[CSGibson]

 omarsh10, on 2012-February-08, 10:38, said:

Interesting ?: how did you infer that RHO had 5 spades?

 Fluffy, on 2012-February-07, 08:02, said:

I can count that RHO had started with 5 spades.

I hope that there's no need to actually explain the counting process, and that you just missed what the Flufster typed.

[gwnn]

 omarsh10, on 2012-February-08, 10:38, said:

Interesting ?: how did you infer that RHO had 5 spades?

By counting hearts (when he pulled trump), clubs (by this point, he had seen the position of all 13 clubs) and diamonds (RHO showed out at one point). This is the direct way of counting someone's hand. Sometimes you can draw inferences from their leads or signals from during the hand, apply those at your own risk but in practice, most experts counted out most hands by trick ~8, and usually before.

[gszes]

Everyone ast the table should have a pretty
good idea what everyone else has at this point.

The 7/5 concept is ok for starters but restricted
choice needs to play a part in this equation.
Both opps know decarers problem and that the
% action is to play rho for the spade Q. Sitting
idly by and doing nothing will result in declarer
getting the problem right most of the time. The
defense needs to steer declarer away from the
proper LOP and they can at least give declarer
a viable option to go wrong by using reasonable
carding.

If RHO started with Qxxxx (no T) there is nothing
they can do to dissuade declarer from finessing them
but their p might be able to help. On the play of
the spade A LHO can drop the T (from Tx) to at least
give declarer pause that they have QT.

If LHO started with Qx (rho should try very hard to
convince declarer they started with QTxxx and they
should play the T at trick 12.

The abscence of these plays would seem to indicate
the opps were unable to create anything special with
their actual holdings. I would draw the conclusion
that lho did not have the spade T and their small
card was forced from Qx. If the spade Q is with RHO
the failure of LHO to play the T under the A would
border on criminal.

RHO might have just a bit careless knowing the % play
was to finesse them for the Q and they were so confident
the finesse was going to lose they carelessly played
small vs the T and thus failed to continue the illusion
that the finesse was destined to succeed.

IMO I would play to drop the Q if playing readers of this
forum but finessing rho for the Q would be better
overall in most regular games:))))))))))))))))))))))))

To me, a more interesting problem would have been what to
do if the spade T dropped from LHO on the A:)))))))))))