Here's a board where our opponents stumbled into 3NT on a combined 23 count with only half a stop in my partner's 7 card suit, which he had shown in the auction. Have a look at all 4 hands and see if you can figure how the play went on a ♦ lead.
Norman led the ♦10 (promising the K), and declarer took the first trick and played a ♣ to the K. I ducked this, and ducked the next ♣ (very relieved to see partner follow with the 10♣). What do you do now after winning the third round of ♣s (partner pitches the ♠4, and declarer pitches the ♥4 from hand)?
Our agreement is that the first discard is either reverse attitude or standard count, depending what you think partner needs to know. Since Norman clearly couldn't have a ♠ entry, I figured it had to be count. If that's the case, then this contract is cold! If I play back the K♥, then declarer just wins, sets up another club, and has 9 tricks with 3♣s, 1♦, 1♥ and 4♠s. So what hope is there? Well, after declarer had carelessly let go of what appears to be his 4th ♥, I decided the best shot was to play a small ♥, and hope that declarer would somehow make a mistake. Of course, this runs the pretty big risk that declarer just runs the ♥ to the J, but since I couldn't see any way the contract was going off otherwise, I decided it was a risk I had to take, and shot back the ♥8.
I think declarer should still get this right. He has absolutely no play for 9 tricks if he wins this, so he's gambling +450 vs an extra -150 (we're only taking 8 tricks in defence even if partner gets to run his ♦s). However, I was pleased to see him rise with the ♥A, and that partner could follow to this trick.
It's interesting to look at how the play might go on any other lead. Double dummy, declarer can still make it, but in practice the fact that he has to try and avoid giving the lead to my hand will make things tricky.
Great defence I enjoyed that.
ReplyDeleteI am enjoying your articles keep them coming!
ReplyDeleteThis auction is a bit bizarre. Firstly East doubles with 3-3 in the majors and West bids 3N with 4-4!
Anyway, I would have risked a 3H bid on the south cards. It's so important to be aggressive in these spots to get partner off to the right lead and/or find the right contract. Huge upside and very little downside. Sometimes partner has 2 or 3 hearts and if he doesn't then 4D isn't going to be more than 300 on most days.
Ok, you might say that here you will go for 500 but any competent declarer will make 3N on a Diamond lead and 3N can never make on a Heart lead.
On another topic: "Our agreement is that the first discard is either reverse attitude or standard count, depending what you think partner needs to know".
Not only do I think this method is unplayable (what is 'obvious' to one person is not so 'obvious' to another) but I think this is an illegal carding method in most places. Dual message signals are frowned upon almost everywhere and although this specific example might not fit the description of a 'dual-message signal' I think the same ethical implications apply. Don't bother asking any directors in Scotland because I doubt any of them will have enough knowledge on this subject to give you a definitive answer. Be careful....
Agree on the auction - although it's not atypical of second division matches to find odd things like this happening.
DeleteI also agree on teh carding methods. I think it would actually be more accurate to describe it as "we show reverse attitude unless we think that isn't appropriate, in which case we show standard count", which brings it more in line with standard carding methods (where, e.g. it's pretty standard to show suit preference when there's a singleton in dummy). I actually was concerned about the same issue, which is why I asked the question on the BBO forums. The people on that thread seemed to agree that the method is legal, but there was some debate: http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/topic/64867-is-this-carding-agreement-ok/
http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/topic/64867-is-this-carding-agreement-ok/
ReplyDelete