[inquiry]

We had a little fun with a defense to 7NT, and exposed a possible hole in defensive agreements of some people, so I will give a series of defensive hands for a change.

You are East WEST again they bid 7NT. This time you are playing UDCA carding, odd/even first discard, frequent suit preferences. Odd even first discard means the first card discarded, if odd, implies values in that suit, if the first card discarded is even, it implies no values in that suit and values in higher suit if the even card was high and lower suit if it was a low even card. Of course, your defense gets off to what appears to be maybe a safe lead when partner can only contribute the deuce of hearts to trick one. Click NEXT to see the first four full trick and to answer the following questions. The key question is what do you discard on trick five, and why?

Why would you discard the [di[3 on trick 3? Should you have discarded the [di]3.

Spoiler

The diamond 3 discard is odd/even discard showing your partner that you are guarding diamonds. You will not be able to guard 3 suits, and partner's low club suggest that he is not going to be able to guard clubs. You probably should have discarded a high even diamond (the ten) to suggest that you are watching after dummy's spades so partner can throw all his away. NOTE: however, most do not consider the TEN an even card when playing odd/even discards.

On trick four, partner discards the ♣8, you discard the ♦2. What should the ♦2 show? What did the ♣4 show.

Spoiler

After your suit preference discard, if you discard in the same suit, it should be remaining count. The ♦3 discard was odd/even first discard, so second discard should be count. But it is best to give "remaining count". So the ♦2 (lowest) playing UDCA should show an even number of diamonds remaining. Partner's club four has two meanings, and uh oh, gives us some confirmation about the earlier ♣8 discard. The ♣4 shows either even or odd number of clubs. Since you can't see the ♣3, you might thing partner could have the ♣3 and would be showing an even number of clubs, or he doesn't have the ♣3 and he is showing an even number of remaining clubs. But if partner had an odd number of clubs including the 43, he would be able to discard a club higher than the 4 to make this clear. So partner has an even number of clubs remaining (either 2, 4 or 6).

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On trick five (click next until it stops changing) you haven't played yet, and partner discard the ♣J. Plan your defense? What should you discard on this trick and why?

This post has been edited by inquiry: 2014-May-24, 09:23
Reason for edit: fix bug in question

[FM75]

Hand rotation needed?

[kenberg]

FM75, on 2014-May-23, 23:02, said:

Hand rotation needed?

No, I think it was just a typo where Ben siad "You are East".

[Cyberyeti]

Spoiler

I don't play these discards, but assume that by discarding ♣ 8-4-J he's showing just 3 (wouldn't he with Jxxxx show that he guards the clubs as it's very unlikely that I can, so I can pitch from Qx(x) and keep 3 or 4 himself. In that case, declarer's hand is A10, KJxx, AK, KQ9xx for the blast to 7N, which seems oddly insufficient. I need to keep spades and clubs and unguard the diamonds in that case.

What is partner worried about ? Probably that declarer has AK, KJxx, Ax, KQxxx, this is 12 tricks and providing he keeps spades and you keep clubs you're fine (keep the suit behind the declaring side's holding) although it's a strange way to play it with that holding as you butcher some of the squeeze possibilities by cashing the hearts too early and leaving insufficient entries, I think it's better to unblock the clubs and/or spades first.

Partner almost certainly knows I have ♦Qxxxx, If he has 4. I would have expected him to discard a diamond at some point, also I'd have expected him to discard a diamond at some point with no honour.

Quote

On trick four, partner discards the ♣8, you discard the ♦2. What should the ♦2 show? What did the ♣4 show.

Difficult as he discarded it at trick 3.

[kenberg]

Spoiler

Let's see what we know:
E started with two hearts.
E started with four spades. If he had only three he would realize that there is no purpose in holding on to them since either I have the King, so he can pitch, or if declarer has the AK then sooner or later he will try the suit, find it splita and he has ten major suit tricks. Surely he has one of the minor kings for his bidding, and that's 13. So partner has no reason to hold on to spades unless he has four. Declarer started with AT tight of of spades.


This gives declare seven cards in the minors. East has played his clubs 84J. This would be consistent with an original 4=2=4=3 shape. That's a lot of tossing just to show shape, but perhaps he is right. I don't imagine he tossed the J from an original holding of five to the Jack.

If this is all correct then declarer started life as 2=4=2=5 and he cannot make the hand as long as I hold my clubs. So I toss diamonds.

At the time E tossed the third club, he still had to consider that declarer might hold AK in spades. If so, he can envision the play, after the five hearts, going spade to the AK, back to the board with a club, and Q of spades. If it goes that way, I will have to choose my discards correctly and he is trying to help me out. The squeeze is pseudo, but pseudos can work.

One more point occurred to me. $NT was standard, not rkc, since no one bids a grand off an unknown keycard (also, N has the spade Q). All of this makes it highly likely that declarer has a hoped for source of tricks in another suit. Clubs, apparently.

Very aggressive, imo.

Note: Tuesday we are headed out opn a road trip and we have things to do in advance (many, actually, since i have had a pretty severe cold all this week). So if you don't much hear from me, remember please that I enjoy these problems. It's a real service.

[inquiry]

kenberg, on 2014-May-24, 04:48, said:

No, I think it was just a typo where Ben siad "You are East".

Crap, I rotated the hand with my excel trick, but the comment I wrote was in the comment field where the West hand was really east. The stupid comments don't rotate like the hands did.... A human bug I guess...

Ok, I will edit it to say you are West....