[lamford]

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International Team Event. IMPs converted to VPs

You lead the ♦7 (fourth) and declarer wins with dummy's king, partner playing the six (normal count) and declarer finesses the jack of clubs, cashes the ace, and plays another club to your partner's king while you discard the three of diamonds (normal attitude). Partner leads the seven of hearts to declarer's nine and your jack. What do you do next? Your carding is normal. They are playing a strong NT and four-card majors.

[MrAce]

You need to mention the club spots, no? I think declarer has 4 clubs or pd would cash another ♣ trick . I also need pd to hold ♥T.

So declarer has something like Qx AK9xx xx AJxx.
I would play spade now to prevent partner from being endplayed. If I don't play spade now;

a-if i exit hearts declarer will cash AK of ♥, go to dummy with ♦A(or ♣Q) cash remaining minor winner and play a spade from dummy. If pd ducks he will win with Q and endplay pd with hearts. If pd jumps the spade Ace he has to exit with hearts and declarer will win, cash the ♠Q and endplay pd again with hearts,

b-if exit with diamonds same thing happens.

What happens if we play spade early is that we kill an important entry to his hand before declarer strips pd from diamond exit. Pd has to insert the ♠J. (but I would play ♠T anyway) Declarer now has to cash his heart winners because he ran out of entry to his hand, but can not endplay partner for 9th trick. Something like....

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Unless of course declarer unblocked clubs and has an entry to hand in clubs, this is why i asked the club spots that are played.

[lamford]

Dummy has the club entry for sure. I thought of this type of layout, but was more worried that declarer had Ax Axxxx xx AJxx when I just need to play a heart back. I also thought declarer might have AQ T8xxx Qx AJxx when we need to cash out our four heart tricks! Anyway it was 12 IMPS out when declarer had Jx AT98x Qx AJxx and partner's 7♥ was not from AKT7 as I thought it might be. I guess our carding has to be better.

[rhm]

We have to make some assumptions here.
I deem it unlikely that the contract can be beaten if declarer has the diamond queen and declarer might have played differently at trick one.
Declarer seems to have 4 clubs. With 2=5=2=4 and a small doubleton in diamonds declarer might have rebid 2♣, so declarer should be 3=4=2=4
The heart 7 is not North lowest heart, so he does not want a heart back and he should not have the heart 8.
It seems to me unlikely that declarer has ducked with both top honors in hearts and no certain entry to his hand any more.
Without the spade ace he might have played on spades first.
If partner has the heart ace we now have 2 heart tricks, a club trick and hopefully a spade trick. This requires partner to have the queen and jack in spades.
The danger is that partner might get forced to play a second heart after three rounds of spades, in which case if we got already a heart a spade and a club, declarer will have no choice but to hope that North has the heart ace.

I envision something like the following layout:

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The position after 5 tricks:

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In this layout a low spade is fine as is a low diamond. The sapde ten gives away the contract.
However, if dummy puts up the king of spades on a low spade North must unblock to avoid getting end-played.
Switching to the diamond 9 might make it easier for him to do so.
Declarer could have made by going up in hearts immediately, but this was a diffcult play and not clearly indicated.

Rainer Herrmann

[lamford]

rhm, on 2017-May-22, 06:43, said:

We have to make some assumptions here.
I deem it unlikely that the contract can be beaten if declarer has the diamond queen and declarer might have played differently at trick one.

I thought it unlikely that declarer had the diamond queen too, but he did, and you need to play a spade now. Partner's seven of hearts might well be his lowest, AKT7, AK87, KT87 and AT87 are all possible holdings. I wonder if something in the carding earlier should be able to help. Some strong players had no real solution.

Declarer had Jx AT98x Qx AJxx and you need to play a spade; and then a second heart.

[cherdano]

lamford, on 2017-May-22, 13:50, said:

I thought it unlikely that declarer had the diamond queen too, but he did, and you need to play a spade now. Partner's seven of hearts might well be his lowest, AKT7, AK87, KT87 and AT87 are all possible holdings. I wonder if something in the carding earlier should be able to help. Some strong players had no real solution.

