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plan the defence

#1 User is offline   mikeh 

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Posted 2019-July-31, 14:00

you lead a heart to the King and partner returns the 2, showing an original holding of 4 cards. You top declarer's Queen and clear the suit, declarer pitching spades from dummy. Declarer now cashes the club King and continues with the Jack. Plan your defence

'one of the great markers of the advance of human kindness is the howls you will hear from the Men of God' Johann Hari
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#2 User is offline   hrothgar 

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Posted 2019-July-31, 14:08

View Postmikeh, on 2019-July-31, 14:00, said:

you lead a heart to the King and partner returns the 2, showing an original holding of 4 cards. You top declarer's Queen and clear the suit, declarer pitching spades from dummy. Declarer now cashes the club King and continues with the Jack. Plan your defence



Why do I have a terrible feeling that I am suppose to throw two Diamonds immediately and bare my Queen...
Alderaan delenda est
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#3 User is online   Cyberyeti 

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Posted 2019-July-31, 15:23

Does declarer know me and respect me ? or will he expect me to play true cards ?

IMPs or MPs ?

At IMPs it looks like pitching one of the small spades, then the Q, then 2 diamonds to mimic AQx,QJxx is a good shot, but you feel like a moron when declarer has KJ10xx(x) at MPs.
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#4 User is offline   mikeh 

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Posted 2019-July-31, 15:31

View PostCyberyeti, on 2019-July-31, 15:23, said:

Does declarer know me and respect me ? or will he expect me to play true cards ?

IMPs or MPs ?

At IMPs it looks like pitching one of the small spades, then the Q, then 2 diamonds to mimic AQx,QJxx is a good shot, but you feel like a moron when declarer has KJ10xx(x) at MPs.

Imps, an A/X regional at the recent Las Vegas NABC. Late in the event, and you are in the hunt (and will go on to win), but the opps are unknown to you and you suspect you are unknown to them. Probably a decent but not stellar 'Regional Flight A' pair. If they know either of you or your partner, they may mistakenly think you are a client: partner has played a fair bit of professional bridge over the last 30 years, but you are playing because you are friends.

Btw, partner will show out on the 3rd club, so you know declarer has QJx in hearts and 5 clubs to the KJ, so is unlikely to have 5 diamonds.
'one of the great markers of the advance of human kindness is the howls you will hear from the Men of God' Johann Hari
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#5 User is offline   msjennifer 

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Posted 2019-August-02, 10:08

Sir,You have made 2tricks and require 3 more to down the contract.The 5 Card position after 5 clubs are cashed lets hope partner has jack of diamonds and keep A-,10x,Qx,No use baring the DQ as if declarer has K10x there he will finesse the 10 on the way back.
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#6 User is offline   HardVector 

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Posted 2019-August-02, 11:31

I assume that declarer started with QJx in hearts and won the 3rd round. I would have played the T in the 3rd round as a lead direct, but I'm not completely sure that partner will get in again. On the run of the clubs, I'm pitching 3 spades (including the Q) and a diamond. If partner has Jxx of diamonds, that should be enough to beat it. If not, your Q was going to fall anyway.
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#7 User is offline   mikeh 

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Posted 2019-August-02, 12:23

I think it clear that the only concern is that declarer started life with at least 3 diamonds to the KJ. If partner holds either the King or Jack of diamonds, then declarer can't make, since partner can happily pitch all his spades (or keep one and pitch his heart), and partner has to have at least 3 diamonds.

We cannot pitch down to a stiff diamond, since the Queen drops under the Ace, which declarer will always cash before exiting a spade.

But we have to pitch a diamond, or we get squeezed out of a heart trick, and declarer can, if we pitch 3 spades and a heart, exit the spade King while the diamond Ace is still in dummy.

The point is to recognize the situation as early as possible. Most defenders, in these situations, pitch 3 spades and then a diamond, and an alert declarer will often go right. Most declarers, especially if they don't respect your game as a defender, will not expect a diamond pitch early, from this holding, even though they ought to.

Here, I pitched the discouraging diamond 8 as my first discard.

