[Jinksy]

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Not sure how to complete trick 1 in the diagram, but you lead the Q♠, S plays the 6 (standard attitude), and W plays the 7.

Scoring is IMPs. Now what?

[alok c]

Low♠

[FrancesHinden]

At our table the player with the North cards switched to the jack of diamonds at trick 2. After the hand he said 'at least it was going to speed up the play'

[Kaitlyn S]

Many bridge books have said that it would be nice to ring a bell when you need to do something brilliant. Here, I will do what I should do on every hand but my bell is that this problem is in the expert forum.

First, I shall find out their notrump range. You didn't say, so I will assume 15-17. I have 10 HCP and dummy has 6 so as a practical matter, partner has no more than 9 and the ♠K accounts for three of them. Partner has no more than 6 points outside the ♠K.

We need five tricks. Is it possible we can get them defending passively? Again, while the new ACBL regulations say that West could have a singleton ♣Q giving us two defensive club tricks, I'm going to assume any sane person with a singleton club has a better opening bid than 1NT, so getting two club tricks is a pipe dream.

In fact, if partner has the ♠AK, that gives him at most 2 points outside of spades; meaning declarer gets six clubs and three red tricks or five clubs, three hearts and one diamond. So put the ♠A in declarer's hand.

What about giving partner heart cards? Most he can have is the ♥AQ; it has to be better for the defense if partner has the ♥A and the ♣Q but declarer can make nine tricks with five clubs, the ♥KQ, the ♠A and a diamond trick, unless we can sneak two diamonds in first giving us 2 diamonds, 1 club, 1 heart, and 1 spade. If partner has the ♦10, I might fool declarer by leading the ♦J. He can win the DK, However, declarer can use a spade ruff entry and the ♣A to lead hearts toward his hand and I don't see a logical alternative for a good declarer.

What about partner having the SK and DK? We need a fifth trick so one of two things has to happen. Either partner has a doubleton ♦K plus the guarded ♣Q (but partner might play Restricted Choice after dropping partner's ♣Q) or we need to take three rounds of diamonds and hope for a trump trick (maybe leading the 13th diamond will do something good.) The trump trick has to be an uppercut with declarer guessing not to play dummy's ♣10 on the last diamond, for if partner has the ♦K, the ♠K, and the ♣Q that means that declarer has the ♥AKQ and would have won the ♠A to discard the other ♠ from dummy after cashing two top trumps.

So I don't see defeating this playing passively and I think I have to table the ♦J just as FrancesHinden's opponent did.

Tell me that the 1NT opener is a different range and I have to rethink this problem.

[ahydra]

Kaitlin, the 1NT is alerted as 12-14 in the diagram.

I passed 1NT holding the E cards, competed with 3C over South's 2H, and North raised to 3H which I carelessly let make

In the problem at hand I would read the 6 as encouraging and, not seeing an immediate need to switch, continue with a small spade.

ahydra

[manudude03]

I would be inclined to think that partner has AK of spades on the basis that he probably shouldn't be encouraging with just the king. If that's the case, then I also switch to the ♦J hoping partner has either Kx or KTx/K9x or maybe xx with the king of clubs and declarer decides to run the queen of clubs.

[gnasher]

I can't imagine playing anything except another spade. For a diamond switch to be necessary, declarer must have red suits like KQxx 10xx, specifically with ♦10 but not ♦9. That's less likely than Kxxx Kxx, where a diamond switch will probably let 3♣ through.

[ggwhiz]

manudude03, on 2017-January-01, 06:50, said:

I would be inclined to think that partner has AK of spades

My partner would overtake the queen with those cards with any holding I can think of. Or the Ace (without the King) to switch to a red suit for that matter. That makes the ♦J switch much more attractive for the satisfaction value of catching declarer with ♦10xx

[Kaitlyn S]

ahydra, on 2017-January-01, 05:28, said:

Kaitlin, the 1NT is alerted as 12-14 in the diagram.

You'll have to excuse me, I hardly actually play this game

But now I think the diamond switch is more likely to give up the contract going trick than to set the contract so I lead a low spade.

Funny, from the posts, it seems like most of you know what the hand is; frankly it's more fun to try to solve the problem when you don't have a clue.