[BunnyGo]

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IMPS.

You lead:

1) 2♥, T, 5 (UDCA), 7
2) 3♦, 4 (reverse smith), Q, A
3) What now?

Edit: In response to the questions, the 5 of hearts should be upside-down count if partner remembered.

[Mbodell]

♠K, ♠A, ♠3 to partners H9xx?

Declarer is quite possibly Hx KJxx KQxx(x) Qx(x)

Opponent may have raised the 1♠ call with a worthless doubleton in clubs and 3 cards in spades.

I'm worried a passive heart helps unblock declarer and 9+ tricks are likely.

Maybe a diamond lead cuts of communication if declarer doesn't have the club Q, but I think the spades are better.

[FrancesHinden]

what is 'reverse smith' ? (people don't seem to agree on which way round is which). I assume playing upwards in diamonds is discouraging in hearts? (we knew that anyway, because declarer has the KJ, and partner may have a singleton diamond). Assuming partner's trick one card was count (as attitude is known) then declarer has four hearts.

We might have done better to duck the first diamond smoothly. This (i) gives declarer more entry problems and (ii) will give partner a chance to give some useful suit preference signals.
As it is we are now left to guess whether declarer started with Qxx KJxx KQxx xx (when playing spades gives 9 tricks) or Qx KJxx KQxx Qxx when we need to cash for spades.

It would be helpful to know how often South would raise with 3-card spade support and a low doubleton.

[Phil]

Agree with Frances about the meaning of partner's heart spot being count, however this is far from universal. The OPs agreement on this would be useful.

Clearly partner has 543 of hearts leaving declarer with KJ87. If we trust partner's carding, there is no way that partner would smith (positive, i.e., small) with this heart holding, so declarer must have five diamonds. A 2452 shape looks likely (maybe 1453 depending on their style, but never 3451 (I hope)). Declarer has nine points known in the reds, so will have another two to four in the blacks. If two of those include the ♣Q, we need to get active now since declarer has 3♥, 2♦ + 4♣. What about ♠Q9/J9 without the ♣Q?. While we set up a spade trick for declarer that only brings her to 8 and we discard behind so there's no squeeze on us and declarer can't untangle diamonds, even if they get guessed.

So I think the ♠K is clear.

[dellache]

BunnyGo, on 2011-February-27, 00:56, said:

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IMPS.

You lead:

1) 2♥, T, 5 (UDCA), 7
2) 3♦, 4 (reverse smith), Q, A
3) What now?

Clearly South has 4 Hearts to the KJ if I believe the play at trick one (attitude is known : count is given).
Cashing one Spade now never costs anything and is absolutely needed if South happens to have the ♣Q.
And what I want to know in Spades is COUNT so I lead the ♠King :
- if pard shows an even number, I go on with Spades (making if pard has H9xx, or Jxxx and the ♣Q) ;
- if pard shows an odd number and opener plays a small one, I'll normally shift to a Heart ;
- if pard shows an odd number and opener plays the 9, decision time : did opener rebid 1NT with 1444/1453 ? Ducking the 1st diamond would have allowed me to detect the latter case (but as declarer will have played a diamond to Jack next, I'll still have to decide when I take the Ace in the 1444 case).

Note: if pard has the ♠9, anyway you may have to guess, because he cannot show the count with J(9)x.

[BunnyGo]

Thanks for the thoughtful responses. Below I've included the full hand.

Spoiler

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A heart was continued at trick 3 and declarer cashed out. There was a strong disagreement between East and West. East claimed that the spade switch should be found no matter the diamond played, and West claimed that East should play the diamond 7 to discourage a heart continuation.

Sadly at the other table they found the correct club strain, but stopped in 3 making 6.

[bluecalm]

Smith doesn't make sense here.
Overall it's like that:
If you can't cover a card from dummy you give count (as you wrote) but then you don't give Smith anymore.
If you cover dummy card and still can have other high card (QTx, you played Q, smith shows T; J9x, you plaed J, smith shows 9, etc. etc.) you give smith.
If you cover dummy card and it's clear that you can't have a high card there are a lot of options. One agreement is that you give substitute count in lead suit. The other is that you give suit preference. Yet other is that you give substitute count if it matters (7x in dummy, partner lead small, you have 9xx, you want partner to know you have 3 so with 5 he know he can safely paly K from his KQxxx).

