Friday, June 15, 2012

Can you manufacture an entry into partner's hand?

The opponents briskly bid to 3NT:
North
South
1
1S
3
3NT
All Pass

And partner leads the 3 of spades.  Dummy comes down and this is what you see:
N
North
Q10
AQJxxx
Axx
Ax
Lead: 3
E
East
KJ
K109
Jxxx
K10xx
Declarer plays the 10, you play the Jack and the Jack holds the trick, declarer playing the 2.

What now?

I tried the king of spades and this also held the trick.

What now?

The hand should be an open book by now.  Declarer has at most one heart. Partner led the 3 and declarer dropped the 2, so declarer has 5 spades. If you trust partner (and I do), he's not going to lead declarer's suit without at least one honor in spades.   His minors are probably 3-3.  Which probably means that partner is 4-3-2-4.

I didn't find this defense at the table (the story of my blog!), but I needed to remove one of dummy's entries because the hearts threaten.  When partner has 4 clubs, why did he choose spades? Because it might blow a trick ... ergo, he has the queen of clubs. I need to lead the King of clubs, to take out one dummy entry and to give partner an entry with his presumed queen.  We then get three spades, one club and one heart, for down 1.

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