[Free]

This is a hand I played about a year ago. The thread about ducking Aces reminded me of this one, where my RHO gave the show away.

You are east.

The bidding went:
1NT - Dbl - 2♥ - pass
pass - pass
(Dbl showed a strong hand, 2♥ was signoff)

Partner leads the ♦5 (3th/5th) and you get the following view:

Scoring: MP

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Declarer thinks for a few minutes, and finally plays ♦A (you play the ♦Q - do you agree?).

Now declarer plays ♠8 from dummy. You had a lot of time to think about the hand at trick 1, but were you prepared for this? Do you duck or do you play the K?

At the table I was South. Although my RHO is one of the better players in Belgium, he wasn't prepared for the ♠8. It took him several minutes to decide what to do. I'll give the full hand later.

[billw55]

In accordance with my policy as stated in the other thread, I duck, because I have not a good enough reason to go up. I am not too worried about declarer holding ♠Q bare, since that would give partner 5 and he might have found a 2♠ call over 2♥.

[Phil]

I think this is a tough problem at MPs. At IMPs, rising appears to give away the contract; conceding 2♠ + 3♥ + 2♦ + 1♣.

I agree with the ♦Q. In general, I believe we should be showing as many of our cards to declarer after our penalty x.

The lead appears to be from four, although ♦98765(x) are theoretically possible. Therefore, I'll put declarer on 5=3 in the reds.

Since some of my earlier posts haven't been clear to some, I will state the obvious and say that if we rise with the K and declarer has squadoosh in the suit, we will look very bad.

If declarer has ♠Qx, ducking doesn't cost, since we are just trading a club trick for a spade trick. In fact, if declarer has ♠Qx/♣Qxx, I've been grosvenored with him playing a spade instead of a club. However, I'm not inclined to put declarer on either Qx Kxxxx xxx Qxx / Qxx Kxxxx xxx Qx because I think these hands sit for 1N x'd.

With 3-2 in the blacks, the spade trick isn't going anywhere.

Also, unlike the Ace ducks mentioned earlier, I'm not that worried about giving away the show with this duck so I will take all of the time I need, even though declarer will know I don't have KQ.

[whereagles]

I fail to see any immediate problem, so I would defend this purely by instinct, which is to duck smoothly.