[Little Kid]

♦I held the following hand on a club night:

Scoring: MP

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Partner deals, opens and opps remain silent:

1♠-2♦
3♣-3♦
5♦-p

First question: Do you agree with the 2♦ and 3♦ bids playing simple 5 card majors?


After the Q♥ lead partner puts down:

Scoring: MP

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Second question: Do you take trumps or try to discard a heart on the third spade in dummy before they gain the lead?

[FrancesHinden]

Little Kid, on Jul 8 2008, 11:16 AM, said:

♦I held the following hand on a club night:

Scoring: MP

♠	AQJ96
♥	42
♦	KQ
♣	AT63

 

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Second question: Do you take trumps or try to discard a heart on the third spade in dummy before they gain the lead?

This is quite an interesting play problem, but it's also not that hard to analyse - the hardest point as always is decided how the play will go in certain circumstances.

Here's how to go about it:

1. If you win the ace of hearts and play on trumps at once, then you will usually make 5D when the Jack of diamonds is singleton or doubleton.

How likely is that to be the case?

2. If you play on spades immediately discarding a heart, what will happen?
- If spades are 3-3 you will make most of the time (although not quite all, think about it...)
How likely is that to be the case?

Compare (1) and (2)
If (2) is already much better, you can stop there.

If (2) is worse, you will also make sometimes when spades are 4-2. The play now gets quite complicated (who ruffs the third round of spades, what do they ruff it with, and from what trump holding; if RHO ruffs low, what do you do) but you will go off quite a lot of the time.

So let's start with the first two: what is the chance of a 3-3 break in spades?
what is the chance of Jx or singleton J of trumps with 4 outstanding?

(edited for typo)

This post has been edited by FrancesHinden: 2008-July-08, 06:12

[Little Kid]

Ok, I tried to work it out and got the following:

Trumps first works if 2-2 or J single.

2-2 = 40%
3-1 with single Jack = 50%/ 4 = 12.5%

So I'm guessing taking trumps will work about 53% of the time?



Comparing spades to trumps:

If Spades 3-3, will make +1 compared to taking trumps?
So 36% of time this line gets one more trick than taking trumps?

If 4-2, then overruff diamonds or discard heart to get same or potentially better result than taking trumps?
So 49% time same or potentially better result?

16% time there is a worse spade distribution and will score worse than taking trumps unless the player with short spade has singleton ace.


So I'm guessing that brings it to 53% chance making for taking trumps and the spade play achieving the same or doing better 70% of the time roughly?

[ArcLight]

I agree with the Dime play being around 53%.

As for 4-2 spades - there is more to it -
If spades are 2-4 with LHO having the shortness, what do you do on the third round? Disacard a heart? LHO ruffs and can return a Club. Now when the Trump Ace gets in you have a club loser, for down 1. Even a 1-3 split with a stiff trump ace wont help because the trump Jack will make.


If Spades are 4-2, and RHO has the Dime J , and ruffs with it, you are down, provided a Club is returned. If you can instead over ruff, and lead a dime, you are probably in good shape.

What complicates this calculation is: how likely is the defense to switch to a Club, rather than continue hearts?

==========================
As for the 3♦ bid -
When opener bid 3♣, he is showing a better than average hand.
He could have rebid 2NT or 2 Spades, yet chose 3 Clubs.
I think he is 5-4 or 5-5 in Clubs. If 5-3, then he is balanced and didnt open 1NT, so he has more than 15-17.

Maybe 3NT or even 4 Spades is a better game than the diamond game.
The problem with Diamonds is the poor quality. Also, pard might be thinking of slam, which can be problematic with a weak trump suit.

Still - a 7 card suit is worth considering.
I'm not sure what the right bid is.
But in Diamonds you may end up in a 7-1 fit in a part score, or game going down, while 3NT makes.

[andy_h]

1. Disagree with 2♦. With this poor suit quality, I would not particularly want to show it. I would respond 1NT and over partner's 2x I would rebid 2♠. If my hand was ♠KT ♥xx ♦AJT9876 ♣Jx then that's definitely a 2♦ bid.

2. Not big on percentages myself, but intuition tells me to play on spades first. I know the math would be too much for me to do at the table, as the complication comes when you do start off with spades who will ruff it, and what holdings am I still able to make it if they ruffed with Ax etc. ♥Q lead is an interesting card. Could it really be hearts are 7-2? And what kind of opponents are we playing against? Against weaker ones it seems likely that they will try to cash a 2nd heart if I do play on spades.

Also, if the bidding did go 1S-2D-3C-3D, I would now try 3H probing for 3NT.

[FrancesHinden]

Little Kid, on Jul 8 2008, 02:09 PM, said:

Ok, I tried to work it out and got the following:

Trumps first works if 2-2 or J single.

2-2 = 40%
3-1 with single Jack = 50%/ 4 = 12.5%

So I'm guessing taking trumps will work about 53% of the time?



Comparing spades to trumps:

If Spades 3-3, will make +1 compared to taking trumps?
So 36% of time this line gets one more trick than taking trumps?

<temporary snip>

Yes. That 53% for the jack coming down is exactly the same as playing a 9-card fit missing the queen for no loser (and hence the 'eight ever, nine never' "rule" to play for the drop in this position).

Knowing a 3-3 break is 36% is another useful one.

Of course, sometimes both lines will work, but at the moment playing on trumps is nearly 20% better than playing on spades.

So, now we get to the difficult bit

Quote

If 4-2, then overruff diamonds or discard heart to get same or potentially better result than taking trumps?
So 49% time same or potentially better result?

The hard part is to work out how often we are making with spades 4-2. Let's split it into two:

i) LHO has the doubleton spade (about 25%). He will ruff the third spade. If he plays another heart, you will make every time you were making before, plus in addition if he ruffed from AJx or Jxx

If he switches to a club you are much worse off. You have to play another spade discarding the club loser (anything else is hopeless) and you now need him to have ruffed from an original holding Ax or from a singleton trump

Against good defenders you will be off most of the time.

ii) RHO has the doubleton spade (about 25%).
If he ruffs with the ace you discard a heart and will probably make.
If he ruffs with the jack you also discard a heart, and if he plays another heart you are very well off indeed. If he plays a club you are in much the same position - you win and play another spade, hoping him to have ruffed from an original holding of J or AJ doubleton.
If he ruffs low I think you are best to over-ruff and play a trump, making every time the trumps were originally 2-2, or he has ruffed from any 3-card holding.

This is very tricky to work out, but a completely random guess says you will make about half of the time. He won't always ruff with the right card.

This gives us an additional 15% (say) + the chance of a misdefence, on top of our 36% above.

I've come to the conclusion that the two lines are extremely close. And it certainly depends on whether the opponents know the heart count or not.

Not very helpful, but gives you good defence in the post mortem whichever line you took!

[Little Kid]

At the table I played on the spades discarding a heart, thinking it more likely for them to return that than find a club switch. I also played that line because I thought the possible overtrick also might give me an advantage against people in 3NT. It turned out my line was one that didn't work with all other tables making 3NT.