Friday, February 12, 2010

Do I really have to?

Occasionally sessions are so bad that I don't really want to write about any of the hands, but after two in a row like that, I suppose I can't stay in denial forever.

I held this hand:
S 53
H KJ854
D 10754
C 75

The opponents (mostly) had the following auction, putting me on lead:
(P) 1C (1S) 2S;
(P) 3S (P) 3NT;
AP

So, what would you try?

Partner bid spades, but then neglected to double 3S, so spades don't seem particularly attractive from 3 small. (Best case is probably that partner can set up the suit after knocking out two stoppers.) A heart doesn't need much to be safe, just the queen (and possibly just the 10 if AQ is behind me), and seems to offer the best chance of a set, so that's what I went with. It's also possible a club is right, since it's matchpoints, and that's highly unlikely to blow a trick in their known fit.

Dummy tracked with A762 of hearts, and partner won the queen. On the return of partner's 9 and declarer's 10, I played the jack, ducked again by declarer. Eventually we also scored the diamond ace, but partner was out of hearts, so that was it. Declarer could have made another overtrick by playing hearts to be 5-2, but he can't tell whether partner returned the heart from 9 or 94.

In most of my partnerships, but not this one, partner's pass over 3S would actually have suggested leading them. In general you're going to want to lead partner's overcalled suit, so doubling to say "lead my suit" just gives them more room in the auction (including possibly an XX to put partner back on lead). So with known length, we double to say "don't lead my suit", only giving the opponents more room in the less common case.

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