[lamford]

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Welsh Online League. South is a fine player and a regular international for the Welsh Lady Milne Team. IMPs

Your partner leads the six of spades (fourth) and you decide to win with the ace and return a high diamond. Partner plays the king after some thought (which you are not entitled to of course) and returns the five of spades to declarer's king. Now declarer leads a heart to partner's four and dummy's jack. Do you duck or win?

[FelicityR]

lamford, on 2020-April-23, 19:34, said:

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Welsh Online League. South is a fine player and a regular international for the Welsh Lady Milne Team. IMPs

Your partner leads the six of spades (fourth) and you decide to win with the ace and return a high diamond. Partner plays the king after some thought (which you are not entitled to of course) and returns the five of spades to declarer's king. Now declarer leads a heart to partner's four and dummy's jack. Do you duck or win?

Duck looks best. That fifth ♥ in dummy could well be the 9th trick. As partner didn't lead a ♦ in preference to a ♠, his/her ♦s aren't that solid. I would expect partner to be 5-1-5-2 shape from the bidding and the play so far. Though I would like to know if the opponents open 1♣ with 4-4m as opposed to 1♦ here for clarity.

[Cyberyeti]

FelicityR, on 2020-April-24, 05:24, said:

Duck looks best. That fifth ♥ in dummy could well be the 9th trick. As partner didn't lead a ♦ in preference to a ♠, his/her ♦s aren't that solid. I would expect partner to be 5-1-5-2 shape from the bidding and the play so far. Though I would like to know if the opponents open 1♣ with 4-4m as opposed to 1♦ here for clarity.

The dangers are that either you've given him a second dummy entry to hook clubs, or that you haven't grabbed your ♥Q, and partner now gets endplayed in the pointies, but how are you beating this on the hands where this matters ? You're most likely depriving declarer of a hear trick, but giving him an extra club.

Partner has 7-9 points, and you're presuming he has ♠Q to go with his ♦K.

I think we've possibly erred in returning the high diamond in that the 9 could be useful here (give declarer AQ8x), but we can infer that partner's diamonds probably aren't brilliant since he led a spade. Most likely partner has a club honour and we might need him to hold the J or 9 as well.

Sample layout:

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Where if you don't grab the Q♥ declarer can make the contract with the endplay

[nige1]

Lamford writes "Welsh Online League. South is a fine player and a regular international for the Welsh Lady Milne Team. IMPs. Your partner leads the six of spades (fourth) and you decide to win with the ace and return a high diamond. Partner plays the king after some thought (which you are not entitled to of course) and returns the five of spades to declarer's king. Now declarer leads a heart to partner's four and dummy's jack. Do you duck or win?"
+++++++++++++

In layouts like this, if East ducks the ♥ (especially after thought), then declarer might succeed by switching to ♣s.

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[lamford]

I wrongly ducked and declarer now had a club guess which she got right. If I win then there is no problem as partner has the ace of clubs. Ducking can be right, but partner would need the ten and the eight of diamonds. I agree that I should return a low diamond at trick two, as the nine could be important. Interestingly, and quite bizarrely, if partner has QT9xx x KT8xx K9, then only the king of diamonds as an opening lead beats it!! But now you can win or duck the heart and declarer cannot get home, as it needed a double dummy line earlier.

As my partner pointed out, Mrs Guggenheim would get this right as she would never duck.

[msjennifer]

Sir,
Returning the D9 and not the smallest even on seeing the singleton DJ in dummy was not wise at all.Partner did not start with a diamond lead and so ,leave alone his pause, must be quite shaky. At this point the D9 could possibly have relieved the pressure on partner.At this level it is not difficult to visualise a throw-in endplay coming if one withholds the HQ.Win and return the diamond.(long lost 9). Thanks.

[lamford]

msjennifer, on 2020-April-25, 20:43, said:

Sir,
Returning the D9 and not the smallest even on seeing the singleton DJ in dummy was not wise at all.Partner did not start with a diamond lead and so ,leave alone his pause, must be quite shaky. At this point the D9 could possibly have relieved the pressure on partner.At this level it is not difficult to visualise a throw-in endplay coming if one withholds the HQ.Win and return the diamond.(long lost 9). Thanks.

The problem with a low diamond is that partner might play you for the queen or ten.

[Cyberyeti]

lamford, on 2020-April-26, 07:21, said:

The problem with a low diamond is that partner might play you for the queen or ten.

MUD is getting less popular here, but probably works in this case