[the hog]

Another hand from the Nationals. You are playing against one of the best declarers around - he has represented his country many times, but he is playing with a sponsor and this explains the final contract.

2D (3C) 4S (4NT)
P (5C) P (6D)

2D was Ekrens - at least 4-4 in the Majors

You hold
Axxxx
Qxxxx
x
Tx

You lead the SA and the following dummy appears
x
Kxxx
Q
AQxxxxx

Partner plays the SK. How do you continue?

[Codo]

a Heart

A. I hope, that the king was not the this time useless signal of the queen, it was a heavy signal for hearts.
B. Even if this was wrong, what are the possibilities:

1. Pd has a trump trick. No need to think

2. He has a trump trick if we can make declarer ruff in dummy. (F.E Jxx)
Then we need to play spade if declarer has xx in spade. Very unlikely.

3. He has a heart trick: We better cash it now, it may disappear on the clubs if
declarer has Kx in Clubs.

4. He has a club trick. This will only disappear, if he has KJx. This is a big danger.
But the ONLY hand, where I can see this as a problem is x, Axx, AKJxxxx,x with declarer Then he needs a way to discard his hearts and may play for the singelton king right to give himself a new entry to dummy.

But anyway. My pd had signalled different then first trick with this club holding.

So I stay with hy small heart.

Kind Regards

Roland

[luis]

Spade.

Hearts are the "obvious" switch so If pd wants me to play a heart he should have played a low discouraging spade.
Pd should have Jxx of diammonds and now declarer is down if he has to ruff a spade with the dQ, if I play anything else declarer draws trumps and claims on the clubs....

[inquiry]

New concept... short answers...

a diamond. what else? BTW, I assume one of my H "x's" is the heart NINE. IF these are all really "x's", then I lead a spade

[the hog]

Hmm. Someone got this wrong at the table and it is still a bone of contention. You need to continue a second S to force dummy and get a trump promotion.

Declarer had
xx
A
AKT9xxxx
Kx

Yes, his bidding was off the trees, but he was trying to sucker pd into a H lead.
The question is, what do you signal for a S continuation with
KQJxx
Jxx
Jxx
xx
You are playing UDCA, not that I really think that is all that relevant here.

[Codo]

Hi Ron,

I think this is not easy: You can signal positive/neg. in Spades, or give length marks or show suit preference. But I doubt, tjhat many have discussed their siganlling so proper, that they know, what to show here.
Obv. I had another understanding about th signale then your pd. With your hand I had an easy small spade to signal.
Pd can understand this in two ways: First as positive and continue the suit because you have Jxx in trumps and declarer a doubleton.
Or it is a kind of lavinthal with the seen Spade single in dummy and your pd will work out, that there is no sense in shift to clubs now.

But to be sure, I would never beat this slam. I gave you 6 spades after your bidding. (According to the law, because I promised just 4) And I had trust declarer to have a singleton spade.
But unluckily he hadn`t. He trusted us too :-)

But I doubt, that continuing spade with the given scenario is right in the long run.
The really only way it wins is the ecact layout.
So you must play declarer for his bidding with Kx in clubs and AKxxxx in Diamonds and bidding 6 Diamond, not the laydown 6 Clubs.

Hmm very strange...

Kind Regards

Roland

[the hog]

Hi Roland, I agree it wasn't that easy; and yes even though we have discussed signals thoroughly, this one is difficult, even the opening lead.
Could declarer have a S void, solid Ds a C card and 2H losers for example? Remember this is a top player and it is certainly not beyond him to try to sucker the opponents.

However after leading AS and seeing dummy, I think maybe pd should give some consideration to the trump promotion. I doubt we are getting a C trick; would declarer really bid this way without a C card?

Any other suggestions on what card pd should play on the SA, anyone?

[inquiry]

i have to agree with Roland. 4S should in general show 6 spades, combined with the 6D bid, which should show a stopper in our suit.

Ok. So why did I suggest a DIAMOND in respnse to partner's SPADE King if I held the NINE of hearts? It seems to me that South must have really good Diamonds, and if partner wanted to force the dummy, he would play a low spade (UDCA). Since he didn't play a low spade, the spade should in theory be suit preference. The SPADE King is, as so many pointed out, screeming for a heart. But bidding 6D off both a spade stopper and Ace or King of hearts is too rich for my blood. So I worried that declearer has something like....

S-x
H-AJ8 or H-AT8
D-AKJT9xxx
C-x

Here the only way to beat this is knock out an entry to dummy prior to declearer getting clubs set up. On a spade-ruff and sluff is 12 trick, and if you lead a heart you give a 12th trick. If you lead a club, it goes club ACE, club ruff, diamond Q, club ruff... got setting up the club for a HEART pitch.

