[gnasher]

Scoring: IMP

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You are West. RHO oppens 1NT, and the opponents bid to 6♦ via a transfer sequence. Opener has denied four hearts. At some point partner doubles a club cue-bid for the lead.

You lead a club to dummy's ace. Declarer draws trumps, partner throwing clubs on the second and third rounds. Declarer plays ♠AK and ruff, partner following as you play 5-10-Q (even if you don't want to). Declarer plays a club to partner's king. Partner returns a club to declarer's queen.

With everyone down to four cards, declarer leads his last trump. What should you discard?

[JLOGIC]

We can pitch a heart representing 3433. Then partner will pitch a heart because he actually does have 4 hearts.

If this happens declarer will realize one of us has been cute. He should probably guess it, but he may go wrong on the basis that we might have led a spade with this holding.

Alternatively, we can pitch our spade jack. Partner will still pitch a heart perforce. Then declarer will have to guess whether our partner has gotten tricky with 4 spades pitching a heart, and if he has whether that means the hand that DID pitch a spade with hearts 3-3 is more likely to have the queen or not. Since that is a mind game, I think declarer will easily hook partner for the HQ on the basis that either he has 4 hearts, or it's 50-50 whether we chose for the hand who pitched a spade to have the HQ or not.

Of course, if declarer respects us a LOT he might reason that we should always pitch a heart from this holding, and the only layout where we MUST pitch a spade is if we have Qx of hearts. So he might opt to play us for Qx of hearts if we pitch a spade.

Personally I don't know any declarer who thinks so highly of me who is also capable of reasoning all of that out, most will (correctly) think that we just made a lazy pitch from our 5 card suit.

There is a lot of psychology/game theory and we should no doubt be mixing it up some, but in real life I like my chances a lot more with both of us pitching a heart here than me pitching a spade and partner pitching a heart. I'm hoping declarer thinks that the chance of us leading from QJTxx of spades outweighs the greater chance of partner being 3415 than 5215.

[JLOGIC]

Also I am probably biased by my own views but in my strong opinion when only 1 hand pitches a heart in this type of situation it is either:

1) Perforce. Even if that means LHO messed up by not pitching a heart also, this is very common even against good opps.

2) From the queen. I think people are way more likely to pitch from the queen, mainly because we are so trained not to pitch from small cards when declarer has a 2 way guess.

Given 1+2 I just think we're dead if we pitch a spade and partner pitches a heart, there's no way declarer is going to give us so much credit that he goes wrong and plays us for Qx of hearts. Just would never happen in a million years imo. I would not give that respect to meckstroth-rodwell.

I could way more easily see him messing it up if we both pitch a heart. Maybe only 30 % of the time or w/e, but its better than the alternative.

[jukmoi]

If I were the declarer I would have finessed East in ♥ after ♠ discard by West. And West after ♥ discard by West. It is the right play too in the most games I play.

[dake50]

I envy y'all.
If you play in a game where this discard "may" influence declarer's decision and partner/you expects a "best" discard here, you are way privileged. Bridge at its minutae!

[WellSpyder]

dake50, on Sep 15 2010, 03:22 PM, said:

I envy y'all. 
If you play in a game where this discard "may" influence declarer's decision and partner/you expects a "best" discard here, you are way privileged. Bridge at its minutae!

Well that's the point, really. I'm not convinced anyone really plays bridge like this all the time. SOME players will ALWAYS make the "lazy" discard of a spade, and ALL(?) players will SOMETIMES make the "lazy" discard of a spade. So Justin is surely right that in practical terms a reasonable declarer will be more or less bound to get this right if we pitch a spade and partner (perforce) pitches a heart.