Partner had no opportunity to signal earlier. Your trick one signal is what it is, we don't start changing trick one signals because of one hand. I understand he had KTx in clubs - he can't afford to play a T first round (you might have Jx).

You've got to play the odds, even in signalling. It seems extremely unlikely that partner has a 4-card holding where he wants hearts returned, but has no heart spot lower than the 7.

[lamford]

cherdano, on 2017-May-22, 14:25, said:

Partner had no opportunity to signal earlier. Your trick one signal is what it is, we don't start changing trick one signals because of one hand. I understand he had KTx in clubs - he can't afford to play a T first round (you might have Jx).

You've got to play the odds, even in signalling. It seems extremely unlikely that partner has a 4-card holding where he wants hearts returned, but has no heart spot lower than the 7.

Given that partner is marked with at least one heart honour, as I don't think declarer has AK, it is not that unlikely his fourth best card is the seven!

[cherdano]

lamford, on 2017-May-22, 14:31, said:

Given that partner is marked with at least one heart honour, as I don't think declarer has AK, it is not that unlikely his fourth best card is the seven!

I don't buy that partner is marked with a top heart honour - if declarer has AK, but knows he can't cash them right without setting up too many tricks for defense, he might duck and hope to get them later.. But even if we assume he did, it is still considerably less likely that partner played his lowest spot.

There are seven hearts lower than the J that we cannot see. There are 2 * (6 choose 2) = 30 possible holdings for partner with exactly one heart honour that include the 7. There are (5 choose 3) = 10 four-card holdings where his lowest spot is the 7. The overlap (lowest spot 7, exactly one heart honour) consists of 6 holdings.
So overall, it is 24 holdings where the 7 is not the lowest spot, compared with 10 where it is.

Obviously, it is much more complicated than that - would partner switch to hearts with each possible holding? (E.g. playing a heart from AKTx looks rather anti-percentage to me - maybe I am missing something.) Would he play the 7 from 4-card holdings where he doesn't want the suit returned? But 24:10 odds shouldn't be ignored.

[lamford]

cherdano, on 2017-May-22, 15:13, said:

I don't buy that partner is marked with a top heart honour - if declarer has AK, but knows he can't cash them right without setting up too many tricks for defense, he might duck and hope to get them later.. But even if we assume he did, it is still considerably less likely that partner played his lowest spot.

There are seven hearts lower than the J that we cannot see. There are 2 * (6 choose 2) = 30 possible holdings for partner with exactly one heart honour that include the 7. There are (5 choose 3) = 10 four-card holdings where his lowest spot is the 7. The overlap (lowest spot 7, exactly one heart honour) consists of 6 holdings.
So overall, it is 24 holdings where the 7 is not the lowest spot, compared with 10 where it is.

Obviously, it is much more complicated than that - would partner switch to hearts with each possible holding? (E.g. playing a heart from AKTx looks rather anti-percentage to me - maybe I am missing something.) Would he play the 7 from 4-card holdings where he doesn't want the suit returned? But 24:10 odds shouldn't be ignored.

Well, if partner had KT7x or AT7x, partner would want hearts returned and wouldn't lead the seven. If partner had K87x or A87x partner would not want a heart back and would lead the eight as well. When partner's lowest heart is the seven, he has no choice but to hope you read it.

[rhm]

lamford, on 2017-May-22, 13:50, said:

I thought it unlikely that declarer had the diamond queen too, but he did, and you need to play a spade now. Partner's seven of hearts might well be his lowest, AKT7, AK87, KT87 and AT87 are all possible holdings. I wonder if something in the carding earlier should be able to help. Some strong players had no real solution.

Declarer had Jx AT98x Qx AJxx and you need to play a spade; and then a second heart.

Something is wrong here.
On the layout you give I do not see how declarer can make whether South returns a spade or a a low diamond.

How does declarer play on a diamond return please?
As far as I can see the only return, which lets declarer make, is a heart continuation.

