[pescetom]

To get you through Christmas and investigate some defence play choices

MP

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Your lead?

[Gilithin]

It's usual to provide explanations before the opening lead.

[pescetom]

 Gilithin, on 2023-December-26, 13:45, said:

It's usual to provide explanations before the opening lead.

Here none of these bids are subject to alert or post-alert f2f without screens, although I would feel obliged to alert the 2♥ which is not unconditionally game forcing as is usual for almost all the field. But 4♥ and 4♠ are undifferentiated first/second level control-bids and all the rest is natural, with 4♦ fixing trumps.
Two old school players who have adapted to 5 card majors.

[DavidKok]

The auction is very interesting. East chose to bypass any form of Blackwood, and from our hand it seems likely that trumps are splitting poorly, the hearts won't establish, and East might have control bid shortage in partner's long suit. I think it is likely that East has a heart void and chose to jump to slam for that reason.
That being said I still don't know what to lead. The ♥K looks completely fine, I don't expect a single pitch on dummy's possible ♥A to be the dealbreaker and declarer won't be able to ruff the hearts free anyway. I'm a little bit worried that declarer can either play on crossruff lines or set up the spades by ruffing in dummy, so maybe we should lead a trump. I hate leading singleton trumps into partner's known length though. There's also a decent chance that a club lead is right, though declarer rates to have some length there and we need partner to have a pretty spectacular holding in clubs to establish a trick for the defense there by leading the suit. Unlikely, with how rich our hand is. So I'll stick with the ♥K and pray I haven't blown it.

[Gilithin]

 pescetom, on 2023-December-26, 14:25, said:

Here none of these bids are subject to alert or post-alert f2f without screens, although I would feel obliged to alert the 2♥ which is not unconditionally game forcing as is usual for almost all the field. But 4♥ and 4♠ are undifferentiated first/second level control-bids and all the rest is natural, with 4♦ fixing trumps.
Two old school players who have adapted to 5 card majors.

No delayed alert means natural, which would indicate heart length with Opener (meaning most likely a singleton with partner) and spade length with Responder. Control bids are not natural regardless of how common or obvious you might consider them.

[thepossum]

I think I an independently say I was hoping for some explanations of the bids
No idea really but I don't imagine the K hearts could give much away - you may be lucky with declare sitting with the Ace and partner a void lol
I know some people disregard my DD sims but you don't have much chance lol

[Gilithin]

If the ♥K worked, the hand would not have been posted. You can adjust your plans accordingly.

[pescetom]

 thepossum, on 2023-December-26, 18:28, said:

I think I an independently say I was hoping for some explanations of the bids
No idea really but I don't imagine the K hearts could give much away - you may be lucky with declare sitting with the Ace and partner a void lol

You have explanation of the bids in the messages above: basically it's all natural except that 4D is also forcing and that 4H/4S are control-bids (and that 1S promised 5+ cards, if you want to be finicky).

I suggest that if your partner had a void in hearts East would have shown fit

[Gilithin]

 pescetom, on 2023-December-27, 04:19, said:

You have explanation of the bids in the messages above: basically it's all natural except that 4D is also forcing and that 4H/4S are control-bids (and that 1S promised 5+ cards, if you want to be finicky).

I suggest that if your partner had a void in hearts East would have shown fit

So East has shown Ax or Kx, or could they also hold a singleton/void? Same for West's spades(?) This feels a little like playing 20 questions just to reach a point where we can justify playing partner for ♣KQ(xxx) and ♦Qxx.

[pescetom]

 Gilithin, on 2023-December-27, 04:58, said:

So East has shown Ax or Kx, or could they also hold a singleton/void? Same for West's spades(?)

Now that's a fair question although good luck extracting a more precise answer than the nominal agreement, even with assistance of TD. The nominal answer is that East might have Ax or Kx or x or void, West too (although a singleton/void looks less likely here to me). Most pairs will have some micro-agreements about things like whether the first control-bid may be a singleton or whether they will show a singleton/void or in partner's long suit, but often these are undiscussed or more or less known tendencies of one player - EW are elderly people who never played outside of this one club and spend sitouts talking about their ailments, not their agreements They are also a long term pair who can read each other very well (not necessarily with ill intent) and you have to live with with that too. Welcome to club bridge.

So please don't overthink it, for now I just want to know what you would choose at the table with this information (it looks like we are heading towards ♥K as a consensus).

[pescetom]

So the ♥K it is.

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Covered by the Ace in the (surprisingly meagre) dummy.
Your partner in North discards either the 2 or the T, Declarer the 5.
Following your own agreements with your main partner, what would you make of ♥2 and ♥T respectively in this situation?

[thepossum]

Didn't declarer suggest singleton or void. So assuming partner has a doubleton I play simple high encourage. I am rather confused by the count in hearts

[sfi]

 pescetom, on 2023-December-27, 10:38, said:

Following your own agreements with your main partner, what would you make of ♥2 and ♥T respectively in this situation?

