Helping partner …

I missed a defensive opportunity at today’s club Swiss.  See if you can do better.

 

Dealer: W #16 Vul: EW	North ♠   K743  ♥   A5 ♦   832 ♣   Q542
West ♠   QT86 ♥   T832 ♦   A954 ♣   9

 

West	North	East	South
P	P	1♦	P
1♥	P	1NT	All pass
2♦	All pass

Partner led the ♠A.  I discouraged, thinking that our finding a heart ruff is the best route to setting the contract.  Partner did lead a heart to my ace and I returned a heart to his jack.  Partner now led the ♥K.  If we win this trick, we will have won the first four tricks.

What is your defensive plan with my hand?

 

….

 

At the table, I let the ♥K hold, and everyone else followed suit.  After due consideration, partner led the thirteener heart, looking for a trump promotion. 

Looking at a diamond holding that did not lend itself to effecting a trump promotion, I should have ruffed partner’s good ♥K in order to cash the ♠K and then lead a third spade hoping that partner had led the ♠A from a doubleton.

The whole hand was:

 

Dealer: W #16 Vul: EW	North ♠   K753 ♥   A5 ♦   832 ♣  Q542
West ♠   QT86 ♥   T832 ♦   A954 ♣  9		East ♠   J95 ♥   Q74 ♦   KT76 ♣  AKT
	South ♠   A2 ♥   KJ96 ♦   QJ ♣  J8763

Partner’s play of the thirteener heart was a good play:  Had I held KT of diamonds, this would be the winning play, as I can ruff with the ten for our fifth trick and our combined ♦K opposite ♦QJ will produce the setting trick.  This gives declarer a hand such as Kx, Qxx, xxxxx, AKT, consistent with the auction at our table.  We lost 7 IMPs on this hand, since partner’s hand balanced 3♣ at the other table and our teammates went on to 3♦.  When declarer misguessed trumps, that was down two for -200 at their table and -90 at ours.