I think that:
- Partner's first club was count (see my previous post).
- Partner is now known not to like clubs, because he's shown an odd number, and I wouldn't lead from J10 doubleton in a minor against 1NT.
- Because partner's attitude to clubs is known, his diamond play doesn't relate to the club suit. Depending on our agreements, it is either
(a) Reverse Smith, "Obvious Shift" style, ie discouraging a spade shift, or
(b) Suit preference for hearts (or for "not spades")
Luckily that amounts to the same thing.
- His
♣34 were also suit preference. If he had no strong preference between the majors, he would have played 4-3 to cancel the earlier message. Therefore he has real preference for hearts.
- As he has already shown a liking for hearts,
♥5 is count.
- I should have split on the second round of clubs (sorry, did I already mention that?)
- Declarer's hand is something like Kxx Qxx AKJxx Qx, so the winning defence is to cross to partners' king to get a spade back.
- To make sure he does that, I should play ace and another heart.
I vaguely remember this hand, but I don't remember this being the correct answer.
Edit: That probably looks a bit suspicious, but I really did write this before Bluecalm posted the full hand.
Further edit: If I think partner's
♥5 is count, why do I think declarer has three of them? The logical conclusion from my analysis is that declarer has Kxxx Qx AKJxx Qx, or Kx Qxxx AKJxx Qx. Neither of those seems very likely, but anyway, if he has those my defence will still work.
This post has been edited by gnasher: 2011-March-30, 17:42