[inquiry]

Dealer: South Vul: Both Scoring: IMP

♠ Q4 ♥ J952 ♦ AJ4 ♣ JT95 ♠ K62 ♥ QT76 ♦ QT95 ♣ 43

Playing standard count and attitude (low = odd, high = even) T1. ♠J Q K 3 T2. ♠6 7 T 4 T3. ♠8 ♣5 ♠2 A T4. ♣A 2 J 4 T5. ♣6 8 T 3 T6. ♣9 ? <- you discard ♥ or ♦

West North East South
                  Pass
2N   Pass   3♣   Pass
3N!  Pass  Pass  Pass
Bidding... 2NT was 20-bad 22. 3♣ was "puppet", and 3NT was alerted and explained as no four card major. Thinks start off very well for your side, as you wrap up two quick ♠ tricks. But on the third ♣ you must find a discard from the following holding:

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Is it a pure quess what to play? Would signals from your partner have helped? What if he returned a low ♠ instead of the ten? Would partner's play on the club suit influence your play? That is, does your partner's signal here make much difference one way or the other, and if so, what do you expect your partner to signal?

Ben

[Charis]

Let's see... declarer has shown up with just 4 pts so far, and is known to be no 4c major. If p can get in he'll cash two more spades and we'll win. For that reason, and to have his bid, assume the declarer has AKQ of clubs. That's 13 pts, and give him AH or he's doomed, that's 17, so he can't have BOTH KD and KH. Is he 4-3 in C/D or 5-2? Or 5 clubs with a doubleton heart? It would be nice if partner let us know his entry and/or gave us some help on the count. Maybe he did?

That 8S spade seems like a suit preference, suggesting the KH, and the declarer with KD. If he returned a low spade instead it would suggest the KD instead (hmm, but why let declarer know that)

If declarer has 5 club winners, AS, AH, and two diamonds and he's home. But if 4 clubs, he's likely for 4 diamonds, and throwing away even one would give him a winner in that suit, driving out the QD and getting back in for the winner with his AH. So I must hold all diamonds and toss the heart.

Looking for errors in my inference (which are frequent) I look at p's signal in clubs. Presumably he's showing count, and high low as an even number. He's got 2, and declarer has 5 clubs. That's bad - are we not sunk? Could p have 4 clubs? No, then declarer has 3 clubs and discarding the club from dummy would be foolish. Am I misplacing the KH? If west has that and 5 clubs, we're sunk too. I'll toss the heart, but not with confidence.

OK, enough thinking out loud here. I once again find myself feeling I've got several points right in my analysis but am missing something, and wondering if I'll *ever* be able to figure this stuff out at the table - if it takes me 15 mins offline to run through all the above, how will I ever figure things out in 5 secs?

Charis

[inquiry]

Hi Charis,

Don't give up, you are think the right kind of thoughts, although thinking so many of them they might be getting in your way.

Let's forget about partner's signals now for a second (he has sent two suit preference ones, but you may or maynot need them yet). (The idea of this post is that defense is a partnership game and you and your partner have to work together, so you WILL need signals from him).

First, you are right that your partner has cashing ♠s, good inference from bidding. So you don;t need to assume about the ♣AKQ, if partner had a big ♣ he would have grabbed the second round of that suit. Your partner played the ♣2 on the second round of the suit...so he has an odd number, leaving declarer with exactly four ♣.

So you know he had 7 black cards, and thus only 6 red ones. His distribution (barring a singlton ♥ will be 3♠3♥3♦4♣ OR 3♠2♥4♦4♣.

Here you have a problem.... Declearer to get to his 20ish hcp, must have one of the red kings (as you summized). If he has ♥AKx and you throw a ♥, he can cash his ♣s then win ♥AK and duck a ♥ to you to set up the ♥JACK. HE will therefore win 4♣+1♦+3♥+1♠ = 9 tricks. So you would have to throw a ♦. On the otherhand, if he has the ♥A without the king, but holds 4♦'s, if you throw a ♦, he will try the ♦hook in an effort to win 3♦ tricks to go along with 4♣+1♠+1♥ for 9 tricks. The ♦ hook will lose, but now his 4th ♦ is good because of your discard.

So in fact, if you are playing alone (no help from partner), this is indeed a guess. You have to decide which card to throw, and if you guess wrong you hand declarer his contract on a silver platter. This is where your partner can help. Looking at that dummy, if your partner has a ♥ entry, he will be telling you about it. Now, did he in fact have anything to say? This is where suit preference signals come into play. The dummy with the ♣JT9x, you can recognize partner's ♣8 as his highest spot card. On the run of ♣, after playing the 2 for count, he could play either the 8 (his highest) or his middle card. The eight seems to suggest a ♥ entry.

What about the play in the ♠ suit. Your partner had the ♠T98x when you returned the suit. He could have headed the ♠7 with the 8, 9 or T and returned teh suit (like you, he knows declearer has only 3♠. The normal play would be win the 8, return the T. His play of the cards in such an unusual order should have suit preference implications as well. The way I play it, if I play an usual card first, then the normal card I should have played, it conveys a suit preference signal. So by playing an unnecessarily high card on the second round (the ten), then showing I had the sequence, it shows value in a higher suit. By playing a lower card first (the 9) then return the normal card I should have won on the second round (the 8), it would express values in a lower suit. Some would suggest winning the 8 then returning the TEN when any card would do suggest a ♥ entry (return something other than the TEN without it). This is fine too, and I would speculate that was the meaning, but the Ten then the eight is clear.

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It would be nice if partner let us know his entry and/or gave us some help on the count. Maybe he did?

He did.. he gave two signals for ♥ and he gave the ♣ count. He is working hard for you over there... "-)

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If he returned a low spade instead it would suggest the KD instead (hmm, but why let declarer know that)

Because if your partner has the ♦K, you will need to hold onto 4♥'s... He is letting you know what to do, sadly declearer gets to watch these signals too, and sometimes that helps him. :-)

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So I must hold all diamonds and toss the heart.

Tada... hope the time it takes gets shorter and shorter with use....