[FrancesHinden]

You are playing the quarter finals of a national teams KO competition.

Scoring: Total Points

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Uncontested auction, starting with North:

1NT (15-17) 3♣ (single-suited slam try, no shortage)
3NT 4♣
4♦ (first round control) 4♠ (cue, usually first round control)
5♣ (more encouraging than 4NT) 6♣
Pass

As responder, you showed a single-suited club hand with no singleton. If you had shown your singleton diamond partner would have been declarer in 4NT (or 5/6C if you played in clubs); as it is you are stuck with playing in a poor 6C the wrong way up so you'd better make it.

LHO leads the 3 of hearts. They play common English leads i.e. 4th highest from 4+ cards, lowest from 3 to an honour, top of a doubleton, second highest from three or more low cards. The same LHO led low from KJxxx against an earlier slam in this set, but that was a slightly more obvious suit to lead.

Plan the play.

[Fluffy]

I am banking most on the heart finese, I need the entries later for stablishing the diamonds.


I will play low heart, if it loses we need a big miracle, but if it holds, drawing trumps and playing a diamond to the Queen or 10 might bring 3 tricks from the suit quite easilly.

I think diamond to the queen is better since lets you switch to spades if LHO has 5.

EDIT: there is no switch to spades O_o if ♦Q holds we are home already, only need 2 tricks form diamonds. If it doesn't hold we need the ♦J on.

We can also play ♦A + ♦Q and if covered we are home, if not ruff and go for spades.

In practice that might be the best line, it takes someone really special not to cover ♦Q without hesitating and it brings 12 tricks with any honnor douleton or ♦KJx failing.


I am switching to that, low heart and the ♦A+♦Q after the trumps

[pooltuna]

Fluffy, on Jan 17 2010, 06:01 AM, said:

I am banking most on the heart finese, I need the entries later for stablishing the diamonds.


I will play low heart, if it loses we need a big miracle, but if it holds, drawing trumps and playing a diamond to the Queen or 10 might bring 3 tricks from the suit quite easilly.

I think diamond to the queen is better since lets you switch to spades if LHO has 5.

agree on the ♥ finesse even if it loses you still have chances with the ♦

[ceeb]

At first glance this is a two-of-three finesses hand. Assuming clubs break, you have similar very good chances (75%+) if you correctly guess on a winning finesse to try first (whether ♥, ♦, or ♠), and bad chances if not.

For a second approximation consider the bad chances:
If ♥ finesse loses, later find ♦KJ(x).
If win ♥, pull trumps, & lose ♦ finesse, need ♥ finese & ♦J dropping doubleton.
If win ♥, pull trumps, & misguess ♠, need ♥ finesse+♦finesse.

Hence the ♠ play looks best because it is the only one that allows the full benefit of finding two of three cards right even when the first one you try for is wrong.

I'm guessing that's a more important consideration than these additional issues:
What does the lead imply about the chance for West to have the various missing honors? Comparing the "good chances" when the first finesse wins, what are the extra splinter chances? And last and least: Which line offers a better chance if trumps don't break?

[gnasher]

ceeb, on Jan 17 2010, 08:25 PM, said:

For a second approximation consider the bad chances:
If ♥ finesse loses, later find ♦KJ(x).

You also have LHO having ♦Kxxx and a chosen spade honour. After RHO wins the heart, he has to return a heart to stop you setting up the diamonds. You win, draw trumps, take a diamond finesse, ruff a diamond, then cash the trumps and hearts to squeeze LHO. You can't cash ♦A when you're in dummy, so you'll have to read the ending.

[TimG]

gnasher, on Jan 17 2010, 06:22 PM, said:

ceeb, on Jan 17 2010, 08:25 PM, said:

For a second approximation consider the bad chances:
If ♥ finesse loses, later find ♦KJ(x).

You also have LHO having ♦Kxxx and a chosen spade honour. After RHO wins the heart, he has to return a heart to stop you setting up the diamonds. You win, draw trumps, take a diamond finesse, ruff a diamond, then cash the trumps and hearts to squeeze LHO. You can't cash ♦A when you're in dummy, so you'll have to read the ending.

I think that if you win the opening lead in dummy, cash the ace of diamonds, ruff a diamond and run all but one trump, you will be in a position to take 12 tricks against most layouts if you can read the ending. But, especially for me, that is a big if.

