[hanp]

After the auction 1NT - 3NT you want 5 tricks from the following suit:

Dummy: AK965

Hand: J87

How do you play?

B/I please hide your answers.

[Fluffy]

Spoiler

trying to pick doubleton queen seems clear to me, its the only way to play that picks a likelly holding in both hands. Only question is if the 10 falls under the ace, then I never know if its better to play for stiff 10 or doubleton Q10.

EDIT: But you are the proffesor so on this matter I think I should hide my answer

[gwnn]

Spoiler

doubleton queen is the best chance what am I missing?

[BunnyGo]

Fluffy, on Oct 4 2010, 09:36 AM, said:

Spoiler

trying to pick doubleton queen seems clear to me, its the only way to play that picks a likelly holding in both hands. Only question is if the 10 falls under the ace, then I never know if its better to play for stiff 10 or doubleton Q10.

EDIT: But you are the proffesor so on this matter I think I should hide my answer

Spoiler

What if the Q falls under the A, isn't this a mandatory falsecard position from QT tight? Then you have to decide whether to hook against the ten or not. Correct?

[gwnn]

BunnyGo, on Oct 4 2010, 02:47 PM, said:

Fluffy, on Oct 4 2010, 09:36 AM, said:

Spoiler

trying to pick doubleton queen seems clear to me, its the only way to play that picks a likelly holding in both hands. Only question is if the 10 falls under the ace, then I never know if its better to play for stiff 10 or doubleton Q10.

EDIT: But you are the proffesor so on this matter I think I should hide my answer

Spoiler

What if the Q falls under the A, isn't this a mandatory falsecard position from QT tight? Then you have to decide whether to hook against the ten or not. Correct?

Spoiler

no, you will play small to the Jack still and you'll see how the suit breaks. anyway QT tight is more likely than T singleton.

[Fluffy]

gwnn, on Oct 4 2010, 02:52 PM, said:

BunnyGo, on Oct 4 2010, 02:47 PM, said:

Fluffy, on Oct 4 2010, 09:36 AM, said:

Spoiler

trying to pick doubleton queen seems clear to me, its the only way to play that picks a likelly holding in both hands. Only question is if the 10 falls under the ace, then I never know if its better to play for stiff 10 or doubleton Q10.

EDIT: But you are the proffesor so on this matter I think I should hide my answer

Spoiler

What if the Q falls under the A, isn't this a mandatory falsecard position from QT tight? Then you have to decide whether to hook against the ten or not. Correct?

Spoiler

no, you will play small to the Jack still and you'll see how the suit breaks. anyway QT tight is more likely than T singleton.

Spoiler

He means queen in front of the ace, since the possition is so close you always finese in practice and award the falsecard against any player in the world

[MFA]

Spoiler

I think the point is that AK vs. double hook is so close that the correct strategy depends on how often LHO will fail to cover from Qxx. Covering looks silly from his point of view if declarer has JTxx.

Pointing in the other direction we also have to consider, if LHO might have lead from QTxxx, QTxx or Qxxx if he had one of those. If so it will reduce the odds for a double finesse considerably.

[MFA]

MFA, on Oct 4 2010, 05:06 PM, said:

Spoiler

I think the point is that AK vs. double hook is so close that the correct strategy depends on how often LHO will fail to cover from Qxx. Covering looks silly from his point of view if declarer has JTxx.

Pointing in the other direction we also have to consider, if LHO might have lead from QTxxx, QTxx or Qxxx if he had one of those. If so it will reduce the odds for a double finesse considerably.

Spoiler

Come to think of it, then we are in trouble even if we run the J successfully with the suit Qxx-Tx, since we have a nasty guess on the second round. I join the AK crowd.

It reminds me of a 10 year old Danish premier league boead, where an unlucky declarer was in 7 with a trump suit of Jxx to AKxx. He failed to give himself the chance of running the J which would have been so hard to cover from Q8x. Instead he went 2 down playing for nothing.

[ceeb]

Spoiler

From the top is nominally best at 27.13%. Lead first from hand so LHO with Q10 doubleton won't have seen RHO's count signal. That way, the standard Q falsecard from Q10 is dangerous lest declarer have J7 doubleton. Therefore it probably gains a slight additional edge to finesse RHO for 10xxx if the Q is played on the left.

Double finesse is surely inferior at 25% (more or less, depending on LHO's tendency to lead the suit with length).

[Phil]

ceeb, on Oct 4 2010, 11:32 AM, said:

Spoiler

From the top is nominally best at 27.13%. Lead first from hand so LHO with Q10 doubleton won't have seen RHO's count signal. That way, the standard Q falsecard from Q10 is dangerous lest declarer have J7 doubleton. Therefore it probably gains a slight additional edge to finesse RHO for 10xxx if the Q is played on the left.

Double finesse is surely inferior at 25% (more or less, depending on LHO'd tendency to lead the suit with length).

