[mgoetze]

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Your lead to trick 6?

[kuhchung]

presented as a problem i'm playing the HJ

i would have autoplayed diamond in real life

[Mbodell]

I went back and forth between ♥J and ♦ but I think at IMPs needing 4 more tricks to set, I play the diamond 3 and hope we can get 2 each from the majors. Dealer has just 6 HCP in the minors, and there is just 15 HCP missing in the majors. We need to give dealer 5 or 6 HCP at least, and still end up with enough to set. I think I hope hearts are frozen and dealer is 5=3=1=4, so we get our 2 tricks in hearts that I might blow one by leading them. Then I hope we have enough to get two tricks from spades.

[MrAce]

 Mbodell, on 2015-January-12, 01:18, said:

I went back and forth between ♥J and ♦ but I think at IMPs needing 4 more tricks to set, I play the diamond 3 and hope we can get 2 each from the majors. Dealer has just 6 HCP in the minors, and there is just 15 HCP missing in the majors. We need to give dealer 5 or 6 HCP at least, and still end up with enough to set. I think I hope hearts are frozen and dealer is 5=3=1=4, so we get our 2 tricks in hearts that I might blow one by leading them. Then I hope we have enough to get two tricks from spades.

Construct a deal where playing ♦ is the winner and ♥J is the loser, consistent with your analysis (2 tricks per major suit) I think it is tuff to find such a deal. Playing diamonds now will probably disabling your pd from safe exit when he holds the hand, and if we are planning on taking 4 more tricks, he will be the one expected to hold the hand, obviously more than once.

What is your count signals Michael? How many clubs did pd say he had? If pd showed 4 clubs, then declarer has 4 heart (unless he has 6th trump)., which then ♦ continuation may not hurt. But if pd has 3 clubs and declarer has only 3 hearts, we probably need to play hearts now. Lets say declarer has Axxxx ♠, he ruffs 3rd ♦ and plays A and another ♠ and pd will have no safe exit. Unless he has AK of ♥, which is impossible because then declarer does not have an opening bid.

[mgoetze]

 MrAce, on 2015-January-12, 07:13, said:

What is your count signals Michael? How many clubs did pd say he had?

Well, the only missing club is the queen, and I think we know partner doesn't have that, but he did indeed signal an odd length (UDCA).

[MrAce]

 mgoetze, on 2015-January-12, 07:56, said:

Well, the only missing club is the queen, and I think we know partner doesn't have that, but he did indeed signal an odd length (UDCA).

LOL @ me

Tell your pd no offense intended

Back to the hand, then I think ♥ play is called for, for the reasons I stated already. Declarer will play ♠ A and another next 2 tricks if we play diamonds.

EDIT: Or he can duck 3rd ♦, which I see now when look at hand records, that is what he did. But regardless, main point is to leave pd a safe exit and/or prevent him from being endplayed.

[cherdano]

If partner has KTx or ATx of hearts, why would he not signal for a heart?

[mgoetze]

 cherdano, on 2015-January-12, 15:14, said:

If partner has KTx or ATx of hearts, why would he not signal for a heart?

Did he have a clear opportunity to do so?

[MrAce]

 mgoetze, on 2015-January-12, 15:42, said:

Did he have a clear opportunity to do so?

We already need pd to hold either ♥A or K. He is talking about the presence of ♥ T

♣T-6-5 instead of 6-5-T (same suit count but different S.P)

Which he should have. Assume your pd holds Kxxx instead of KTxx and AJx ♠. Playing ♥ can give up the contract.

But too much info to declarer may wake him up as well. Then he might try to ruff last ♦ at T4, had pd started ♣ T.

[mgoetze]

 kuhchung, on 2015-January-12, 01:00, said:

presented as a problem i'm playing the HJ

i would have autoplayed diamond in real life

I was afraid that presenting this as a problem would have some influence on the result, the autoplay is what happened to me. I'm not good at recognizing situations where I need to help partner not get endplayed.

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N/S at the other table did not face entirely the same problem ...

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[kuhchung]

Maybe just about being good at recognizing kill points

Honestly I was just being robotic and habitual when I said I'd autoplay a diamond. Just a reflex of not breaking suits, but when I actually decided to figure out how we were beating it, I saw that partner was getting ended

I didn't stop to work out if we could beat it if partner doesn't have the HT

Of course I am not nearly as strong as many of the posters here, so maybe this is easy for them