[inquiry]

CLICK on NEXT to walk through the play up to the decision point, which in this case comes quickly. Partner leads the ♣8, plan your entire defense.

To help you, try to reconstruct the unseen hands as best you can: how much can you deduce? There is an awful lot of information on this hand. See how close you can answer the following questions. Some are clear, some might be a little fuzzy, if you think it is fuzzy explain why.

How many diamonds does partner have?
Who has the ace of hearts?
Who has the king of hearts?
How many clubs does partner have?
How many hearts does partner have?
How many spades does partner have?
Who has the queen of spades?
Who has the queen of clubs?
Who has the Ace of Diamonds?
Who has the Ace of Spades?

---

[MrAce]

Spoiler

I think partner has 4432 shape. I would duck first ♣ in order to give him ruff when he holds the hand. Pd obviously don't have AK ♥, since he did not lead ♥ he rates to have A rather than K. Declarer is void in ♦

[Antrax]

As usual I don't understand the bidding. Was 3♠ invitational?

How many diamonds does partner have?
3 - no shape require to open on 2 in STD.
How many hearts does partner have?
4 - he can't have 5 as he didn't open hearts and he can't have 3 as he didn't support double.
How many spades does partner have?
S has at least 6 and dummy has 3, so P can have 3-4 spades. He probably has 3, based on the answer to clubs below
How many clubs does partner have?
Either 2 or 3. If he has 2, his lead is most unusual, though:
If he has good spades, there's no reason for him to look for a ruff since he already has his trump trick(s). So leading from shortness doesn't make a ton of sense. However, having xxxx spades, leading a spade is natural on such an auction where the opponents bid their shape. So he probably has Jxxx? Still wouldn't look for a ruff.
Based on that, and the fact that if partner doesn't have the club Q then S has enough points to just dbl for takeout with a 6-5 shape and ~8 HCP, I'm going to go with partner having Q98 in clubs, and declarer actually holding the missing 7654.

So partner is 3=4=3=3 and declarer is 7=2=0=5, most likely. So why didn't S jump to 3 spades and/or why didn't partner lead a trump? Probably because declarer's spades are terrible, so something like ace seventh and partner holding Qxx in spades.

Who has the Ace of Spades?
Who has the queen of spades?
Who has the queen of clubs?
Based on the speculation above, declarer, partner and partner, respectively.

Who has the Ace of Diamonds?
Surely partner, as he avoided leading a diamond even though it's his better minor suit.

Who has the ace of hearts?
Who has the king of hearts?
One of them isn't with partner, or he'd have probably led a high heart over a diamond. Since declarer's bid is weak, I'm going to give partner the ace and declarer the king. Also, it's more likely partner didn't lead hearts because he didn't want to lead under his ace.

I don't know how much of this affects the defense. I would duck the first club (in my partnership with the 3 so I can later play the 2 and partner understands I don't want the obvious shift, in this case hearts) since declarer has some club length and can't discard clubs on anything, so my ace isn't going away. Declarer will now draw trumps (2-2 hearts, so he can't ruff anything in dummy) and I will give partner suit preference for diamonds, so I can later give him diamond length (again, in my partnership, it's easy: I discard the heart T, showing lack of interest in hearts and preference to the higher suit). Then it really depends on how declarer plays it: if he leads a club from dummy, I cover the king and not the jack. If he leads a diamond, similarly. If he leads a heart, I cover the jack or play the T. In any case, he has plenty of losers. I think.

[inquiry]

This is, perhaps, one of the best examples of trick one card reading that I have seen in real world BBO hands. I thought it was a perfect example to show to beginners/intermediates and ask them to start using their power of reasoning to construct the unseen hands. I hope it was because the answers were so obvious that so few took a stab at it.

The bidding is meant to be straight forward... 2♠ Weak jump overcall, 3♠ competitive. Let's not confuse ourselves with support doubles and the like in answering the questions, let's use cold hard facts below to be sure!!

Partner led the ♣8. So the first question should be: is this third best (♣Q98), fourth best, top of nothing with three or four clubs, MUD (middle up down), doubleton, or singleton. Well, if you ask me, don't play MUD (mud is crud). But we should KNOW how many clubs partner has. We will come back to this issue in just a moment, but first,

inquiry, on 2011-September-02, 12:36, said:

How many diamonds does partner have?

Spoiler

Dummy has five diamonds, we have five diamonds, that is 10. There are only three missing diamonds, so partner must have all three of them.

Quote

Who has the Ace of Diamonds?

Spoiler

Well, partner has all three missing diamonds, so of course he has the ♦Ace

Now back to the question of what partner's lead was:

Quote

How many clubs does partner have?

Spoiler

Partner opened 1♦ on a three card suit. For most of us, If he was 3=3 in the minors, he would have opened 1♣. However, some people are taught to open their better minor when 3=3, so let's examine this possibility in light of the led of the ♣8. If this is a low led from three cards, it must be ♣Q98. With that club holding and ♦Axx, you would still open 1♣ even playing "better minor". So the alternative with three clubs in partner has lead the 8 from either 98x (mud, yuck) or from 8xx. But most people, if they led from a three card suit led low. So it seems pretty certain that partner doesn't have 3♣. Obviously partner will not hold a four card club suit. Thus, with your partner opens 1♦ holding three diamonds, and now on the led he has two clubs at most, but logic can go further than this. If partner had 3♦ and 1♣, he would have to have a five card major (he has nine cards left to be split between hearts and spades), so in fact, your partner will have TWO clubs, and he is 4=4 in the majors.