Sure enough, declarer ran the clubs, and played diamond Ace and low to the Jack, and I claimed for -2. Declarer said, to his partner, that 'I was always down one, and he stiffed the diamond to beat me 2...how could I play for that?'

Btw, I think the idea of which diamond to pitch is also interesting, and depends on the level one ascribes to declarer. My practice is that I only give 'real' information when I think partner needs to know about it. I am lucky enough that much of the time my partners can work out what is going on anyway (and I play mostly imps, so partner is always working on the assumption that we are trying to beat the contract). So my signals are 'true' when partner needs to know and when declarer can't do anything with the information. Otherwise I always card up the line, and I assume that true expert declarers will know that I am not giving count or attitude, merely playing cards.

However, a lot of non-expert players signal far more than they should and usually signal honestly. Since we tend to think that our opponents play as we do, such players tend to be fooled by the occasional falsecard more than experts are. Hence my discouraging diamond at trick 5.

Finally, there is a useful tidbit for declarer. At the stage that he cashed the club King, and I followed, for all I knew partner had Jxxx in clubs: declarer might have had xx QJx KJxxx Kxx. In that case I don't have to make 4 pitches, so it would be dangerous to pitch a diamond, and even more dangerous were declarer 2=3=6=2 or 1=3=6=3. However, when declarer then played the club J, I knew that clubs were almost surely running, so I could see the end position right then, and make the diamond pitch. Declarer should have played club K and then low towards dummy, which would have forced me to delay the diamond pitch. The later the pitch, the more likely it is to be forced. This is a tiny point, but one should always delay giving information to the opps until one has to: here, declarer told me very early that clubs were running.
'one of the great markers of the advance of human kindness is the howls you will hear from the Men of God' Johann Hari
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#8 User is offline   rhm 

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Posted 2019-August-06, 03:03

While I agree with your general remarks I would nit-pick with the details.
The way you posed the problem making the diamond your first discard could be costly if declarer got KJ doubleton in clubs.
In this case the contract is always down if you discard a spade first and keep your diamonds.

Otherwise when to discard a diamond depends on the level of play.
If declarer is an expert he will wonder whether you as a defender would discard the way you recommend from three small diamonds and AQxx.
At the top level I would expect many to get it right and bang down the king of diamonds, expecting an expert to discard the way you did when holding the queen of diamonds.
At that level discarding like an intermediate player, 3 spades first and then a diamond might be more successful.

At the top level its a game of bluff and double bluff.

Rainer Herrmann
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#9 User is offline   KingCovert 

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Posted 2019-August-14, 15:19

Honestly, I think the commentary on what to discard here is entirely subjective.

First of all, the diamond discard is just incorrect against certain lies of the cards as Rainer pointed out. Although admittedly, that lie of the cards is improbable, but possible and there's no good reason not to cater to it on the auction. Also, any sequence of discards of 3 spades (including the queen) and a diamond just looks suspect, you're marked for 5 hearts and the A fairly quickly. Now you're marked for exactly 4531 shape. Now, I understand a good player would try to hide all information about the location of the Q, whether they're holding it or not. But, this is just all the more reason why your discards here are just not as significant as you're claiming. The squeeze is working, but it's just down to a pure guess.

As you did point out though Mikeh, declarer can make things a little more interesting by being a bit more deceptive with their play in clubs. After you now, surely, pitch a spade on the 2nd round of clubs, you will just be forced to pray that partner has the J once declarer starts running the clubs. I know you know this Mikeh, but this is also just the fundamental reality of the hand no matter how clubs are played, which is the actual key point.

So we can try and amateur psychologist the correct discard here, but the truth is, a diamond pitch just allows hopeless contracts to make sometimes. I realize you feel like you nailed this hand at the table... But, declarer's comment is just petulance/ignorance. Discarding down to the QX is your only hope of deceiving declarer. Discarding a heart is just a losing play that allows for a spade exit... What choice do you have? I think it's a stretch to read into your order of the discards here. When you're known to be holding enough tricks to set the contract, what do your discards matter? Declarer shouldn't place any worth in your attitude in diamonds whatsoever.
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