[inquiry]

Despite no interest in the Defensive Play TWO problem, I will continue to post some beginner/Intermediate level defensive hands. The idea is that this is a nice forum for presenting different aspects of defensive play. At least this one is easier than the Defensive Play TWO hand.

This one is from an IMP tournament.

Your opening lead of the ♥JACK works well when dummy ducked, partner played the ♥5 and declarer the four.

You continued with the ♥TEN, dummy ducked again and partner completed an echo in hearts by playing the two, declarer ruffed with the ♠6 and returned a low spade at trick three. (I have shown the five cards you have seen from East and South before you play to trick three.

Plan your defense.

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This post has been edited by inquiry: 2011-September-05, 22:52
Reason for edit: change "west" to South as pointed out by BunnyGo

[BunnyGo]

Ben- I for one have very much enjoyed these problems. I simply don't post my answers because it's in the B/I forum.
-Ben

P.S. I think your last "West" was supposed to be a "South"

[Antrax]

I looked at two and honestly have no clue.
As for this one, partner has the AQ of hearts and no other honors most likely (not enough HCP to go around otherwise).
Not sure what's up with the diamonds, maybe it's a style thing but if declarer has 4 or more he's expected to bid them after a forcing 1NT. So let's say declarer has 3 diamonds. We know he started with 1 heart, he can have at most 3 clubs, which leaves him with 6 spades or more. That means partner has two spades at most, so we can't duck the ace of spades. We rise with the ace, play club ace (in case declarer is 7-1-3-2) and another club to give partner a ruff.

[han]

For what it is worth I think these defensive play problems are really good.

[FrancesHinden]

Antrax, on 2011-August-29, 00:03, said:

I looked at two and honestly have no clue.
As for this one, partner has the AQ of hearts and no other honors most likely (not enough HCP to go around otherwise).
Not sure what's up with the diamonds, maybe it's a style thing but if declarer has 4 or more he's expected to bid them after a forcing 1NT. So let's say declarer has 3 diamonds. We know he started with 1 heart, he can have at most 3 clubs, which leaves him with 6 spades or more. That means partner has two spades at most, so we can't duck the ace of spades. We rise with the ace, play club ace (in case declarer is 7-1-3-2) and another club to give partner a ruff.

If declarer is 7-1-3-2 then partner has a singleton spade, and we needed to give him a club ruff rather than play a second heart.


This is actually an interesting point at trick 1: when the jack of hearts holds the trick, we know partner wants to encourage (whether or not he has the AQ or just the Q) so partner's card at trick 1 should be count, not attitude. On this partner hand it doesn't help, because we can't tell the difference between 3 and 5, but it doesn't take much to change the hand slightly and we would be very interested in the heart count.

[vuroth]

So is the solution that we rise with the ace, and declarer holds

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or do we duck in case partner holds a singleton honour and declarer holds

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And why does the OP contain a horrible defensive gaffe that not even an beginner would make at trick 9?

ATT I'd probably duck, but even on reflection I'm not sure what's right. Which probably means I'm overlooking something basic.

[han]

Vuroth, holding your first hand, would declarer really play a low spade out of hand? Wouldn't it be clear to ruff a diamond and play a trump from the dummy?

Now, change your king to the queen and it is a different story.

[vuroth]

han, on 2011-August-29, 08:37, said:

Vuroth, holding your first hand, would declarer really play a low spade out of hand? Wouldn't it be clear to ruff a diamond and play a trump from the dummy?

Oh, no question. Both pick up Qx in west, though your way doesn't involve a guess.

Thing is, as a B/I, I have enough trouble picturing the possible hands in south. Maybe everyone else can differentiate between south's holdings based on his actual line of play ATT, but it's beyond me.

If the point of this problem is to pay attention to declarer's line of play, I have no problem with that.

[wyman]

han, on 2011-August-29, 04:41, said:

For what it is worth I think these defensive play problems are really good.

Agree -- all three are very good so far.

[BunnyGo]

vuroth, on 2011-August-29, 08:59, said:

Maybe everyone else can differentiate between south's holdings based on his actual line of play ATT, but it's beyond me.

Vuroth, the more you follow Ben's problems and think about them, the better you'll get at the table. I've noticed in myself 3 stages of ability to solve problems:

1) I can solve them in books, but not really ATT
2) I can notice that I messed up soon after the card left my hand.
3) I can actually find some plays (if I slow down my play this comes a little faster)

I'm sure everyone is different, but doing all these problems helps me alot (thanks Ben!).

[wyman]

BunnyGo, on 2011-August-29, 11:03, said:

Vuroth, the more you follow Ben's problems and think about them, the better you'll get at the table. I've noticed in myself 3 stages of ability to solve problems:

1) I can solve them in books, but not really ATT
2) I can notice that I messed up soon after the card left my hand.
3) I can actually find some plays (if I slow down my play this comes a little faster)

I'm sure everyone is different, but doing all these problems helps me alot (thanks Ben!).

I'm pretty confident there was a "stage 0" :-p

But I'm also confident there will be a stage 4.

[BunnyGo]

wyman, on 2011-August-29, 11:11, said:

I'm pretty confident there was a "stage 0" :-p

But I'm also confident there will be a stage 4.

There was DEFINITELY a stage 0, we couldn't have achieved 27.5% otherwise.

I hope there will be a stage 4, but I'm not getting much practice outside this forum these days.

[shyams]

At the table, I would rise with the trump Ace, play ♣A and ♣x hoping partner would ruff.

I think declarer would not play a trump so early missing both ♠A and ♠K because if trumps split badly, the defenders could draw all of dummy's trumps and leave declarer with a slow loser in ♦

[Hanoi5]

♠32 are missing, if the ♠K falls from partner's hand when we take our ace we congratulate declarer. Otherwise we try to give partner a club ruff.