[Hanoi5]

With both red you were looking at:

♠T7
♥K986
♦Q94
♣AJ65

The dealer on you right opened with a Multi 2♦, your partner bid 2♥ which was natural, 2♠ on your right, 4♥ by you and 4♠ by opener. It was passed round to you who double and lead the ♥9, getting:

Scoring: IMP

2♦-2♥-2♠-4♥
4♠-Pa-Pa-X
All Pass

---

♥9-♥5-♥A-♥4
♦K-♦A-♦4-♦2

You see declarer take out the trump ace from her hand and think and then play a trump to dummy's KQ, which clears the suit (partner held 2 trumps).

♠4-♠7-♠K-♠2
♠Q-♠8-♠5-♠T

Now comes the 10♦ from the table:

♦T-♦3-♦5-???

How do you defend?

[Simplicity]

I'd take it and try cash our ♣AK...

[gnasher]

Was ♥9 systemic from this holding? It looks as though it has caused partner to do something unwise.

Anyway, partner obvously has ♣K, because he said so with his trump pips. He might have switched to an unsupported king here, thinking that a pitch was coming on ♥K and "knowing" that I had ♦A. So I try to cash the clubs, starting with ♣J in case partner has K10x.

[pooltuna]

quack quack better to make him use the last trump in his hand so you can endplay the dummy for the maximum number of ♣s your side can take

[billw55]

♦Q and then ♥K. Let declarer break clubs himself. That way he can still go down holding ♣Kxx(x) on a wrong guess.

edit: admittedly it will be embarassing if declarer can pitch three clubs from dummy, when just leading clubs would beat him. And like gnasher says partner rates to have the ♣K anyway. Or does he?

Also I am curious why partner decided to lay down the ♦K.

[quiddity]

I think partner led the ♦K because that's the normal lead from Kx. The second diamond should be count (I assume standard present).
The duck caters for declarer's singleton club but in that case she could always have made her contract by ducking the first diamond.

[Fugitiv]

I duck the diamond confidently. Unless partner is up to something strange he has kx diamond declarer could easily be 3361. Either way surely partner doesn't have the diamond J. Declarer has 1 more entry to his hand (As), if I duck this dimaond the diamonds are dead, and we get whatever clubs we deserve.

[mikeh]

As gnasher pointed out, our heart lead may have made partner switch from Kx(x)(x) in order to ensure we took our diamond winners before declarer got a pitch.

However, surely a low diamond would be as effective most times....he can assume that we will know where the heart K is when he wins the A, and we can see that declarer can't usefully pitch one club, but can pitch a diamond.

So that's a bit of a wash. And if he has Kxx in diamonds, he shouldn't play the lowest spot on the 2nd round.

So I am going to place declarer with 3=x=6=y: either 3=3=6=1 or 3=2=6=2

If he holds 3361, with the stiff club 10, partner will need to be on his toes if I duck the diamond and declarer calls for a small club. A duck by him allows declarer to eventually ruff out the K, losing only a heart and 2 clubs.

But most of the time, when declarer is 3361, ducking the diamond assures us a 1 trick set.

While winning the diamond assures a make.

What about 3=2=6=2? Now, if we win, we can cash 2 clubs, and declarer scores the rest. It does us no good to adopt gnasher's suggestion of the J, catering to K10x in partner's hand....declarer has a trump and good diamonds.
If we duck, we now need 3 club tricks. We are ok with K10x in partner's hand. And we are ok if partner plays his K on the first or second rounds of the suit even if declarer holds the 10, as he is 50-50 likely to do on a 3=2=6=2 hand.

So it seems to me that the duck is the right play

[hanp]

I agree with ducking, I can't imagine partner having more than 2 diamonds. With KJx he'd play the jack rather than the king, and with Kxx I don't see any reason for partner to play the king either.

I assume that the 9 was our systemic lead, perhaps Slavinski showing an even number with an honor. If it's not systemic then it would be rather strange, to use a friendly word.