For a while I've been contemplating how useful the HK lead would be and may well have tried a low club instead to try and set up a side trick, but here we are. At least we've damaged their heart communication for some squeezes.

The good news is that my partner and I both know the count in the heart suit, so partner's play at trick one can have suit-preference overtones. Partner really can't have anything useful in spades, so their card can indicate how good their clubs are. I'm not yet sure how useful that information is going to be though.

[DavidKok]

I don't have specific agreements about the signal here, but I'd expect it to be suit preference. Partner knows (and knows that I know) the count in the suit and the fact that we don't need a hearts attitude signal. Suit preference is next in line. That being said I don't think this will go right all the time without prior discussion, so I'd like to not hang the entire future defense on this signal if possible.

[Gilithin]

 DavidKok, on 2023-December-28, 03:32, said:

I don't have specific agreements about the signal here, but I'd expect it to be suit preference. Partner knows (and knows that I know) the count in the suit and the fact that we don't need a hearts attitude signal. Suit preference is next in line. That being said I don't think this will go right all the time without prior discussion, so I'd like to not hang the entire future defence on this signal if possible.

I concur (with both sentiments) providing declarer's name is not Zia. There is nonetheless an argument for attitude here, particularly for pairs that play Obvious Shift. In that case the 10 would suggest card(s) in the OS suit and the 2 would deny this. It sort of ends up in the same place in the end but via a different mechanism.

[pescetom]

Thanks to all for the constructive feedback about possible signals here, exactly what I was hoping for.
Maybe mikeh and others could have their say.

I think most of our better pairs would be on the same wavelength as davidkok here ("let's hope he figured out we need suit preference, not count"), but I'm interested in alternative approaches and viewpoints too.

I looked briefly at Obvious Shift a few years ago, but found it a bit too conventional at the time, starting from the fact that the "attitude" signal was inverted (encouragement denies the OS suit) which already sounds like a recipe for mishaps in an I/A partnership. I don't know how widespread it is, certainly not around here.

[pescetom]

In the meantime I guess we can wrap up our play, which coincides with what happened at the table.

N discarded ♥2 on the first trick.
Declarer cashed ♠K and ran ♠8 to the J, covered by Q.
S led a club to the Ace in N and the contract was down.

[pescetom]

Here is the full layout:

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NS did well to find the club switch, but it looks to me as if the slam was sound with better Declarer play (I don't think it was necessary to guess the ♠Q).

The only other table in 6♦ made the contract and the several others in 5♦ made +1, all receiving a ♥K lead.
I suspect that most auctions will have started 1♠ - 1N; 3♦ or similar, with N giving count and no apparent way of finding the clubs switch even if Declarer was generous after a hearts lead.

One reason I posted was curiosity about the choice of lead, with ♥K being a standout after the 1N auction but more nuanced here and clubs a clear alternative: I expected more enthusiasm for clubs, but obviously I am not objective having seen the layout.

[DavidKok]

I think there was room for declarer to do better. If anything, drawing three rounds of trumps and playing for spades 3-2 is slightly better than playing for the queen with North (both lines also win if the spade queen is singleton).
The lead question is interesting, but I don't have more insight on the issue than I did at the time of my first comment in this post. In fact, declarer can still make with the same line on a club lead.
Lastly I'd have opened 3♣ with the North hand, after which declarer may or may not get to 6♦, but if they do they most likely won't play me for ♠Qxx.

[mikeh]

Test

My issues with posting persist. The only method that works is to post a one word post then edit…

Anyway, at the risk of seeming to wait until I saw the whole hand,I think a club lead is pretty clear. Opener jumped to slam. He has a club control…either a stiff or a void (see below)….or just possibly Kx…he definitely doesn’t have the ace since responder is unlimited and grand should still be in the picture for opener if he held the ace (also if he held a void, so I’d vote for a stiff)

The heart accomplishes nothing. It can’t attack squeeze entries….there’s no construction on which we can be squeezed. All it does is to surrender a tempo. A club lead cannot logically cost the contract on any layout I’ve come up with consistent with the auction.

As for the declarer play….I’ll be kind and say it was weak.

The spade hook was terrible

Basically, playing for the finesse is playing north for Q10xx or Qxx, but not Q10x. Playing for the ruff would instead cater to Qxx onside or Q10x offside or Qx offside…so the ruff caters to more combinations, even ignoring the fact that 4-1 breaks are less likely than 3-2 breaks.

As for north’s signal should south lead the heart Edit king…I initially wrote queen, for no reason I can recall…, I’m a simple soul. I’d give count. There’s simply nothing to be gained by a suit preference signal, plus many north’s would ‘think’ about what card to play and even a slight break in tempo shows 2 hearts.

My reasoning is that we normally give count when partner leads a high card and attitude in the suit is irrelevant, as here. And it’s not exactly as if partner is going to switch to a spade or diamond in the extremely improbable event that he wins a trick….indeed, no competent declarer would lose a spade trick.