The problem with this hand is if south has 3 hearts, and yours are all x's, your heart queen can be hooked. If you have teh heart nine, then partner;s singleton heart is J or T, you have a heart stopper.

Now if partner has a promotable diamond. I agree with Roland that he would play a low spade. Now, clearly the spade KING looks like KQ... but that is not really the signal needed here. Here attitude first (do I want you to continue... if so, low spade), then suit preference in the absences of count.

[the hog]

#@?!!%$#@ (Many naughty words)

I hope pd does not read these posts. I guess its my fault. My lowest S was the 2 and I did not want him thinking I had 6 of them, hence the play of the K.

"But bidding 6D off both a spade stopper and Ace or King of hearts is too rich for my blood."

Yes, I thought pd would think that too and look for a promotable D, but I take the point about the H suit. (You had no pips, by the way).

Damn hand really cost as partners only bid to 5C.

[dreptak]

this is easy spade !!! One chance. Partner has J x x in diamonds

[Codo]

Really nice hand...
would declarer really bid this way without a C card?

Interessting question...but I would ask it the other way round. Why didn`t he bid 6 Clubs then?
Okay, he was the champ his pd the sponsor, so his declarer play is superior.
But in Club they have a fit, 6 Diamond is at least gambling. AKT9xxxx is not really solid.

For the Heart Suit: As I understood pd as crying for hearts, I believed that declarer maybe has four of them too and pd a void. But then, we will always beat him, so no need for a heart play.
So, I am with Ben and I still belive that a diamond shift will beat this contract more often then a spade continuation.

Besides: You worte: My lowest S was the 2 and I did not want him thinking I had 6 of them, hence the play of the K.

So you still give count signals? Then why didn´t you simply play the "proper" card to show 5 spades?

Kind Regards

Roland

[the hog]

So you still give count signals? Then why didn´t you simply play the "proper" card to show 5 spades?

We play UDCA, Roland. So in this instance it was the proper count card.

[luis]

I got one right :-)
It was clear to me that the sK asked for a spade continuation promoting a trump trick. So I guess I can play with the guy who signaled with the sK :-)

[gabika73]

One working agreement can be when dummy is singleton when we have led the ace of our suit:

1/ If dummy has 4 or fewer trumps, and/or forcing can be an issue, we cannot afford not to have a way to encourage continuation. So small (provided UDCA) will ask for continuation. (Knowing a 4+ suit, this can be mixed with count signal: lowest: continue, I have odd number; next lowest: continue, I have even number).

Playing another card can be Lavinthal or can be based on the obvious shift principle: based on partnership agreement.
A middle card thus would request an obvious shift (or the lower suit), while a high card would request a strange shift (or higher suit).

2/ If dummy has 5+ trumps (and they are known to have a fit...), forcing dummy is seldom a need. So count signal comes combined with S/P:
Lowest card: even number, with pref to the lower suit.
Next lowest: even number, with NO pref to the lower suit.
Highest card: odd number with pref to the higher suit.
Next highest card: odd number with no pref to the higher suit.

Of course the known number of cards can influence the exact meaning of a card, especially if the (LOTT)bidding shows the exact number already.

[Fluffy]

there are 2 ways to handle signals on such situation:

You have 5 cards, but you cannot play the ♠Q since it missshows your holding, therefore you only have 4 'playable' cards, ,each of them is a suit prefeence for each suit: so play the ♠K as a suit preferencee for ♠

You´ve got a dubios suit preference position, everything is suit prefrence, but the highest even(and the K is even) card of the suit asks to continue the suit, still ♠K is the one to play. This method I read about on a defence problem book long ago, and was based on std carding, not sure if there is a difference at udca.

If you are unsure of what is going on, still another ♠ looks like the right defence: you are giving away a trick, wich is 1/12 (8%) declarer has to get, or getting 1 of your 2 tricks, , wich is 1/1 you need (100%).

[paulhar]

Most important is to have a good agreement with partner, whatever it is. We would play a middlin' spade since the king would call for a heart and the low one would call for a club. But that's only my partner and me, not a popular treatment, but a simple agreement nevertheless. If this came up on BBO with a random expert for a partner, I wouldn't have a clue (although I would rule out a club )

[the hog]

Hell, This is more than a year old!

[inquiry]

The_Hog, on Jul 14 2004, 10:51 AM, said:

Hell, This is more than a year old!

Misho likes to play in this situation, low and high cards by partner as "lavinthal" with middle sized card "come on" to force dummy to ruff. Playing UDCA, i generally use low card continue, and high card to "find obvious shift", but so far have had some success with misho's carding agreement. Have to alert declearer as there are hand he maybe able to obscure the true meaning of the various lavinthal signal.

Ben