[Hanoi5]

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What do you play at this point? It's MP's, do you plan to defeat?

[Antrax]

Hanoi5, on 2013-February-13, 05:23, said:

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What do you play at this point? It's MP's, do you plan to defeat?

[rhm]

I can not see how you can beat this contract unless partner has bid 3♥ on a six card suit, which is possible with the void in spades.
But how can it hurt to cash the ♣A before continuing hearts?
This could also possibly work if partner has seven hearts and ♦J7 doubleton.

Rainer Herrmann

[Cyberyeti]

rhm, on 2013-February-13, 06:30, said:

I can not see how you can beat this contract unless partner has bid 3♥ on a six card suit, which is possible with the void in spades.
But how can it hurt to cash the ♣A before continuing hearts?
This could also possibly work if partner has seven hearts and ♦J7 doubleton.

Rainer Herrmann

Could partner have x, AQJxxxx, Qx, 109x where A or Q♣ switch might be good, is locking declarer in dummy with 2 rounds of hearts good ? S could have some 4234 hand, there is no need to assume partner is short in spades, simply playing hearts could give declarer a horrible guess on the second round of diamonds.

[rhm]

Cyberyeti, on 2013-February-13, 07:21, said:

Could partner have x, AQJxxxx, Qx, 109x where A or Q♣ switch might be good, is locking declarer in dummy with 2 rounds of hearts good ? S could have some 4234 hand, there is no need to assume partner is short in spades, simply playing hearts could give declarer a horrible guess on the second round of diamonds.

Hit the NEXT button on the deal, before making your analysis and follow to the first tricks 4 tricks
Certain options can be excluded that way.

Rainer Herrmann

[Cyberyeti]

rhm, on 2013-February-13, 08:18, said:

Hit the NEXT button on the deal, before making your analysis and follow to the first tricks 4 tricks
Certain options can be excluded that way.

Rainer Herrmann

OK, in that case the best chance would seem to be to lead a heart.

My best chance is that declarer's hand is 10xxxxx, xx, Qxx, xx and he views the diamonds incorrectly. If I lock him on the table he has no choice but to drop the J♦, so I'll give him a potentially useless ruff and discard. If he actually had 10xxxxx, xx, QJx(x), x(x) I get egg on my face at MPs as he now makes 11, so is probably best to cash A♣ before playing the heart. I think declarer should get this right if he is missing J♦ as with ♦Jx(x) left I would most likely just return a trump.

[PhilKing]

If declarer has ♠Txxxxx ♥xx ♦Qxx ♣xx, he really should never go wrong, since as has been mentioned, we could just exit a trump when we hold the ♦J.

However, if that is his hand, he has already carved the play - he should have drawn trumps before playing a diamond to avoid the problem.

So I will just play ace and another ♣ (not the queen, since I don't want to give a moderate player the idea that I have AQJ in case he is trying to place the ♦ jack by counting the wrong thing) - it is matchpoints, after all, and declarer still has time for another error.

[rhm]

PhilKing, on 2013-February-13, 10:51, said:

If declarer has ♠Txxxxx ♥xx ♦Qxx ♣xx, he really should never go wrong, since as has been mentioned, we could just exit a trump when we hold the ♦J.

However, if that is his hand, he has already carved the play - he should have drawn trumps before playing a diamond to avoid the problem.

So I will just play ace and another ♣ (not the queen...

Does the fact that declarer stopped drawing trumps not make it more likely that declarer might have a third ♥?
If declarer has three diamonds, it must be better to assume declarer had a reason for his play instead of assuming he made a basic error.

I can understand a jump to 3♥ over 1♦ with ♠-,♥AQJxxx,♦xx,♣JTxxx

Rainer Herrmann

[gnasher]

In the real world we'd know how many hearts partner had, because he'd have told us with his discard on the spade.

I agree with Rainer that he's quite likely to have only six. - AQJxxxx Jx J10xx looks like a 4♥ overcall.

[PhilKing]

rhm, on 2013-February-15, 03:00, said:

Does the fact that declarer stopped drawing trumps not make it more likely that declarer might have a third ♥?
If declarer has three diamonds, it must be better to assume declarer had a reason for his play instead of assuming he made a basic error.

I can understand a jump to 3♥ over 1♦ with ♠-,♥AQJxxx,♦xx,♣JTxxx

Rainer Herrmann

I'm not sure partner's carding is consistent with that - at best he's been extremely unhelpful. I guess it depends. I think 3♥ is OK with a 7-4 if partner lacks the club jack, although I would bid four myself.

[Alik1974]

My first thought was that partner should have 7 ♥, otherwise declarer would have chosen a better line of play instead of this one, which immediately sinks the contract. (There actually exist better lines of play if he holds 3 ♥)

However, it is possible that declarer also believes that partner has 7 ♥ and he trusts that we don't have a third ♥ to promote a trump trick !

(Our lead of ♥10 and play of 5♥ next is consistent with this scenario, and he knows we rate to hold ♣A and ♦K)