[thebiker]

Playing pairs (MP's) LA
You are West

S W N E
1H 1S 2D 2S
3S P 4D P
5D

Partner leads A of clubs - your agreement is that A leads ask fo reverse count
K or Q leads for reverse attitude
Dummy
A4
AKQT9
QT3
972

West (thats u)
KQJ3
J764
96
J104

How do you defend? If you play the 4 of clubs partner may thing you are showing an even no and perhaps try to give you a ruff, by cashing her K of clubs and setting up declarers Q of clubs. So should you play a higher club ie the T or maybe the J to show an odd number of clubs? That doesn't look right either because now one can never trap the Q of clubs.
At the table I played the J of Clubs and presumablely partner must have thought I had the Queen, for she cashed the second club and played a third. Declarer now had plenty of time and entries to set up hearts and discard two losing spades.

How should we have approached this defense playing our existing methods?
Would a better method have worked if available?

Declarers shape 3263

regards
thebiker

[ArtK78]

Your methods require that you play the J if you want to show an odd number of clubs. Whether you can afford to play the J is the question. Given what happened at the table, there is no reason to go into that.

Having played the J at trick one, there is one thing that is absolutely certain - you do not hold the Q. With QJ, you would play the Q at trick one regardless of count. So your partner's play of the K and a third club is very wrong unless she thought she would lose the CK if she did not cash it - certainly not an unreasonable position to take looking at the hearts in dummy.

So, I am assuming that your partner was cashing out, fully aware that you did not hold the ♣Q and knowing that you held an odd number of clubs.

[thebiker]

Have just realised that there are 13 cards per hand
Declarers shape 3253 not 3263

[ralph23]

First of all I would observe a good basic rule is: Don't signal at the expense of a trick. Players sometimes get excited and do this playing standard, e.g. partner leads a "good suit" and they give a "come on" signal by throwing away the setting trick!

So I would play low on trick one, regardless of our signalling agreements. Those agreements take second place to the common sense rule, which is an implicit part of all signalling agreements. With the 9 in dummy, it doesn't seem like you can afford to do anything else.

If partner leads another suit at trick 2 and you've played low, then he's going down. If partner leads another suit at trick 2 and you've play the Jack, then declarer can still make it via a ♣ finesse if he has the 8, so you're giving him an extra chance by playing the Jack.

If partner leads another club at trick 2, then declarer's Queen will make and probably his contract too.... regardless of what you've played at trick one.

[Codo]

Yes, you don´t signal if this may blow a trick, but this hand is very tricky:
1. If you play the jack, this denies the queen, so a shift should follow.
2. If you play the 4, pd will play you for 4 clubs. So he thinks, that it can cost nothing to cash one more round and switch to your suit Spade one trick later. You can judge, whether this is good enough to beat the contract.

I would play the jack.
Pd should surely switch to spade then.

[ralph23]

The problem with playing the ♣Jack at trick one is, even if partner does get smart and then shift to a ♠, it may not help you!!

The appearances are, that you are never going to collect a ♠ trick in this hand as the defense; your best chance of setting the contract is to collect three ♣ tricks.

Observe what happens if you play the Jack of ♣ and partner brilliantly switches to a ♠ at trick two:

T2: Declarer wins the Ace of ♠ in dummy.
T3: Top ♥.
T4: Top ♥.
T5: Ruff a low heart in hand with the ♦Jack (doesn't declarer have it for his bidding ? ... he has nothing in the majors and only the Queen of ♣).
T6: Ace of ♦
T7: King of ♦
T8: Return to the dummy with the ♦Queen, extracting the last of defender's trumps.
T9: Top ♥, discarding a ♠ from hand and extracting your Jack.
T10: Final ♥, declarer now discarding his final ♠.
T11: Small ♣. If declarer holds ♣Q8, he will play the 8 when you play low and partner will be forced to win his Ace, making declarer's Queen good. If you cover the ♣ with the ten (even worse), declarer will play his Queen, promoting his ♣9.

Of course, as noted earlier, this ♣ combination will not work for declarer, unless declarer has the ♣8. Maybe partner has that card. Who knows?

The real problem is, you need an attitude signal at trick one, and you've agreed to play count. What you want at trick one is to tell partner, DON'T LEAD ANOTHER %^$% CLUB! There is no direct way to do that.