Quote

Who has the queen of clubs?

Spoiler

Declarer: see discussion under how many clubs partner holds

Quote

How many hearts does partner have?

Spoiler

No need to worry about support double or not (many would not play double at all, and some who do play it, do not play it doubles of 2♠ as support double anyway), we know from analysis that partner is 4=4 in the majors, so he has four hearts.

Quote

How many spades does partner have?

Spoiler

Well, we have answered this already. Partner is 4♠=4♥=3♦=2♣, this makes declarer's hand ♠6=♥2=0♦=5♣. So in fact, declarer has potentially a lot of tricks with only one top club loser and all those spades.

Quote

Who has the ace of hearts?
Who has the king of hearts?

Spoiler

The doubleton club opening led is not necessarily something overly desirable. Most people would consider the normal led the heart A or K when holding both of those cards. This could be an overstatement if partner holds the ♠A (we will discuss in a minute), he might play a club early, planning on leading low from ♥AK as an entry to your hearts later in the hand. However, I think it is very reasonable to tentatively place one of the heart honors with partner, one with declarer.

Quote

Who has the queen of spades?Who has the Ace of Spades?

Spoiler

Now it is time to construct partner's hands. He is 4=4=3=2 with no honor in clubs, only the ♦Ace in diamonds. We think he has ♥A or ♥K, but probably not both. Let's construct hands for him.
Would ♠QJxx ♥Kxxx ♦Axx ♣xx be an opening bid? The answer is no. So partner will hold either,
♠QJxx ♥Axxx ♦Axx ♣xx, or
♠Axxx ♥Axxx ♦Axx ♣xx at a minimum

Although it is not absolutely clear (a fuzzy area), it seems most likely that partner has spade ACE. He may also have ♠J but that card is dead given the spades in dummy.

So the plan of play is clear. Duck the first club. When your partner eventually wins a spade (QJ or A), he will get to you in clubs and you will give him a club ruff.

Couple words of caution for your defense.
1.) Make sure you signal you "like clubs" when you duck (this works better on this hand if you play UDCA because of your club spots.
2.) Make sure on spades you signal DON'T THINK about leading a heart to me, it is great if you have a follow up lead a club signal available. A good way is if you play lavinthal discards, you can discard a low heart on the first trump.
3.) Then try to find a way to warn partner off trying to cash the ♦A.

If you have figured the hand out right, you can set this contract two tricks (hold it to 8 total tricks). Easiest way is partner ducks the frist spade and wins the ACE next. Then crosses to your club ace, ruffs a club, and exits with a trump. Eventually declarer with Kx of hearts will have to led that suit himself. Partner can do the same with winning the first trump, get his club ruff and exit with a trump.

Here are the results at the table on BBO. As we can see, no one held a spade contract to 8 tricks. But partner did have the expected hand: ♠Axxx ♥Axxx ♦Axx ♣xx and it should have been a simple thing to do with just a little thought (partner has to work out the spade exit, but as long as you can discourage a heart, all is well... Especially if you use normal attitude signal. When you have to signal with the three of clubs, he will know south has five clubs!!! to go along with his six spades.

[/font]

On the actual hand it is obvious both were vul. Oh well.
  # Contr   Ld  Tr  Score   Pts
  1 5DX   W SK  7   -1100 -13.93   	
  2 3SX   S HA  10  - 930 -12.00<- SWITCH TO CLUB, BUT East played Ace [/font][font="Courier New"]  	
  3 4SX   S HA  10  - 790 -10.20 <- SWITCH TO CLUB, BUT East played Ace  	
  4 5HX   E SQ  9   - 500  -6.47   	
  5 5DX   W SK  9   - 500  -6.47   	
  6 2N	W SK  6   - 200  -1.93   	
  7 5HX   E SQ  10  - 200  -1.93   	
  8 3S	S SA  9   - 140  -0.93   	
  9 Pa      	0   	0   1.60   	
 10 4S 	S C8  9 	100   3.13 <-- DROPPED ONE TRICK by winning ACE
 11 5SX	S C8  10	200   4.93 <-- should be down 3  	
 12 5S 	S C8  9 	200   4.93 <-- should be down three	
 13 1N 	N HT  5 	200   4.93   	
 14 4H 	E SQ  10	620  11.13   	
 15 4H 	E S7  11	650  11.60   	
 16 4H 	E SQ  11	650  11.60

[Antrax]

I'm confused. South bid a weak 2 on Jxxxxx? I didn't even consider that.

[MrAce]

Antrax, on 2011-September-04, 01:30, said:

I'm confused. South bid a weak 2 on Jxxxxx? I didn't even consider that.

No, of course not.

Ben is trying to say pd has either QJxx or Axxx ♠, due to the analyse. This makes 2♠ overcaller hold either Axxxxx ♠ or QJxxxx ♠. Perhaps it may not be your taste, but this is obvious unless partner opened with a hand that doesnt open, which by the way if thats the case, there is nothing we can do to defeat it.