[Cyberyeti]

---

The auction is not a misprint, S revealed that he thought he'd bid 2♦ rather than 2♠ and only woke up to the fact that he hadn't by the looks on 3 faces when he bid 4N, 5♦ was 1 or 4 of 5.

Anyway, you have to lead to this mess, and settle on J♥ (be interested to know what you would lead)

Dummy's K wins partner playing the 7 to most likely show an even number and declarer plays A♦ (partner showing odd) and a club to the ace (partner showing odd). Now a stream of diamonds follow, on the 4th round, you pitch an easy club and partner pitches the smallest outstanding heart to confirm an even number. Declarer pitches spades from dummy on rounds 2-4.

What do you discard on the 5th diamond (and the 6th) ?

[CamHenry]

Cyberyeti, on 2013-March-18, 08:22, said:

The auction is not a misprint, S revealed that he thought he'd bid 2♦ rather than 2♠ and only woke up to the fact that he hadn't by the looks on 3 faces when he bid 4N, 5♦ was 1 or 4 of 5.

Anyway, you have to lead to this mess, and settle on J♥ (be interested to know what you would lead)

Dummy's K wins partner playing the 7 to most likely show an even number and declarer plays A♦ (partner showing odd) and a club to the ace (partner showing odd). Now a stream of diamonds follow, on the 4th round, you pitch an easy club and partner pitches the smallest outstanding heart to confirm an even number. Declarer pitches spades from dummy on rounds 2-4.

What do you discard on the 5th diamond (and the 6th) ?

Thinking about declarer's auction: 4N is presumably Keycard, and the fact he's able to bid 7NT means he can tell the difference between the ♦A and the ♠K. He's therefore almost certainly holding the ♠AK. Partner's even hearts means declarer also has even hearts; similarly he has even clubs; so his only possible shape is 3=2=6=2 (since he's shown at least one of each round suit and, by inference, 2+ ♠).

He's got 6 diamond tricks, two clubs, two hearts, and two spades. He needs the 13th. If I throw a second club, he cashes the diamonds, a heart, and then either leads up in clubs or cashes the spades, winning in either case. If I throw a spade, declarer can just bang down the AK in full confidence that I've set up his J. I therefore pitch two hearts.

Of course, a canny declarer then plays his ♥A, squeezing me once more. If my layout is correctly inferred, the contract's unbeatable.

===

For the contract to go off, I need partner to have something in spades; in that case I can chuck the spades straight away (e.g. give declarer A/AQ9x/KQJTxx/Ax) and I must keep the hearts. I can't see why declarer would bid 7NT here, though. This is playing for declarer to be either 1=4=6=2 or 1=2=6=4.

My third option is to play partner for a falsecard, though why he'd do so here when he knows I may well need the information is beyond me. I trust partner, and pitch the spades. At least I've got a good bit of deduction for the bar afterwards if it doesn't work...

[Cyberyeti]

CamHenry, on 2013-March-18, 09:13, said:

For the contract to go off, I need partner to have something in spades; in that case I can chuck the spades straight away (e.g. give declarer A/AQ9x/KQJTxx/Ax) and I must keep the hearts. I can't see why declarer would bid 7NT here, though. This is playing for declarer to be either 1=4=6=2 or 1=2=6=4.

Not quite, on your sample hand, declarer has a simple club/heart squeeze on you, you need declarer not to have Q♥.

[billw55]

CamHenry, on 2013-March-18, 09:13, said:

Thinking about declarer's auction: 4N is presumably Keycard, and the fact he's able to bid 7NT means he can tell the difference between the ♦A and the ♠K. He's therefore almost certainly holding the ♠AK. Partner's even hearts means declarer also has even hearts; similarly he has even clubs; so his only possible shape is 3=2=6=2 (since he's shown at least one of each round suit and, by inference, 2+ ♠).

But thinking about his play, no declarer will be pitching spades from this dummy if he holds ♠AKx. Even with ♠AK tight this is fishy.

[CamHenry]

billw55, on 2013-March-18, 10:25, said:

But thinking about his play, no declarer in a game outside the looney bin will be pitching spades from this dummy if he holds ♠AKx. Even with ♠AK tight this is fishy.

Really? When he starts pitching spades his dummy is JTxxxxx/void/void/KT9, and he's got to find 5 discards. My money's on at least 2 spades...

[billw55]

CamHenry, on 2013-March-18, 10:28, said:

Really? When he starts pitching spades his dummy is JTxxxxx/void/void/KT9, and he's got to find 5 discards. My money's on at least 2 spades...

I mean, he would run the spade suit first. And I see you quoted me before I edited out the looney bin part, lol

[Cyberyeti]

billw55, on 2013-March-18, 10:25, said:

But thinking about his play, no declarer will be pitching spades from this dummy if he holds ♠AKx. Even with ♠AK tight this is fishy.

