is likely to have no more than a bad 15 count which leaves partner with at least 10 HCP.

Also, it would be usual for partner to cover and win the ♠ K with the ♠ A. So, we can place the ♠ A in opener's hand. If partner held the ♥ J10 the normal play would be the ♥ 10 from that holding, so it's likely opener has that card, too. Partner signaled an odd number of ♠. Partner cannot hold 5, else opener would duck and win the stiff ♠ A. Declarer is also unlikely to hold 5 ♠ (and partner 1) as the auction likely would have been different. (Opener would have to have 6 ♥ to bid ♥ first holding 5 ♠ and the auction surely wouldn't have ended in 2 ♥.) So partner likely holds 3 ♠ and declarer is placed with ♠ A and ♥ A10.

This is IMPs so our objective is to beat the hand if at all possible.

Looking at the cards and what we know - it looks like we potentially have 1 ♠ trick, 1 ♦ trick, and 1 ♣ trick in your hand. We'll also get at least 1 ♥ trick, if we make the right ♥ play. So we need to find 2 more tricks from partner to beat the contract. With all 4 As or 3 As and ♥ K declarer might invite. If declarer has a stiff minor card then one of the tricks in your hand may go away. If declarer holds ♦ Axx there's always an entry to dummy. If declarer is missing 2 As, then opener has surely opened with ♠ A and ♥ AK as there are hardly enough other cards to open with missing ♥ K. So it seems more likely partner has an A and ♥ K.

Does the ♥ J play at trick 2 jibe with holding ♥ KJ or ♥ KJx? Partner might well play the J hoping declarer holds only the A. If declarer hold AQ(x..) or Qx(x..), the play of the J doesn't matter. But if declarer holds Ax(x..), the J forcing the A may alert partner that the K may be in partner's hand.

If declarer is good enough to win the first trump trick with ♥ A and underlead ♥ K10x(x..), then I'm paying off.

I'm ducking.

[Tramticket]

Are we supposed to believe that declarer has AK10753 in trumps ans plays ace and then small? He will look rather silly if trumps are 2-2.

I'm ducking.

[eagles123]

Tramticket, on 2016-June-06, 04:05, said:

Are we supposed to believe that declarer has AK10753 in trumps ans plays ace and then small? He will look rather silly if trumps are 2-2.

I'm ducking.

I've never thought of it, but surely playing low on second round with AKTxxx when the J pops is a very expert play. on restricted choice J is more likely stiff that QJ and we're trying to induce a duck from Qxx in the other hand.
Idk it's something of a guess, good problem tho!

[Tramticket]

eagles123, on 2016-June-06, 04:33, said:

I've never thought of it, but surely playing low on second round with AKTxxx when the J pops is a very expert play. on restricted choice J is more likely stiff that QJ and we're trying to induce a duck from Qxx in the other hand.
Idk it's something of a guess, good problem tho!

Yes - I never thought of the restricted choice implication.

But even so, I don't quite buy it!

[Phil]

If declarer has h)AKTxxx it seems he is winning the spade trick in hand and not burning dummy's entry. Edited out nonsense.

The heart play is just really weird with 6; you would just own declarer if you played J from Jx even part of the time. However I also think partner is playing the K from KJ a fair amount of the time in case we havE Axx.

I can't see anything conclusive here but I'm ducking this trick.

[Tramticket]

Declarer won the first trick in dummy (so not stiff ace of spades). I was also wondering why he chose to win in dummy. Isn't the play more consistent with declarer having a five card suit and a certain trump loser? (ducking a trick to retain trump control if trumps are 4-1).

[gszes]

remember this problem the next time you are east and hold the KJ when you have no good reason to assume the opps hold 10 trumps. Make life easier for partner and rob declarer of their shyster skills and insert the K. It cannot ever hurt (unless there are entry/timing issues for the defense and poor partner will KNOW it is safe to duck the Q the next round instead of guessing. Second hand low is a good rule but all bridge rules have exceptions:))

[lamford]

On the actual hand, partner had KJ doubleton, and declarer had just played normally. This ruse was apparently discovered by John Reardon thirty years ago, and does use restricted choice. And yes ... one should put in the king from KJ doubleton. On this hand, I duck as declarer might have bid a pre-eemptive 3H with six.

[wank]

yes duck. partner's marked with some values. if he had a singleton he'd normally protect (pre-balance. misread the auction)

[rhm]

deleted

[FrancesHinden]

"On this hand, I duck as declarer might have bid a pre-eemptive 3H with six. "

Did you check to see if they were playing 3H as pre-emptive? Not every pair does (e.g. I don't)

[gnasher]

It's almost inconceivable that partner has a singleton heart, enough values to beat this, and not enough to bid over 2♥. The worst hand I can think of is xxx J A98xx A8xx, and that still looks like a double of 2♥ to me.

Anyway, declarer also knows that partner didn't bid over 2♥. With six hearts, he will think it very likely that trumps are 2-2, so he's simply not going to play this way.