On a side note I agree with you the heart 7 should either be North lowest heart or the highest he can afford.
Attitude leads get hard to read if it could be anything in between.
If declarer has 5 hearts it could be his lowest, though I deem that still unlikely but certainly possible.
If partner had both heart honors, declarer is practically marked with all other honors and would likely have enough tricks without a third club trick.
The club play would be almost a concession if declarer has no heart honor.

So it is reasonable to assume that partner can not have ace and king in hearts making it even less likely the heart 7 is his lowest.

Rainer Herrmann

[lamford]

rhm, on 2017-May-23, 03:05, said:

Something is wrong here.
On the layout you give I do not see how declarer can make whether South returns a spade or a a low diamond.

How does declarer play on a diamond return please?
As far as I can see the only return, which lets declarer make, is a heart continuation.

On a side note I agree with you the heart 7 should either be North lowest heart or the highest he can afford.
Attitude leads get hard to read if it could be anything in between.
If declarer has 5 hearts it could be his lowest, though I deem that still unlikely but certainly possible.
If partner had both heart honors, declarer is practically marked with all other honors and would likely have enough tricks without a third club trick.
The club play would be almost a concession if declarer has no heart honor.

So it is reasonable to assume that partner can not have ace and king in hearts making it even less likely the heart 7 is his lowest.

Rainer Herrmann

It looked to me as though declarer was playing for Kx of clubs onside. I agree that either a spade or a diamond work on the actual layout, but there seemed to be other layouts where a second heart was needed. For example if East had Qx A98xx Qx AJxx, a low spade would be fatal. I tend to agree that a heart is less likely to be right, and I should just exit with a diamond. If East has AJ T98xx Qx AJxx then he has played a normal line and a spade is also fatal but a diamond also beats it.

[MrAce]

lamford, on 2017-May-23, 09:19, said:

It looked to me as though declarer was playing for Kx of clubs onside. I agree that either a spade or a diamond work on the actual layout, but there seemed to be other layouts where a second heart was needed. For example if East had Qx A98xx Qx AJxx, a low spade would be fatal. I tend to agree that a heart is less likely to be right, and I should just exit with a diamond. If East has AJ T98xx Qx AJxx then he has played a normal line and a spade is also fatal but a diamond also beats it.

If you play ♦ declarer makes in another hand (see the hand I constructed)
You are just being obsessed with pd holding too many ♥ values and the possibility of 7 being the smallest but I really do not buy the likelihood of it.

[cherdano]

lamford, on 2017-May-22, 15:32, said:

Well, if partner had KT7x or AT7x, partner would want hearts returned and wouldn't lead the seven. If partner had K87x or A87x partner would not want a heart back and would lead the eight as well. When partner's lowest heart is the seven, he has no choice but to hope you read it.

I agree with a lot that you say. But eg. with KT7x, partner wouldn't know that he wants a heart returned - he doesn't know we have QJ. In fact, unless we signalled for hearts it looks like a really unattractive switch - and that also applies to KT87 or AT87 or AKT7. I think it is much more likely that declarer would duck with AK than that partner would make a switch from HT and encourage a return.

[rhm]

cherdano, on 2017-May-23, 14:34, said:

I agree with a lot that you say. But eg. with KT7x, partner wouldn't know that he wants a heart returned - he doesn't know we have QJ. In fact, unless we signalled for hearts it looks like a really unattractive switch - and that also applies to KT87 or AT87 or AKT7. I think it is much more likely that declarer would duck with AK than that partner would make a switch from HT and encourage a return.

Defense is often based on assumptions.
From North perspective South needs probably any two (except possibly J9) of the top 4 missing heart A, Q, J, 9 for a heart continuation to be best for the defense.
North can probably deduce that declarer has the ace and South will probably need QJ or Q9 to beat the contract.
This might be slightly against the odds, but from North perspective it might be the only chance to beat the contract.
Of course North holding in spades and diamond come into play.
So making these assumptions North will often "know" to encourage a heart continuation.
It might not beat the contract, but if South does not have a suitable holding in hearts the defense may have no chance.

I firmly believe you must make up your mind when you switch to a new suit, what the best strategy for the defense is.
Otherwise attitude signals are hard to read.

Rainer Herrmann

[rhm]

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