[AL78]

MPs, opponent's playing Acol:

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Partner leads the ♦4 to your king, declarer following with the two. Dummy comes down with:

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How do you continue?

[bluenikki]

AL78, on 2026-May-23, 16:36, said:

MPs, opponent's playing Acol:

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Partner leads the ♦4 to your king, declarer following with the two. Dummy comes down with:

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How do you continue?

♦ 7

[akwoo]

bluenikki, on 2026-May-23, 17:16, said:

♦ 7

This is what I'd lead at IMPs, but I can't imagine it's right at MPs. Declarer is surely far more likely than partner to have the singleton, and having seen the ♦K from you, declarer is not going to play partner to have underlead the ♦A, unless this is a rather low standard club. If I'm clever enough, I might have realized that I should take the ♦A at trick 1 to lead the ♦7, but I'm not that good.

I'm leading whatever club tells partner you don't have an honor there. I'd prefer the ♣4 to not confuse partner about the count, but if partner is the sort to need the ♣9 to figure things out I'll do that for them.

[AL78]

The full deal:

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Well done if you find a club switch which immediately establishes a club trick in my hand before declarer can establish either hearts or diamonds for a discard. It is one of these hands where order of operations matters, we need to set up a club trick before the diamond ruff in order that we can cash it in time. My partner cashed both diamond honors before giving me a ruff and I was stuck as I could see two diamonds established for discards, a club continuation looked dangerous and I was concerned a heart might go away on the diamonds, so I cashed the ace and after partners spade ace, that was the end of the defence. 2♠= was a complete bottom, four of the other six pairs only made seven tricks although five pairs for some reason were in 3♠ so getting 2♠ down would have given us 25%. I was curious if anyone would find a club switch at trick two. Given the strength of the field was around 47% and so of very modest standard, I wonder whether other pairs found the club switch (everyone led the singleton diamond) and if so, how did they work it out?

[mikeh]

Sorry for not posting earlier, especially since my comments may sound as if I’m taking advantage of seeing the hand. Plus it’s actually not straightforward….one needs to ‘take a view’ in terms of the spade suit. The odds favour opener holding 6 but he might have 7. However, some 7 card suits would have seen a different auction. Otoh, KQ10xxx or KJ10xxx need us to duck the first spade while KQJxxxx requires us to rise with the ace if spades are led from dummy.

But I think the percentages favour a switch at trick two. A heart switch simply cannot be right. Partner’s ace isn’t going anywhere. Even KQJxxx x J10x KQx doesn’t allow for a pitch in time.

But the club endplay situation is not too hard to picture. Is it likely? No. But is it both possible and curable? Yes. And, most importantly, can it ever cost? Surely not. Even if we are taking away a two way guess….opener has KJ10…or giving him a winning option….KJ8….it’s an illusion since he can always lead towards the heart holding and set up a pitch….he’ll be 6133.

Visualization is THE key to defending. Personally, what I do, when I’m playing well, is to embark upon a process of elimination.

Having won trick one, I visualize 6133/6331/6232 and then imagine the play on various plausible continuations. Fortunately I’ve had a lot of practice so I can do this fairly quickly.

The most troubling part here would be whether to rise with the spade Ace but I think it probably doesn’t matter since I’m not playing declarer for a 7 card suit.