If declarer had ♠ AKx he'd have come to hand with a spade to the A and claimed about 17 tricks most of the time. Even if he had AK, he surely would have played them off to know who to squeeze.

[billw55]

Cyberyeti, on 2013-March-18, 10:39, said:

If declarer had ♠ AKx he'd have come to hand with a spade to the A and claimed about 17 tricks most of the time. Even if he had AK, he surely would have played them off to know who to squeeze.

Right, so partner must have the ♠K. Also I think partner must have the ♥Q, assuming he would not pitch from 9xxx just to give count (he should realize that only I can hold the club guard, so he should hold the heart guard).

Overall I think declarer is ♠A♥Axxx♦KQJxxx♣Ax, or else ♠Ax♥Axxx♦KQJxxx♣A.

[Cyberyeti]

billw55, on 2013-March-18, 10:43, said:

Right, so partner must have the ♠K. Also I think partner must have the ♥Q, assuming he would not pitch from 9xxx just to give count (he should realize that only I can hold the club guard, so he should hold the heart guard).

Overall I think declarer is ♠A♥Axxx♦KQJxxx♣Ax, or else ♠Ax♥Axxx♦KQJxxx♣A.

You think how I thought (the former hand not the latter, partner showed that declarer had an even number of clubs).

I pitched the ♠Qx which seemed safe, it proved not to be when declarer's hand was

---

And declarer proceded to discard 6 spades on the red winners and cash his A98. He really deserved dummy to have K♠ rather than A♦ and for this to have no play while 7♠ would still have decent chances on a non diamond lead, but as he admitted, his mind was scrambled by the earlier misbid.

Partner looking at K, Q97xxx, xxx, xxx pointed out that he should have pitched K♠ as his first discard at which point I can't go wrong. Equally if he assumes I have ♥J10 for my lead, playing the 9 (we play the highest non significant card usually the second highest) at trick 1 would tell me he had the Q so again I can pitch hearts. Even playing the Q♥ at tricks 1 or 4 would do as he clearly has several of them, and if he pitches the Q he must have the 9.

[the_clown]

Cyberyeti, on 2013-March-18, 11:15, said:

You think how I thought (the former hand not the latter, partner showed that declarer had an even number of clubs).

I pitched the ♠Qx which seemed safe, it proved not to be when declarer's hand was

---

And declarer proceded to discard 6 spades on the red winners and cash his A98. He really deserved dummy to have K♠ rather than A♦ and for this to have no play while 7♠ would still have decent chances on a non diamond lead, but as he admitted, his mind was scrambled by the earlier misbid.

Partner looking at K, Q97xxx, xxx, xxx pointed out that he should have pitched K♠ as his first discard at which point I can't go wrong. Equally if he assumes I have ♥J10 for my lead, playing the 9 (we play the highest non significant card usually the second highest) at trick 1 would tell me he had the Q so again I can pitch hearts. Even playing the Q♥ at tricks 1 or 4 would do as he clearly has several of them, and if he pitches the Q he must have the 9.

Partner should have really played the heart queen, he can see your problem.

[lesh]

Partner looking at K, Q97xxx, xxx, xxx pointed out that he should have pitched K♠ as his first discard at which point I can't go wrong. Equally if he assumes I have ♥J10 for my lead, playing the 9 (we play the highest non significant card usually the second highest) at trick 1 would tell me he had the Q so again I can pitch hearts. Even playing the Q♥ at tricks 1 or 4 would do as he clearly has several of them, and if he pitches the Q he must have the 9.
[/quote]

Why would you pitch your singleton K♠? The declarer will just finesse your Q♠ and make the contract.

From the signalling you assume partner has 3433. But why is he discarding ♥ when he has 4. I think with 3433 he will discard a spade to show you his odd number rather than discarding ♥ to show you he has 4. How can a ♠ lose when he has 3?Therefore he should have 6 ♥.

[Cyberyeti]

lesh, on 2013-March-29, 18:10, said:

Why would you pitch your singleton K♠? The declarer will just finesse your Q♠ and make the contract.

From the signalling you assume partner has 3433. But why is he discarding ♥ when he has 4. I think with 3433 he will discard a spade to show you his odd number rather than discarding ♥ to show you he has 4. How can a ♠ lose when he has 3?Therefore he should have 6 ♥.

You mistake the position:

N J10....

W Q4 E K

S A98

so there is no finesse left if you discard the K

[lesh]

Cyberyeti, on 2013-March-30, 03:47, said:

You mistake the position:

N J10....

W Q4 E K

S A98

so there is no finesse left if you discard the K

Ah yes North is on my left hand side not on my right as the diagram indicates. Then K♠ will solve the problem. But if you were on a finesse then with 3433 your pd should have discarded a spade rather than a heart.