[CSGibson]

mikeh, on Jul 14 2010, 09:11 AM, said:

As gnasher pointed out, our heart lead may have made partner switch from Kx(x)(x) in order to ensure we took our diamond winners before declarer got a pitch.

However, surely a low diamond would be as effective most times....he can assume that we will know where the heart K is when he wins the A, and we can see that declarer can't usefully pitch one club, but can pitch a diamond.

So that's a bit of a wash. And if he has Kxx in diamonds, he shouldn't play the lowest spot on the 2nd round.

So I am going to place declarer with 3=x=6=y: either 3=3=6=1 or 3=2=6=2

If he holds 3361, with the stiff club 10, partner will need to be on his toes if I duck the diamond and declarer calls for a small club. A duck by him allows declarer to eventually ruff out the K, losing only a heart and 2 clubs.

But most of the time, when declarer is 3361, ducking the diamond assures us a 1 trick set.

While winning the diamond assures a make.

What about 3=2=6=2? Now, if we win, we can cash 2 clubs, and declarer scores the rest. It does us no good to adopt gnasher's suggestion of the J, catering to K10x in partner's hand....declarer has a trump and good diamonds.
If we duck, we now need 3 club tricks. We are ok with K10x in partner's hand. And we are ok if partner plays his K on the first or second rounds of the suit even if declarer holds the 10, as he is 50-50 likely to do on a 3=2=6=2 hand.

So it seems to me that the duck is the right play

It seems to me that a competent declarer should not go down when they are 3-3-6-1, as they would either duck the diamond K or play back a diamond right away rather than draw trump. Is the declarer bad enough that we should play for her to have made that mistake?

[mikeh]

CSGibson, on Jul 14 2010, 10:25 PM, said:

mikeh, on Jul 14 2010, 09:11 AM, said:

As gnasher pointed out, our heart lead may have made partner switch from Kx(x)(x) in order to ensure we took our diamond winners before declarer got a pitch.

However, surely a low diamond would be as effective most times....he can assume that we will know where the heart K is when he wins the A, and we can see that declarer can't usefully pitch one club, but can pitch a diamond.

So that's a bit of a wash. And if he has Kxx in diamonds, he shouldn't play the lowest spot on the 2nd round.

So I am going to place declarer with 3=x=6=y: either 3=3=6=1 or 3=2=6=2

If he holds 3361, with the stiff club 10, partner will need to be on his toes if I duck the diamond and declarer calls for a small club. A duck by him allows declarer to eventually ruff out the K, losing only a heart and 2 clubs.

But most of the time, when declarer is 3361, ducking the diamond assures us a 1 trick set.

While winning the diamond assures a make.

What about 3=2=6=2? Now, if we win, we can cash 2 clubs, and declarer scores the rest. It does us no good to adopt gnasher's suggestion of the J, catering to K10x in partner's hand....declarer has a trump and good diamonds.
If we duck, we now need 3 club tricks. We are ok with K10x in partner's hand. And we are ok if partner plays his K on the first or second rounds of the suit even if declarer holds the 10, as he is 50-50 likely to do on a 3=2=6=2 hand.

So it seems to me that the duck is the right play

It seems to me that a competent declarer should not go down when they are 3-3-6-1, as they would either duck the diamond K or play back a diamond right away rather than draw trump. Is the declarer bad enough that we should play for her to have made that mistake?

Posting hands in the forum is one thing....and we see a lot of bad analyzes even here, where everyone is a bridge junkie and has lots of time to think about it. My experience is that the vast majority of real life declarers play badly. Unless I know the declarer, personally or by reputation, I usually assume that he or she is going to adopt inferior lines quite frequently.

I know from my own play that I often adopt lines that, at 3 am next morning, I realize were 2nd best (or worse), and I play better than most of my opponents.

Which says more, I suspect, about where I play than it does about my skills Still, it seems wrong to always analyze att problems as if declarer were Michael Rosenberg or his ilk.
Edit:

Finally, if we are giving declarer 3=2=6=2, surely a competent declarer ducks the diamond anyway? Winning the A gives up on the hand, while if declarer ducks, we 'd better find the club switch right now, rather than try to 'cash' a second diamond trick.