[awm]

Scoring: MP

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Playing matchpoints, you open 1♥ with the south hand. LHO bids 2♥ michaels (spades and an unspecified minor) and partner (perhaps feeling frisky) raises to 4♥. RHO doubles for penalty, which ends the auction.

LHO leads the ♠K (standard leads and carding). What is your plan for this hand?

If it matters, LHO is a multiple time national and world champion, but now very much on the senior side and no longer at the top of her game. RHO is a mediocre club player (likely paying LHO for her time).

[pclayton]

Against the LHO that I think you are referring to I would play the ♠J at T1. I think its my best chance as LHO appears to 5=0=5=3. I expect LHO to auto-continue.

[rogerclee]

I think there is very little chance that LHO has 6 spades. With KQxxxx of spades and beefy diamonds (our highest is the 6), I imagine that LHO is more than capable of bidding 4S.

So I'll play the ♠J smoothly at T1 and hope for a continuation so I can take the heart finesse. If I get a diamond switch, I can still discard dummy's losing spade on my club, since I think clubs are 3-3.

If I get a low diamond switch and a spade return, these guys got me, but if RHO is as weak as you say she is (mediocre club player ) she will automatically fire back a diamond.

[Fluffy]

I don't think I'd have the guts for playing ♠J, just cash ♥A at trick 2.

[Codo]

At the table I had followed fluffies line.
At the forum the jack of Spade is the better chance.

[Halo]

If I hold up the spade, I have a legitimate chance of making when East has doubleton spade, Kxx of hearts and Qxx of clubs.

I'm going to try for that.

[bid_em_up]

For those of you ducking the spade, surely LHO (who is advertised to be a multi-time national & world champ) can find the continuation of the spade Q at trick 2. They've seen this play before and that dummy is extremely short of entries. If you needed a 2nd spade trick, you could simply have won the 1st spade and later established a second trick.

If, for some reason, LHO does in fact, give you an entry to dummy to take the heart finesse.....you had best not take it. The king is likely stiff in LHO's hand.

[whereagles]

Agree with gonzalo. Other (psychological) plays are far too deep to me.

[pclayton]

bid_em_up, on Jan 29 2008, 07:15 AM, said:

For those of you ducking the spade, surely LHO (who is advertised to be a multi-time national & world champ) can find the continuation of the spade Q at trick 2. They've seen this play before and that dummy is extremely short of entries. If you needed a 2nd spade trick, you could simply have won the 1st spade and later established a second trick.

If, for some reason, LHO does in fact, give you an entry to dummy to take the heart finesse.....you had best not take it. The king is likely stiff in LHO's hand.

Then what have I lost by trying? I dont agree its automatic for her to bang down the Q at all - she's probably looking at a diamond tenace that she wants led by her pard.

[Apollo81]

I think I agree with Phil

[Codo]

pclayton, on Jan 30 2008, 01:11 AM, said:

bid_em_up, on Jan 29 2008, 07:15 AM, said:

For those of you ducking the spade, surely LHO (who is advertised to be a multi-time national & world champ) can find the continuation of the spade Q at trick 2.  They've seen this play before and that dummy is extremely short of entries. If you needed a 2nd spade trick, you could simply have won the 1st spade and later established a second trick.

If, for some reason, LHO does in fact, give you an entry to dummy to take the heart finesse.....you had best not take it.  The king is likely stiff in LHO's hand.

Then what have I lost by trying? I dont agree its automatic for her to bang down the Q at all - she's probably looking at a diamond tenace that she wants led by her pard.

What do you win with your spade play?
They play a diamond and return a spade you win the ace and play?

Or do you really think that this player will return a lazy spade?
Which hand and which signal from rho is consistent with this dream?
I cannot see one.

[mikeh]

Nobody so far has analyzed our falsecard from the pov of LHO. As I will show, this is important.

Consider LHO holding 6 spades: this gives LHO a stiff and, obviously, we are getting beat on a ruff if LHO continues.

And she can work this out.

If RHO plays the 2, then she knows that the 3 is missing and that either he has A32 and played the 2 (not!) or that we have made an imaginative falsecard and he is ruffing the next spade... either way, she leads the spade (not the Q, because she wants him to win the Ace if he holds it)

If RHO plays a spot higher than the 2, then she knows that either he has X3 doubleton or we have falsecarded, and, either way, she can continue a spade and down we go.

So if LHO has 6 spades, the J cannot gain.

If LHO has 5 spades?

Now RHO has 2. This means that he will have played a spot higher than the 3 at trick one... to show 2 cards. In turn, this means that, from leader's pov, there are 2 cards missing below partner's spot: the 3 and his low one.

So she will KNOW than he doesn't have xxx. She will KNOW that if he has xx, we have AJx.

However, there is one remaining possibility where the J may win. She may place her partner with Axx and us with Jx... and so she may continue.

And she may well hold diamonds such that she can't afford (or thinks she can't afford) to lead the Q, to hold the second trick, because she wants her partner to win the Ace and lead a diamond through.

So, on balance, I lean towards the J play at trick one, but I surely don't do that if RHO played the 2... because, as set out above, that gives LHO an easy continuation.

BTW, as I am sure all appreciate, the J must be played in tempo to be effective.

[Halo]

If you take the spade ace at trick one, you mostly just go off.

If you play the Jack at trick one, you make the opponents think and work for their result, always a good thing to do.

[awm]

Looking at things from LHO's viewpoint, it seems like the ♠J would have to be a falsecard. Would partner really double 4♥ holding ♠Axxx? Even if he would, he would know that declarer has singleton spade and might overtake the spade ace to play a diamond through.

Of course, the ♠J could be from Jx, but it seems like playing the jack might be something of a "wakeup call" to the opening leader. I guess my point is, while playing the jack will pretty much always enable you to make if opening leader continues low and doesn't have six, the appearance of the jack might make a continuation less likely than (say) playing the 3. And there are lies of the cards where winning the ace simply makes the hand legitimately, making the idea of playing for a misdefense from a (at one time anyway) world champion a bit less appealing?

[han]

The jack seems right even if west knows for sure that it is a falsecard. It seems fairly likely that west is 5-0-5-3 and east is 2-3-5-3 (with 2-2-5-4, 1-3-5-4 or 1-2-5-5 east would be more likely to bid 4NT rather than double).

If west switches to a diamond then we can win the third trick and play ace and another heart. East will win but can't reach west, and if the club queen is onside we can later pitch a spade on the fourth club.

If west instead switches to a club then we can win and exit a diamond to cut communications. We get the same ending as above.

I don't see any advantage to ducking with the 3 rather than the jack. I also don't think that hoping for a misdefense from a former world champion is necessarily wrong even if other lines are better double dummy. I'm not sure that this is the case on this hand.

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[awm]

I guess when I posted this problem, I thought it was an interesting question whether to:

(1) Win the trick, and play for hearts 2-1 and the club queen on.

(2) Duck the trick, playing for clubs 3-3 with the queen on (or a small chance of misdefense).

It seems like a lot of people are saying that they want to duck, not because of what they think the club and heart positions are, but because they think a misdefense is extremely likely to occur.

I agree that the possibility of a misdefense helps line (2) somewhat. But I don't think it's right to just say "I'll take line (2) because WC LHO will usually be taken in by it." This is not to say that line (2) is wrong -- just that I think assuming your LHO will be tricked without further analysis is ignoring part of the problem.