[lamford]

If readers have not read Justin Lall's blog on the BB, then they should. This interested me, and I don't think it matters if you have seen the hand.

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You have a bidding accident and reach Five Spades, win the 2♣ lead (3rd and 5th) with the king, and play a spade. RHO, Fallenius, plays the king. Now from the blog:

"If the king is an honest card, your best chance is an endplay. If hearts split, you can strip out the hearts and club, ruff out a diamond, and come down to QT8 of spades in your hand. You exit a spade and LHO must win.

What if RHO played the SK from K9 or KJ? This is a “routine” play from a great player like Fallenius. If so, I risk him ruffing the heart with the 9 of spades and going down. Also, in the endgame described, if I exit the wrong card (the T or the 8), I will go down.

After much deliberation I opted to play the SQ. Hearts were 3-3 so the endplay was on, and RHO just had stiff SK. Oh well."

I thought I would pay off to K9, and still make it much of the time when RHO has KJ, playing Justin's endplay line. In the endgame I would exit with the 8. K9 precisely is slightly less likely than singleton K; in addition the falsecard is trivial from KJ doubleton but not as trivial from K9.

What do readers think?

[phil_20686]

When thinking about lines that involve assuming opps false card my usual response is "Its not the Bermuda Bowl"

[han]

lamford, on 2011-October-25, 03:00, said:

K9 precisely is slightly less likely than singleton K

Did you mean, slightly more likely?

[rhm]

lamford, on 2011-October-25, 03:00, said:

[i]"If the king is an honest card, your best chance is an endplay. If hearts split, you can strip out the hearts and club, ruff out a diamond, and come down to QT8 of spades in your hand. You exit a spade and LHO must win.

What if RHO played the SK from K9 or KJ? This is a “routine” play from a great player like Fallenius. If so, I risk him ruffing the heart with the 9 of spades and going down. Also, in the endgame described, if I exit the wrong card (the T or the 8), I will go down.

I agree that the higher the level gets the more routine a false card, which happens not to be of the "mandatory" variety here, gets and the level can hardly get any higher than here.
Nevertheless this still does not mean that such a false card is in fact as routine as following with a singleton.
Remember the famous Belladonna 7♣ contract in the BB finals where Kantar did not play the ♣K from Kx in front of ♣AQ in dummy, which decided the outcome in favor of the Italians?

My advice:
When in doubt never assume your opponents did something clever, no matter what the level is you are playing.
If they did something brilliant fall for them.
You will of course not get all your decisions right, but many more of them will be right than wrong.

The opposite is also true:
Neither assume opponents are stupid, no matter how low the level is, unless there is no alternative.
You will fall for some Grosvenor gambits, whether opponents did something stupid on purpose or more likely not, but again you will come out ahead.

Rainer Herrmann

[gnasher]

lamford, on 2011-October-25, 03:00, said:

I thought I would pay off to K9, and still make it much of the time when RHO has KJ, playing Justin's endplay line. In the endgame I would exit with the 8. K9 precisely is slightly less likely than singleton K; in addition the falsecard is trivial from KJ doubleton but not as trivial from K9.

Maybe we can arrange to play the spade from dummy? Lead ♥Q at trick three. If they take it and return a heart, win in hand, unblock the club, cash diamonds, cash dummy's club throwing ♥A, ruff a diamond, and play a heart to dummy's jack. Now lead a spade from dummy, catering for all three trump layouts (assuming we haven't already gone down, of course).

If ♥Q holds, we'll probably know who has the king. If it looks like LHO has it, we next cash ♠A - if LHO has four spades, we can probably strip him of minor-suit cards and endplay him with a trump. If RHO has ♥K, we're no worse off than we were one trick ago.

[Fluffy]

you are giving up on the red suit squeeze against east that justin played for in the end I think.

[lamford]

Fluffy, on 2011-November-01, 07:52, said:

you are giving up on the red suit squeeze against east that justin played for in the end I think.

No, he cashed the second top spade, and then could not make the hand. And han is right that K9 v K is slightly more likely - 3.39% to 2.83%

[JLOGIC]

Rhm it is not a question of just playing them for K9 or stiff K, if they have K9 I am cold, if they have stiff K I still need other things to go right. I am in much worse shape if they have stiff K than K9, sometimes I will have no play anyways.

I mean even if they play the K from K9 only 80 % of the time, it is still way better to play for it? It obviously depends on which particular opp you are playing, Bjorn Fallenius owns a club in Manhattan, I used to play vs him many times a week, also at a bunch of regionals, I really feel like the K from K9 is not a play he's going to miss very often.

On that note, I think he will play the king from K4 also, and if he has K4 of spades and a doubleton heart and ruffs in on the third round of hearts, that's pretty terrible also.

Gnasher's idea is interesting but it gives up on Kx of hearts onside. It also risks something like RHO having a stiff heart and 2 spades.

I really think just flat out playing for stiff K plus a favorable layout is pretty terrible.

[nige1]

rhm, on 2011-November-01, 05:41, said:

My advice: When in doubt never assume your opponents did something clever, no matter what the level is you are playing. Neither assume opponents are stupid, no matter how low the level is, unless there is no alternative.

Another apt Rainer aphorism although Justin probably knows his opposition better than we do.