[lamford]

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Matchpoints. Tuesday's SIMs in England.

You choose to lead the eight of clubs, and dummy plays the ten. Partner plays the six, reverse count. Declarer plays a spade to the ace, partner playing the eight, again reverse count, and leads a club. You play the king, and partner follows with the seven. Over to you.

[gszes]

I will try the heart Q surely it is not too much to ask for P to have AJxxx in hearts:) Never fear getting squeezed since you have and easy spade and diamond pitch and declarer will have to guess that u blanked your spade Q if they started with the expected AKxx in spades. If all works right you will score 1c 5h 1s and 1d (exiting with spade after winning bare Q). Should be worth a lot of MP

[rmnka447]

I'm also switching to ♥ Q.

Missing honors - ♠ AK ♥ AJ ♦ Q ♣ A

West and North have 22 HCP between them, so partner can have 4-6 HCP depending on Opener's hand.

Declarer has been shown to have ♠ A and ♣ A (by virtue of play to 1st trick). Declarer can't have both ♥ A and ♠ K for a 1 NT opening because that's too many points (15). Partner should a doubleton ♣ as declarer played 2 low ♣ and has the A yet. With ♠ AKxx, Declarer might well have finessed the ♠ J at trick 2. If declarer has ♥ A, then Declarer has 7 tricks (3 ♣, 2 ♥, 1 ♦, 1 ♠).

♥ Q might give up a trick if Declarer has ♥ J10x(x) but doesn't hurt if Declarer has ♥ Jxx(x). But ♥ look like the best chance for tricks for our side.

[MrAce]

gszes, on 2018-February-09, 10:07, said:

I will try the heart Q surely it is not too much to ask for P to have AJxxx in hearts:)

rmnka447, on 2018-February-09, 14:04, said:

I'm also switching to ♥ Q.

An improvement to your defense can be to play small ♥ instead of Q. There is almost no hand if at all, where small ♥ loses when Q wins.




Q of ♥ deserves to find declarer with a slight under range hand.

AKx
Txx
xxx
Axxx

or deserves to find declarer with JTx(x) ♥ for his extra tricks and would probably say a silent "thank you" in his head due to MP.

AKx
JTxx
xx
Axxx

[cherdano]

If you assume declarer has ♠AK (seems obvious from the play to me), the a priori odds are 62% that he has ♥J, and 62% that he has ♦Q. Just saying.

[cherdano]

MrAce, on 2018-February-09, 15:05, said:

Q of ♥ deserves to find declarer with a slight under range hand.

AKx
Txx
xxx
Axxx

♥Q might still be successful on this layout...

[MrAce]

cherdano, on 2018-February-09, 15:39, said:

♥Q might still be successful on this layout...

Na, from QJx(x) he would have started with ♥ instead of ♣ probably but yeah declarer may go wrong.

[cherdano]

I am quite tempted by the ♦K. It's clearly a success when declarer doesn't have the ♦Q. But it's sometimes also a success when he has both ♥J and ♦Q.

If declarer has AKx Jxxx Qx Axxx, the ♦K switch prevents him from taking both 3 spade trick and 3 club tricks, and he'll end up with 7 tricks. (He cannot both unblock clubs and keep an entry to his 3rd spade.) If we switch to a low heart, partner will put in the 9 or T; declarer wins ♥J, unblocks clubs, plays a spade to the king, takes his ♣A, and sets up a spade for 8 tricks.
If declarer has AKx Jxx Qxx Axxx, the play may either go as above; or declarer may decide to duck a diamond - in which case he gets the same 8 tricks as after a heart switch. And if declarer has AKx JTx Qxx Axxx, the heart switch gives him 9 tricks (win ♥T, unblock clubs, set up spades and we are forced to give him another red suit trick). Same with ♥J9x instead.

[lamford]

cherdano, on 2018-February-09, 17:25, said:

I am quite tempted by the ♦K. It's clearly a success when declarer doesn't have the ♦Q. But it's sometimes also a success when he has both ♥J and ♦Q.

If declarer has AKx Jxxx Qx Axxx, the ♦K switch prevents him from taking both 3 spade trick and 3 club tricks, and he'll end up with 7 tricks. (He cannot both unblock clubs and keep an entry to his 3rd spade.) If we switch to a low heart, partner will put in the 9 or T; declarer wins ♥J, unblocks clubs, plays a spade to the king, takes his ♣A, and sets up a spade for 8 tricks.
If declarer has AKx Jxx Qxx Axxx, the play may either go as above; or declarer may decide to duck a diamond - in which case he gets the same 8 tricks as after a heart switch. And if declarer has AKx JTx Qxx Axxx, the heart switch gives him 9 tricks (win ♥T, unblock clubs, set up spades and we are forced to give him another red suit trick). Same with ♥J9x instead.

I did switch to the king of diamonds, and declarer, a strong player, ducked in dummy. Partner encouraged, which I think means she has four cards including the queen or better. Hard not to encourage when dummy ducks. What now?

[cherdano]

Paul, since you posted this problem, I knew there'd be more to it than guessing the right switch. However, I don't see anything I can do here besides continuing a diamond. What happened?