[Cyberyeti]

Both of these occurred last night on consecutive boards, teams in an indifferent club field. Adv/exp pls hide your answers. You are E on both, and in the defensive hotseat, note declarer is N on the second one.

1. N deals, opens 1N (12-14), you double, S bids 2♥ natural ending the auction. Partner leads J♦ showing the 10 or singleton/doubleton, this goes K A 3, what do you do at trick 2 ?

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2. The auction on this board is complete nonsense, you deal and open 2♦-(X)-3♦-(3N) but suffice it to say that you've shown 4 or more diamonds and 0-10 points, partner has shown any hand with 5 diamonds or a weak no trump type hand with 4 diamonds, and declarer having had to guess, may not have as much strength as he would like when he sees dummy.

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You lead the 2♦ - Q - A - 7, partner returns the 3♦ (showing exactly 4 to start with) - 10 - J - 2♠, what do you do at trick 3 ?

[quiddity]

1. I'm not sure about this one. We might have a third trick in spades as long as declarer breaks the suit (if declarer has Txx for example). We might have a promotable trump trick if partner has ♥Qx and three spades. We might have another diamond trick by drawing trumps. And the clubs in dummy are dangerous - if we try ace and a heart and declarer has the KQ he can win in hand, set up the clubs, and he still has the ♥J as a dummy entry. Maybe it's best to play the ♠K and then lead a diamond back to partner so he can decide how to proceed.. but it still risks blowing a trick if partner has ♥Qxx and we could have drawn trumps.

2. ♣Q seems clear, setting up at least 2 club tricks when partner gets in. If declarer ducks we'll have an interesting decision on the second round. I wonder if partner will know to signal count.

[Cyberyeti]

quiddity, on 2011-November-20, 12:02, said:

2. ♣Q seems clear, setting up at least 2 club tricks when partner gets in. If declarer ducks we'll have an interesting decision on the second round. I wonder if partner will know to signal count.

Partner plays the 6 on your Q♣ (which holds) which will be count (hi-lo even) and declarer plays the 7, now what ?