[Phil]

This is a hand from my Friday class:

---

You lead the ♥6, J, 5, 9.

The ♣K is led from the board and partner follows with the ♠2.

What is declarer's hand, and tell me how you are going to continue.

[jillybean]

Phil, the diagram isn't oriented correctly ?

[vuroth]

Declarer is 2335 or 3325.

Declarer would seem to have 5 clubs, 3+ hearts once she regains the lead.

EDIT - cleanup a bit.

Spades and Diamonds both have chances. If spades is right, we need to underlead the jack in case declarer has Txx.

But the discards lead me to believe that diamonds are our best bet. If partner has AT8x(x) then I can lead the Jack, continuing the king if dummy holds up.

This post has been edited by vuroth: 2011-January-17, 12:00

[vuroth]

Jilly - the green part is the table, not the auction part.

[mgoetze]

Phil, on 2011-January-17, 10:16, said:

What is declarer's hand, and tell me how you are going to continue.

Declarer has ♥KQx, so he won't have both the ♦A and the ♠A, and if he has either it is very unlikely he has the ♠Q as well.

I plan to continue by trying to remember whether we really don't have any carding agreements, and if this is indeed the case, trying to figure out which country I am in so I can make an educated guess as to the standard meaning.

[Phil]

mgoetze, on 2011-January-17, 19:23, said:

Declarer has ♥KQx, so he won't have both the ♦A and the ♠A, and if he has either it is very unlikely he has the ♠Q as well.

I plan to continue by trying to remember whether we really don't have any carding agreements, and if this is indeed the case, trying to figure out which country I am in so I can make an educated guess as to the standard meaning.

You don't need carding agreements here.

[mgoetze]

Phil, on 2011-January-17, 20:08, said:

You don't need carding agreements here.

Sorry I don't get it. I'm pretty convinced that declarer has one ace and partner has the other one. Also, declarer has 9 tricks if he gets the lead. Either ♠2 tells me to lead spades, in which case I will do so, or it tells me not to lead spades, in which case I will lead diamonds. But I'm too stupid to figure out which ace partner has and which ace declarer has without any help.

[Phil]

mgoetze, on 2011-January-17, 20:16, said:

Sorry I don't get it. I'm pretty convinced that declarer has one ace and partner has the other one. Also, declarer has 9 tricks if he gets the lead. Either ♠2 tells me to lead spades, in which case I will do so, or it tells me not to lead spades, in which case I will lead diamonds. But I'm too stupid to figure out which ace partner has and which ace declarer has without any help.

See if you can reconstruct partner's hand.

[Antraxxx]

I'm not sure I understand why the original distribution of partner's hand matters. For spades to work, partner needs to have AQxxx in spades, in which case he's likely to have overcalled 1S. So he must have ATxxx of diamonds for us to win. So we must switch to J♦ and hope partner returns a low diamond if declarer covers. I think.

[mgoetze]

Antraxxx, on 2011-January-18, 01:53, said:

I'm not sure I understand why the original distribution of partner's hand matters. For spades to work, partner needs to have AQxxx in spades, in which case he's likely to have overcalled 1S. So he must have ATxxx of diamonds for us to win. So we must switch to J♦ and hope partner returns a low diamond if declarer covers. I think.

If I don't know our carding then I surely don't know whether partner would overcall 1♠ on AQxxx xxx xxxxx -. But if partner does have only 5 spades then declarer has 4, in which case 1NT was a somewhat strange bid. And with 6 spades to the AQ, yeah I guess we can expect partner to come in - more likely with 2♠ than 1♠.

Alright, ♦J it is, I guess.

[vuroth]

Hmm aren't you going to need partner to have the 8♦ too?

[Phil]

mgoetze, on 2011-January-18, 07:28, said:

If I don't know our carding then I surely don't know whether partner would overcall 1♠ on AQxxx xxx xxxxx -. But if partner does have only 5 spades then declarer has 4, in which case 1NT was a somewhat strange bid. And with 6 spades to the AQ, yeah I guess we can expect partner to come in - more likely with 2♠ than 1♠.

Alright, ♦J it is, I guess.

Don't sound so sure of yourself

Yes, the ♦J is the card. The only hand that seems to matter for declarer is Axx KQ9 Tx T9xxx.