From               Wednesday Game Archives

                                          Themes           Suit Preference

                                                                  Reading Partner's Lead

                                          Difficulty         * * *   

                                          Dlr South        E-W Vul

You lead the Q♦, won by Partner’s Ace, Declarer playing the 6.  Back comes the 3♦ from Partner, Declarer plays the 5, and you ruff.  Your play.

SOLUTION

Well, that choice of opening lead worked out rather well, and you got your ruff.  Now, if only Partner has a black suit Ace you can cross to his hand and get a second ruff, beating the contract by one trick.  In this situation, when Partner is returning the Diamond to be ruffed he is supposed to give us a “suit preference” signal … a high card for the higher ranking side-suit (in this case, Spades) and a low card for the lower ranking side-suit (Clubs) … and, with no preference at all, he leads back a middling card, assuming that he has enough cards left in the suit to be able to make that distinction.

Partner led back the 3, which looks like a pretty small card, until you realize that the 2 is still missing.  Is Declarer being tricky, playing the 6 and the 5 from 652?  If that is the case, then Partner’s 3 really is a low card, and we should shoot back a Club.  Or does Partner have that 2, in which case the 3 denies the A♣?

The missing Diamond cards are the 8,7,6,2.  Can Partner possibly have the A♠, and the 3 is the highest card he had left in Diamonds?  That would mean that Partner started with A32, and Declarer started with five small Diamonds … that plus 7 Hearts on the bidding would leave her with just one black card, not the Ace if that is Partner’s entry.  This all sounds somewhat implausible, and it’s far more likely that either the 3♦ is Partner’s lowest Diamond, or it is a middling Diamond (perhaps he started with A732).  Either way, we’ll shoot back a Club.  This is the full hand: 
 

Yes, that tricky Declarer was, in effect, giving her own suit preference!  She wanted you to send back a Spade so she played her higher Diamonds.  Give her some credit, if she had lazily played the 2 on the first or second round, there was no chance of you going wrong.

Keys to Success

   - When a card is being led for Partner to ruff, using suit preference signals to indicate the desired

     return.

   - Watching the spots carefully!