[gnasher]

If I were deciding which red-suit finesse to take, it would be a diamond, because RHO didn't double 4♦.

Suppose that I follow ceeb's plan of playing a spade first. Now:
- If it fails, RHO will probably play back a spade. I'll win, take a diamond finesse, and eventually take a heart finesse too unless something good happens.
- If RHO plays ♠K in front of dummy and plays a red suit, I'll cash a heart if I can, then take a diamond finesse.
- If RHO plays low, but ♠10 forces the king, I'll win the spade return in dummy, cash the heart, and then take a diamond finesse,

The common theme seems to be that eventually I'm going to have to take a diamond finesse. The only time I won't is if I get spades right, get a chance to cash ♥K, and find that ♥Q is doubleton.

In that case, I may as well take a diamond finesse earlier, immediately after drawing trumps. If it works, I can play ♦A throwing a spade, diamond ruff, ♠A, spade, and still have the heart finesse in reserve.

If the diamond loses, (a) it was going to lose if I'd played on spades first too, and ( I still have ♦Jx as an outside chance.

Have I seen this hand before? And if so, did I give the same answer last time?

[ceeb]

gnasher, on Jan 17 2010, 06:22 PM, said:

ceeb, on Jan 17 2010, 08:25 PM, said:

For a second approximation consider the bad chances:
If ♥ finesse loses, later find ♦KJ(x).

You also have LHO having ♦Kxxx and a chosen spade honour. After RHO wins the heart, he has to return a heart to stop you setting up the diamonds. You win, draw trumps, take a diamond finesse, ruff a diamond, then cash the trumps and hearts to squeeze LHO. You can't cash ♦A when you're in dummy, so you'll have to read the ending.

I was unable to find such a squeeze. For example in the matrix below the last ♣ squeezes dummy, not West. (I also don't see that preserving the ♦A matters.)

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[ceeb]

gnasher, on Jan 17 2010, 07:07 PM, said:

Suppose that I follow ceeb's plan of playing a spade first.  Now:
- If it fails, RHO will probably play back a spade.  I'll win, take a diamond finesse, and eventually take a heart finesse too unless something good happens.
- If RHO plays ♠K in front of dummy and plays a red suit, I'll cash a heart if I can, then take a diamond finesse.
- If RHO plays low, but ♠10 forces the king, I'll win the spade return in dummy, cash the heart, and then take a diamond finesse,

Right. I was careless in claiming that ♥, ♦, and ♠ finesses all put you about equally at 75% if they work. Try the ♠ first and even if it gets you to 11 tricks, if you lose a trick in the process then you have only one finesse chance, not two, for the 12th trick.

Hence while a successful (respectively unsuccessful) ♥ or ♦ start means 75%+ (respectively about 5%) chance to succeed, the corresponding numbers for a ♠ attack are more like 50%+ and 25%+. However, the 50% doesn't include the possibility (how much?) of LHO making a smooth duck to allow pilfering the ♠Q without losing a trick.

(I posted a similar message several hours ago which hasn't appeared. Maybe it will, but in the past this forum always worked predictably.)

[gnasher]

ceeb, on Jan 18 2010, 03:31 AM, said:

I was unable to find such a squeeze.

Sorry, you're right.

[FrancesHinden]

gnasher, on Jan 18 2010, 12:07 AM, said:

Have I seen this hand before? And if so, did I give the same answer last time?

Not that I am aware of, although declarer (my partner) has also been known to present you with play problems.

This "two out of three finesses line" is worse than it looks. If I win the heart, draw trumps and play a spade up, LHO can win and play another heart, and I have to guess whether to take the heart or diamond finesse.

At the table I think declarer took a simple approach to the hand:
- If I win the ace of hearts and draw trumps, I am going to need something very favourable indeed in diamonds. If trumps are 4-1 I am probably going to be off now because I've lost an entry to dummy to set up the diamonds.
- If I run the heart and it wins I am very well placed, and might even make with trumps 4-1 if the diamonds lie well.

So he run the heart (which lost), then later took a losing diamond finesse for two off (as they had played a spade back at trick two).

There are plenty of lines which make the contract, tit's just that this wasn't one of them