Spoiler

Why would declarer lead from hand with J7 doubleton?

[ceeb]

MFA, on Oct 4 2010, 10:18 AM, said:

MFA, on Oct 4 2010, 05:06 PM, said:

Spoiler

I think the point is that AK vs. double hook is so close that the correct strategy depends on how often LHO will fail to cover from Qxx. Covering looks silly from his point of view if declarer has JTxx.

Pointing in the other direction we also have to consider, if LHO might have lead from QTxxx, QTxx or Qxxx if he had one of those. If so it will reduce the odds for a double finesse considerably.

Spoiler

Come to think of it, then we are in trouble even if we run the J successfully with the suit Qxx-Tx, since we have a nasty guess on the second round. I join the AK crowd.

I like this train of thought.

Spoiler

It's true that after running the J successfully you have a nasty guess, but that doesn't mean it's a bad position to be in. Suppose for example that LHO is 80% to duck from Qxx and the same to cover from Q10xx. Then the best play is run the J, and double finesse if covered or rise next time if not.

Q10xxx isn't important -- can't pick that up anyway. The non-lead from Qxxx is a valid point.

[ceeb]

Phil, on Oct 4 2010, 11:35 AM, said:

ceeb, on Oct 4 2010, 11:32 AM, said:

Spoiler

From the top is nominally best at 27.13%. Lead first from hand so LHO with Q10 doubleton won't have seen RHO's count signal. That way, the standard Q falsecard from Q10 is dangerous lest declarer have J7 doubleton. Therefore it probably gains a slight additional edge to finesse RHO for 10xxx if the Q is played on the left.

Spoiler

Why would declarer lead from hand with J7 doubleton?

Spoiler

Depends on the full hand, but one possibility is to encourage LHO to drop the Q from Q10.

Spoiler

And LHO is certainly not, as second hand, going to spend much time thinking about what is plausible and what is not.

It costs nothing

Spoiler

to try LHO out.

[rduran1216]

Spoiler

So really, leading the J from the short hand fails if we've got Qx or Q to our left, or we misguess whether its Qxx or Q10x on our left. I run the Jack first, I think thats the best chance.

[Flameous]

Also when it's Qx or Q right. I'll go for drop without any additional clues.

[nige1]

hanp, on Oct 4 2010, 06:37 AM, said:

After the auction 1NT - 3NT you want 5 tricks from the following suit: Dummy: AK965
Hand: J87
How do you play? B/I please hide your answers.

Interesting "Hidden" hides text and smileys but not URLs

Spoiler

. Suitplay gives a definitive answer, in the general case. In particular cases, I guess it depends on the contract, vacant places, the form of scoring, and the entry situation. To take an extreme example, in notrump at pairs, if AK87x are in otherwise entryless dummy, you run the knave

[Phil]

Enough of this hidden text nonsense.

I'm going to keep trying these until I get them right.

First, its definitely right to play low to the J holding J7 dub. I'm surprised this is even being discussed.

As far as Han's combo, We pick up all 8 of the Q-x's by laying down AK (since LHO should ALWAYS f/c with QT, I'm not paying off to the f/c because QT>Q). So we always pick up QT in left.

Running J picks up all of the Qxxx's (4), QTxxx (1) and QTx(3) = 8.

Qxx / Tx depends on the frequency LHO will cover with Qxx. We can see that its right on paper, but how much does LHO know about our holding? If I did choose to lead the Jack I would pay off to Tx on left.

So:

QTx(3) cancels out Qx (3)

Leaving Qx(5) vs QTxxx(1) + Qxxx(3). Qx is more frequent than LHO 4 or 5 (I'm guessing 5:4?), so the 'real ratio' is 6.2:4.

Going back to the Qxx / Tx (3 combos) - it seems that if LHO does not cover in 2 of 3 times that running the J makes up for the difference.

Interested to hear more about this.

[ceeb]

Phil, on Oct 4 2010, 03:41 PM, said:

First, its definitely right to play low to the J holding J7 dub. I'm surprised this is even being discussed.

Again, depends on the hand. If the opponents have enough tricks ready to defeat the contract it's not so bright. Case in point: considering that hanp stated the problem is 5 tricks, it may be that the contract is 7NT. Low to the J looks really implausible in that context. Or, it could be that there are potentially lots of tricks in other suits but we are just testing this suit first hoping to thereby avoid a finesse for example.

Quote

Running J picks up ... QTxxx (1)

I've played that one over and over in my mind and can only come up with 4 tricks.

[jdonn]

Spoiler

LOL

[Phil]

[quote name='ceeb' date='Oct 4 2010, 05:21 PM'] Running J picks up ... QTxxx (1) [/QUOTE]I've played that one over and over in my mind and can only come up with 4 tricks. [/quote]
Yeah you are right.

[hanp]

Yeah the solution I had in mind was to lead the 7 or 8 from hand to make it tougher for LHO to play the queen from Q10.