The easiest and quite good agreement is that you just give suit preference if you can't have any more meaningful cards in led suit.
Now the problem is if you should've given the suit preference to QJ of spades. It's not clear. On general principles you show A or K if xxx is in dummy so low diamond could just mean "I don't have As/Ks partner"

To solve such problems you need to have detailed agreement and be aware of the context (bidding, play so far etc.). For example here what did 1NT mean ?

I also can't see how heart continuation could ever win. Just play K of spades and see what happens. Declarer showed KJ87 of hearts by playing 7 to first trick an KQ of diamonds. He has at least one of the remaining queens for his opening bid. If it's Qc you have to cash out fast. If it's Qs it's eitehr Qxx and you have to hope for partner to have JT of spades and Qc or Qx and you have to play your top spades. W/e signal you agree onto K of spades you will know much more when you see it.

[wyman]

I'm west above and continued a heart. Thanks for all the responses. Much to think about!

1N is 11-13, 1D is precision, 4+. This is the 15th board we've ever played against opps, who don't speak english well and have trouble explaining their agreements. Getting info about how frequently opener would raise with 3 spades is impossible; getting info re: carding was tough.

To whoever said I should duck the diamond. I worried this may encourage declarer to finesse the D9 now, which would be bad for the cause.

As to when a heart can win: I'm worried that declarer ends up w 2 spades, 3 hearts, 2 diamonds, and 2 clubs when pard has CQ10 and spade J92 or something. If I switch to the SK for count, there are layouts where the card I get will be false by necessity, and I'll continue and blow up the spade suit.

Mostly, I thought that there would have been some sort of smoke signal if it was urgent that I shift to a spade now, and the D4 could never be such a thing, since it's never count in diamonds here with so many board entries. Of course, the moral of the story is that we need to tighten up our carding agreements, Never having discussed when smith was off (also, to whoever asked, we play low encourages), I assumed pard had a reason for suggesting a passive defense (the DK, perhaps, or the CQ10 and no spade cards), even though it's clear he doesn't have heart cards. He may want me to kill the HA so that he can lead a heart through when he gets in. [Incidentally, I'm curious if at MP it's more reasonable to have smith on in situations like this.]

I think the "a spade can never hurt" idea has merit, but there are layouts where it makes things very easy for declarer.

Thanks again, this discussion has been helpful.

[gnasher]

I don't think ducking the diamond will help much. Declarer will just play another one towards the jack, and we'll have the same guess: if declarer has ♣Q and a doubleton spade, we have to take this trick and play spades; if declarer has Qxx KJxx KQxx xx we have to duck.

Regarding the argument that Smith doesn't make sense here, so it's not Smith: it's possible to play obvious-shift style Smith, where discouraging hearts suggests a spade switch, and encouraging hearts suggests something else.

[FrancesHinden]

You can't read anything into partner's first diamond card. It's fairly likely to be a singleton.

The advantage of ducking the diamond is that even if you do rise on the second one, you will have seen another of partner's cards.

[Phil]

FrancesHinden, on 2011-February-28, 18:15, said:

You can't read anything into partner's first diamond card. It's fairly likely to be a singleton.

Yes but that's the whole point; its a singleton 4. Once we can put declarer on 4♥ + 5 ♦ the spade shift is easy.

[mike777]

gnasher, on 2011-February-27, 18:36, said:

I don't think ducking the diamond will help much. Declarer will just play another one towards the jack, and we'll have the same guess: if declarer has ♣Q and a doubleton spade, we have to take this trick and play spades; if declarer has Qxx KJxx KQxx xx we have to duck.

Regarding the argument that Smith doesn't make sense here, so it's not Smith: it's possible to play obvious-shift style Smith, where discouraging hearts suggests a spade switch, and encouraging hearts suggests something else.

I was thinking about this.......I was just not sure if discouraging h said play s or d..as it turns out west can "test the waters".

In other words not sure what the obvious shift suit is here and why?

At first glance the 3 card suit in dummy is the ob shift suit but opener bid that suit and promises 4d.