From the table
Last night I learned many things. I woke up this morning thinking of three of them.
The first of these, I found complicated and hard to grasp, but I think I've got it. Hopefully, I understand well enough to write about clearly.
P led the 8 of spades against 1nt. Declarer played K from K 4 in dummy. I held J523. What to play?
(We play UDCA) Turns out we should give attitude here. We play the 5. The 5 says I don't have the queen. Had the dummy had the queen the 5 would have denied the Jack and the 2 would promise it. Ok, so hopefully I can break this down. P takes a lead. 8 could be fourth best. P could hold the Queen, but so could declarer. And P might be wondering where that honor is. He knows I don't have a higher honor, because I'd have covered. So, it's the honor below the one played in dummy that we want to tell p about. With the honor under the one played we give positive attitude, without negative. We don't however do this with the 10.
With a five card major we want to bid when p opens a minor. I held QTX QTxxx XX XXX. Han opened a club. I passed. We got creamed in clubs. And you know thinking back it's not the first time this has happened. In fact, it might be right to bid a heart even without the Q spades.
The third thing last night, reminded me of something that Justin said last year. Sometimes in a suit contract you need to count your winners. Ax AQJx AKxxx Ax. I opened 2nt we play in 4s.
So, here we are:
KQXXXX xx xx xxx
Ax AQJx AKxxx Ax
I count my losers. Two clubs a possible heart, and with a bad split a spade. I didn't have a plan. I had a thingy (a thing like a plan, only less specific without the details.) And I thought, Can I somehow trump a club, and then I didn't pull trump and bad things ensued. And bad scores ensued. And yes, this is a story about how if you plan the hand this doesn't happen. However, it's also a story about counting your winners. 5 spades (six on a good break) 2 hearts 2 diamonds and a club is 10. The moral is, if you have your tricks, take them. Sometimes you have to stop and count your losers and go right on ahead and count your winners too.
The first of these, I found complicated and hard to grasp, but I think I've got it. Hopefully, I understand well enough to write about clearly.
P led the 8 of spades against 1nt. Declarer played K from K 4 in dummy. I held J523. What to play?
(We play UDCA) Turns out we should give attitude here. We play the 5. The 5 says I don't have the queen. Had the dummy had the queen the 5 would have denied the Jack and the 2 would promise it. Ok, so hopefully I can break this down. P takes a lead. 8 could be fourth best. P could hold the Queen, but so could declarer. And P might be wondering where that honor is. He knows I don't have a higher honor, because I'd have covered. So, it's the honor below the one played in dummy that we want to tell p about. With the honor under the one played we give positive attitude, without negative. We don't however do this with the 10.
With a five card major we want to bid when p opens a minor. I held QTX QTxxx XX XXX. Han opened a club. I passed. We got creamed in clubs. And you know thinking back it's not the first time this has happened. In fact, it might be right to bid a heart even without the Q spades.
The third thing last night, reminded me of something that Justin said last year. Sometimes in a suit contract you need to count your winners. Ax AQJx AKxxx Ax. I opened 2nt we play in 4s.
So, here we are:
KQXXXX xx xx xxx
Ax AQJx AKxxx Ax
I count my losers. Two clubs a possible heart, and with a bad split a spade. I didn't have a plan. I had a thingy (a thing like a plan, only less specific without the details.) And I thought, Can I somehow trump a club, and then I didn't pull trump and bad things ensued. And bad scores ensued. And yes, this is a story about how if you plan the hand this doesn't happen. However, it's also a story about counting your winners. 5 spades (six on a good break) 2 hearts 2 diamonds and a club is 10. The moral is, if you have your tricks, take them. Sometimes you have to stop and count your losers and go right on ahead and count your winners too.
posted by Deborah at 9:14 AM
2 Comments:
Hi I just stumbled across this on a reference from Justin Lall. Very nice!
I'm in a similar boat: learning and helping myself to understand what I know by writing it.
My comment on this post is this
(We play UDCA) Turns out we should give attitude here. We play the 5. The 5 says I don't have the queen. Had the dummy had the queen the 5 would have denied the Jack and the 2 would promise it. Ok, so hopefully I can break this down. P takes a lead. 8 could be fourth best. P could hold the Queen, but so could declarer.
Let's think about your assertion that the 8 could be 4th best. You can see K and J
so what can partner have if 8 is 4th best? She must have 3 of the 4 outstanding cards.
AQT8
AQ98
AT98
QT98
There is only one of these in which partner does not know the location of the Q. In that one, AT98, she would not lead the 8 (would she?)
So, I would conclude that if you can see 2 higher The lead of the 8 is
either a) not 4th best or b) partner has the Q.
I don't know what your signaling agreements are when partner must have the card about which you would normally signal. You might "check down" to the next card (J) or give count or something else. I would guess that communicating about the J is the best play here (again conditioned by believing that the 8 is 4th best.)
Thanks for letting me blather
Collins
Hi Collins. You've given it more thought that I. The person who mentioned this is someone I trust, so when he said it, I just believed him without any further thought. And that's not a good thing. One should always think for them self. But right now I'm thinking very hard about more basic issues like, is my hand offensive and defensive in nature? Did the bidding reveal anything I ought to pay attention to? So, for the moment I'm just taking it at face value.
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