plaur, on 2011-July-06, 01:26, said:
MP's. You sit North and deals and opens 1NT. Partner doubles 2♠ and leads 8♦
Your agreements are that you now make an attitude signal (upside down)
Do you play the 7, to say "I dont like diamonds, please shift"
or do you play the 2, to say "yes I have the queen"?
(you do not play Smith echo or other advanced agreements)
And more in the general:
Do you use attitude to tell partner your holding in that suit or to ask partner to continue the suit or shift to another?
Paulg suggest that this is not a basic question, but in my opinion it is. You stated clearly that YOUR agreement is to give attitude in this situation. That means your choice is to either encourage diamonds (showing the queen) or to discourage diamonds. Playing your agreement, if you discourage in diamonds it carries no other meaning (you can not discourage and say at the same time please lead a club or please lead a heart).
With Kxx in both of those suits, you can sometimes "guess" what suit partner will lead anyway if he did switch. Logically we can make some inference from partners opening lead. Partner had no hcp in clubs (we can see all them) and none in diamonds (we can see all them and he lead the eight). Partner will have some hcp, and those are in the majors. Available cards are
♠KJ,
♥AQ. I think it is reasonable to suggest that partner has both the spade King and heart ACE and at least one more honor. Since we don't think he will lead away from the heart ACE if we discourage we will get a club shift. So playing what you said you play, I would discourage.
Odds are fair your partner holds something like:
♠Kxx
♥AQxx
♦8x
♣xxxx or
♠KJx
♥Axxx
♦8x
♣xxxx, he may have a fifth club and one less diamond too. Partner is unlikely to have five hearts since on jacoby.
Now I suggested that playing your methods, you can not convey any other information. Two people have alluded to other options. One is obvious shift, where if you discourage it ask for the obvious shift. For obvious shift to imply a club shift in this situation where your side has not bid a suit, the only suit they bid is trumps, and the two side suits in dummy are equivalent would require quite some detail in your obvious shift agreement,
Another poster (phil_somenumber) has suggested that situation with AKx in dummy is a place where you should have some other agreement that over-rides the normal attitude signal you play and thus your carding should be suit preference (low for clubs, high for hearts). I think this is outside what you said you played, and I don't actually agree with his rule on this holding, but it would work wonders on this example. I do have a long list of when suit preference or count is used at trick one instead of attitude and eventuallly you will need something along those lines as well. But lets assume you do have such a list, but like me, it would not apply with this holding in dummy and the spot card lead.
As to your more general question, this is a deep question. The problem on this hand is you don't want to be endplayed if East has three clubs into giving him a club trick. If East has three clubs, you can be pretty darn sure your partner has two diamonds (else lead top club spot would be more attractive). If your partners hand is something like
♠KJx
♥Axxx
♦8x
♣xxxx East will play a heart to his TEN at trick two. Your partner wins the ACE. The best defense here is to shift to a club. The ideal defense will allow you to score two spades in your hand (you will make it easy for partner, giving you 3C, 2S, 1H, two diamnod ruffs (one with the king) and a trump promotion for your spade nine.
Likely line.
Trick 1. DA --> signal for switch
Trick 2. H to TEN-ACE
Trick 3. CJ
Trick 4. Diamond Q to King
Trick 5. Heart K
Trick 6. Heart Q with EAST
Trick 7. Spade to TEN-ACE
Trick 8. Low diamond force partner to ruff (not Top diamond)
Trick 9. club to Queen
Trick 10 Club ACE
Trick 11, diamond for partner to ruff with KING
Trick 12. Partner returns 13th club, to promote your spade nine.
The only problem with line of play is when partner is allowed to think on his own. If you play a a discouraging diamond at trick two, he might consider that EAST must have the queen so he might continue a diamond at trick three to set up his diamond ruff. This destroys the timing on the hand so they will get an additional trick. So with a partner who thinks about the hand, you need to signal that you do have the diamond queen, and partner will work out that he doesn't need a ruff (and can't ruff fourth round effectively at this point) and thus he will shift on his own. And with a really clever partner, you might need an alarm clock diamond honor play, but that is for another day.
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