[bluecalm]

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Imps. Opponents are the best junior Polish pair who play quite aggressively, especially in friendly BBO matches They play UDCA with natural S/P if applies.

trick 1:
T♦, 6♦, A♦, 2♦
J♦, 5♦, 4♦, 7♦
3♦, K♦, 8♦, 2♣

You now think for a while and run 6spades to which:
N discarded: 2,3,9 of spades and then 7♥, and 3,5 ♣ (all in that order)
S discarded: 6♠, 3,8 of hearts and 8,6 of clubs and Q of hearts (again in that order)

All discards were made in even tempo.
You are left with ♥96 ♣T4 in dummy and ♥KJ and ♣AQ in hand.

Your play ?

[mikeh]

Club to the A.

I don't see LHO bidding 3♦, even as an aggressive junior, on x Qxx Q109xx Kxxx or on any 4 card diamond suit.

I also don't see him bidding this way with x AQxx Q109xx xxx, tho were he to have done so, he has made the correct pitches...more power to him. I don't mind (much) losing to that calibre of defence, tho losing to that type of bidding irritates me

I do see him doing it on x AQxx Q109xx Kxx.

He can easily see that he has to stiff his club K or pitch a couple of red winners and get endplayed, so it is routine for any reasonably competent defender to stiff the club a round before he 'had' to do so.

While I may be wrong, I would expect to drop the K 85% of the time in this situation.

Btw, if S held Kxxx in clubs, and no heart A, which I don't believe for one moment, I still make, since my club A strips RHO of his third and last club and he has nothing but Axx in hearts left, and I can lead the heart K.

I am, of course, assuming 5-3 diamonds but S would be bidding hearts, not diamonds, if he wanted to bid a 4 card suit.

[bluecalm]

One thing I am wondering about is this:
They could have forced me to finesse clubs by playing a club in 3rd round. They didn't.
Now it might not be obvious to them to play that way, or maybe they didn't want to because club finesse is on ? Is this inference strong enough to overcome the one you gave ? (and which I like and played club to the A♣ after similar analysis)

[mikeh]

bluecalm, on 2012-March-15, 16:09, said:

One thing I am wondering about is this:
They could have forced me to finesse clubs by playing a club in 3rd round. They didn't.
Now it might not be obvious to them to play that way, or maybe they didn't want to because club finesse is on ? Is this inference strong enough to overcome the one you gave ? (and which I like and played club to the A♣ after similar analysis)

Firstly, if you had bid 3N with Qxx and a side A/AK, they let an unmakeable game through by switching.

Secondly, why (from N's point of view) would a club switch 'force' you to finesse....why couldn't your hearts be, for example, KQxx...now you'd be insane to finesse the club....you'd rise A and drive out the heart A, secure that there is no way that N has the heart A....what was S bidding on without that card?

It is always important to realize that the defenders are often operating with limited knowledge. We know that N could have forced us to finesse clubs, but there is no way N could know that so we can't and shouldn't take inferences from the lack of a switch.

[JLOGIC]

It is worth noting that Polish players are notoriously honest in their carding, up there with the french (sorry for the generalization, but it is true).

May seem ridiculous but RHO suit preferenced for clubs, then pitched a discourging heart, then encouraged clubs. LHO encouraged hearts and discouraged clubs.

Also, LHO pitched 2 clubs before pitching the HQ. Again, may seem ridiculous, but he would have to have stiffed his king one round early which is not what most people do unless they are tricky. If they are playing straight up, he pitched his losers then his winners.

On top of that, the tempo seems to indicate that they did not think out their discards in great depth before pitching them. It's easy to say they knew they were going to make 5 pitches, so the order etc is not relevant, but if you are playing on auto pilot you pitch honestly and you pitch in normal order (losers then winners). If they had tanked forever on the 2nd spade, then pitched in tempo, it would be different.

I play very few opps to cooperatively falsecard like that in general, and against the most notoriously honest carders in in the entire world (Poles) I def would not play for cooperative falsecards.

