[MickyB]

Declarer is playing in a trump suit of JT9x in dummy and KQxx in hand. His RHO switches to a trump. He thinks about whether to play low or an honour from hand, and concludes that it is right to play an honour. Do you consider it desirable to play the queen as opposed to the king, so that the defence are not misled about the position? Are they entitled to redress if declarer plays the king and they play him to have started with Kxxx? Obviously, the assumption is that the defence getting three rounds of trumps in would be bad for declarer.

[the_clown]

MickyB, on 2012-October-01, 07:52, said:

Declarer is playing in a trump suit of JT9x in dummy and KQxx in hand. His RHO switches to a trump. He thinks about whether to play low or an honour from hand, and concludes that it is right to play an honour. Do you consider it desirable to play the queen as opposed to the king, so that the defence are not misled about the position? Are they entitled to redress if declarer plays the king and they play him to have started with Kxxx? Obviously, the assumption is that the defence getting three rounds of trumps in would be bad for declarer.

Yes, if you hesitate you need to play the queen.

[blackshoe]

Really? Why?

BTW "he thinks" is not equivalent to "he hesitates".

[ArtK78]

Declarer can do whatever he wants to do. He should not deliberately hesitate intending to mislead the opps by his hesitation. But if he inadvertently hesitates, or if he takes some time to think about the situation, he has done nothing wrong.

As to what he should do so as to not "mislead the opps about the position," I can't even try to figure that one out. There is no "normal" play holding KQxx in hand with JT9x in dummy when RHO leads the suit.

[Phil]

This isn't the same as having AKQ in hand and 'thinking' about which honor to play before finally playing the A.

Its different in the sense that I would need an odd bridge reason to play the K from Kxxx, but playing the K from AKxx or KQxx both seem normal so I don't know the defenders have much of a claim for redress.

There are bridge reasons for considering where you want to win the 1st or 2nd round of the suit, so you have a legitimate reason to think.

[lamford]

The demonstrable bridge reason for the variation in tempo is considering whether to play a top honour in hand or not. The opponent draws the inference about his actual holding at his own risk (73D1).

[bluejak]

While I don't think you need to play the queen, there have always been a few of these situations where people get very hot under the collar if you do not make clear what you are doing.

So long as he has a legitimate bridge reason for his hesitation, he can play which ever card he likes.

[FrancesHinden]

I don't understand this.
If you think for a while and play the queen, why couldn't you be deciding whether to finesse or not, looking at AQxx and wanting to win the trick in hand?

A ruling that led to a lot of hard feeling once was where a defender was deciding whether to win a trick with the king or queen e.g. when a low card was led away from the ace in dummy

[MickyB]

FrancesHinden, on 2012-October-01, 15:03, said:

I don't understand this.
If you think for a while and play the queen, why couldn't you be deciding whether to finesse or not, looking at AQxx and wanting to win the trick in hand?

I guess the argument is that if you play the queen the defender with the ace won't be misled.

[bluejak]

The real point is that it does not matter whether the defenders are misled so long as declarer had a legitimate problem. The fact that the defenders thought it was a different problem is their own hard luck.

[lalldonn]

FrancesHinden, on 2012-October-01, 15:03, said:

I don't understand this.
If you think for a while and play the queen, why couldn't you be deciding whether to finesse or not, looking at AQxx and wanting to win the trick in hand?

A ruling that led to a lot of hard feeling once was where a defender was deciding whether to win a trick with the king or queen e.g. when a low card was led away from the ace in dummy

I remember that appeal, and the funny part was the defender had to play low to beat the hand legitimately, but he admitted he was never considering it.