Finding the right defence

[OliverC]

An illustrative hand for defensive carding came up during some practice hands on last night's OCP Complex seminar in IAC. It's a simple enough hand, but if the defence don't have their act together, you could easily miss the point and not get the tricks you need:

You are East. North South have had a "complex" auction as follows

1 - 1   //    8-10 any shape
1 - 1NT   //   Any 4441  /  Relay
2 - 3    //   Singleton Club / Range Beta
3 - 4    //   Max, 3 Controls

You lead your 8 of Diamonds, and this is what you can see:

                             East
                              742
                              Q1098
                              ( 8 )
                              AQ653
South (Dummy)
  AK106
  65
  K62
  10974

Partner wins the Ace of Diamonds and returns the 3, which you ruff. What now?

If you don't underlead your AQ with the 3, then you're not "with the program". Partner is likely to have 8-9 HCP on this auction and Declarer is known to have a singleton Club. Cashing the Ace of Clubs and then leading a small one is therefore not going to work. Partner's 3 return is telling you they have the King of Clubs, since clearly they had 4 Diamonds to choose from when they returned a Diamond for you to ruff and they chose their lowest. On only have one chance to get this right, because as soon as Declarer gains the lead, the first thing they're going to do is to draw trumps. Mentally "giving" Partner the Ace of Diamonds and King of Clubs puts them right  in the region of high card points you would expect them to have, and it's utterly consistent with the bidding (North being known to have a singleton Club).

Like I said a very simple hand and few experts would get this one wrong, even on different bidding that didn't point to a Club Singleton with North, but it's amazing how some [even advanced] players would fail here.

[lute57]

Nice case study Oliver.

West must give a suit preference lead knowing East has led from a singleton  . This should be a no-brainer for West to deduce, as Declarer promised 4-cards with his 1 bid [4441]. West can also see 3-cards in Dummy and West can count the other 5-cards in their own hand.

East may not known partner is giving them a suit preference lead (maybe thinking East is simply returning the  suit). But that is not logical since the King is visible in Dummy. It must be a suit preference lead and it must be in  because the  2 is visible in Dummy.

Also glad to see the discussions started by others -- Roger's, Brian's, Jimmy's, and Ash's. I wanted to contribute and I am sure others did, too; so please do not mistaken that there was no other interest out there. They are enjoyable to read and ponder on. I am sure many others feel the same way. Keep them coming.

John

[OliverC]

It must be a suit-preference lead because you should always try to give Partner some idea of where an additional entry into your hand may lie when giving them a ruff. The only exception to that is when you don't have any other likely entry (in which case it's okay to simply suggest the return that's least damaging), or when Partner leading towards that entry would almost certainly be disadvantageous (in which case it's okay to mislead Partner by asking for something else and let Declarer do their own work).


Here, where Declarer's hand is an open book, there is rarely any excuse to get things wrong.