There is the bidding, LHO would have to bid 3C with x AQxx QT98x Jxx/xxx instead of x AQxx QT98x Kxx. I don't see these bids as too different tbh, he is just bidding because he has a stiff spade and is trying to screw LHO.

There might be some inferences on RHO winning the DA vs ducking at trick 1 etc, but in reality he probably doesn't want to do something stupid if we have Qxx of diamonds so I think this is neutral.

Until I see otherwise, I play them to have carded straight up and I finesse the clubs. If LHO is Kalita, I will reconsider though

Occams razor, I take a finesse. Experts from a very honest carding country pitched in normal tempo and every single play they made suggested that RHO has the CK and LHO doesn't. Yes, it might be a deep game, and they figured everything out in tempo, and they falsecarded me perfectly in a spot where they should that is against their nature, but on this hand I'm not giving them that credit. WD if they got me, I will take a mental note and adjust my play against them next time. Fool me once and all that. A large majority of the time carding honestly is correct to give partner the right info, sometimes it's right to falsecard but people do not adjust to that time.

The only reason to hook is because of a IMO relatively flimsy bidding inference, and I always go with play inferences over that.

/Ready to look very stupid when they have pwned me

[JLOGIC]

A simple way that I would look at this:

For going for the drop to be right, RHO would have to have figured out the hand from the beginning, falsecarded his suit preference, then given an honest heart signal, then a dishonest club signal.

MEANWHILE

LHO would have to have figured out the hand early, given an honest heart signal, then stiffed his king early while falsecarding, followed by pitching his HQ.

They would have both had to have done this is in normal tempo, without ever stopping to think for a long time.

It is easy to say they should do this, but it's harder in real life.

For hooking to be right, they would have just had to have played honest signals at every point. No falsecarding, no deep thinking, no counting. LHO comes down to winning diamonds, the HA, and a club. RHO signals honestly at every turn. They did this in normal tempo, duh, because there was no thinking required.

Which is more likely?

Yes, LHO would have had to make a slightly crazier bid, and that is an inference, but it doesn't outweigh the play which is very strong imo. LHO bidding 3D with a stiff spade and a random hand is not that unlikely, he knows LHO likely has long spades and he takes away the 3S jump.

You are really letting people own you if they can always card honestly vs you, and you don't believe them when it matters in your favor. They just get the best of all worlds, they don't have to think very deeply, they give clear signals and know whats going on, and you still misplay it.

[mikeh]

I hadn't known that about polish players....that they are all very honest carders. If they are that honest, then I agree with what Justin wrote....I wouldn't normally read anything into N's signalling....he discouraged hearts right away and, if he has just the AJ♦ and maybe the club J, he knows his partner won't play him for anything in clubs, no matter what he signalled...one doesn't need to be 'on one's game' as North to realize that S knows where all the high cards are on this auction. I mean, East opened and then bid 3N. It won't be hard for S to place declarer with 13 points.

But if S is to be taken as an honest carder, and to have denied a club card.....frankly I am astounded that any pairs play like that on hands when they can infer that partner cannot be misled by falsecarding. But...if that is a national trait, so be it.

[quiddity]

Wasn't the first suit-preference signal LHO's ♦8 from Q98? I agree the rest of the carding looks like CK on the right though, and with a side-suit ace as an entry LHO doesn't need to signal anything there so it was probably just random/lowest.

[bluecalm]

The way I would understand carding here is that suit preference if any, was given in spade suit and then it was just count. That is how I would signal with semi reg pd if I wanted to be honest.
The fact is, and I didn't notice at the time of playing (), that RHO discarded spades from the lowest which he probably wouldn't have done without K♣...
Anyway, full hand:

http: //www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?myhand=M-28453594-1329981786 (added space after http to avoid embedding).

JL won, I lost

Btw, some interesting points about play vs bidding inferences. I think I get burned too often for trusting the bidding too much. Note taken...