[masse24]

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You land in 6♠ on the above auction, off a key card and the trump Q. (Feel free to comment on that too )

Do you pull out your trite "8-ever 9-never" principle and play to drop the ♠Q, or have the opponent's doubles influenced you sufficiently to finesse?

FWIW - West is an Expert, East is World Class.

Would love to hear the logic behind your choice as well...

[gszes]

being in 6 with a 9 card trump suit missing the Q and another key card is normally a recipe for a bad score anyway
add this to knowing p has at least 9 cards in the minors (and thus a ton of wasted power) and bidding this slam
is umm (how to be charitable here) optimism carried to an extreme.


the reason for playing for the drop is because it sounds like this hand will be impossible to make unless
I can do a ruffing finesse in hearts against lho and for that to work i need 22 spades.

[SteveMoe]

Need 1 piece of info: What was the opening lead?
Intend to learn who has ♦A, then will play ♠ low to K to see what West will play. We can't handle a 4-0/0-4 break.
Would be very surprised if ♠ are 2-2. There are already 3 singletons in view and likely one more in the hand.

[masse24]

SteveMoe, on 2013-February-07, 20:15, said:

Need 1 piece of info: What was the opening lead?
Intend to learn who has ♦A, then will play ♠ low to K to see what West will play. We can't handle a 4-0/0-4 break.
Would be very surprised if ♠ are 2-2. There are already 3 singletons in view and likely one more in the hand.

It appeared trick 1:

♦8-♦K-♦A-♦5

[SteveMoe]

masse24, on 2013-February-07, 21:36, said:

It appeared trick 1:

♦8-♦K-♦A-♦5

And the continuation?

[masse24]

SteveMoe, on 2013-February-07, 22:19, said:

And the continuation?

♣K-♣8-♣6-♣A

[SteveMoe]

Thanks. I think it comes down to deciding East's shapes consistent with the bidding against which we can succeed. If East is void in ♥ there is no play. We'll ignore that. If East holds ♥x, then West holds ♥Q9xxxx (an ill-advised double at best). But a ♥ singleton does not allow us to clear ♥s with no losers. East must hold exactly 2♥s. Before we play to trick 3 we know East likely held ♦A and ♣KQ. East knows that North is 5=5 or possible 6-5 so it would seem imprudent for East to double without the ♠Qxx. We also want West to hold at least 3♦. A doubleton ♦ is a live possibility for West. (East can count so a ♦ would have hit the table at trick 2 if West had a singleton). So I think the hands are something like:

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The ♣ switch takes our non-trump entry to dummy away. Winning the ♣A we lead the ♥3 to the ♥A and ruff a ♥ low. ♠2 to the ♠K then 2 top ♦s, pitching ♥s. Now the ♥10 should reveal the trump situation. If East plays small, I will finesse.

There is an inference that singletons attract singletons and balanced hands attract even splits. Righty wants us to finess lefty for the trump Q so let's not do that. (Righty revealed 9 HCP in the first 2 tricks.)

I still find West's double odd. Tell me what I am missing.

[relknes]

I will take the finesse. The "8 ever, 9 never" rule is for situations when you have no reason to believe one or the other opponent has the missing card. It is only about 2% better than the finesse with no other information, and here I think the doubles swing the probabilities way more than 2% in favor of East having the ♠Q.
Doing this, the slam should have play if the trump split 2-2, so long as the queen is onside, and if trump split 3-1 then we need something else good to happen. After the first 2 tricks, play the ♠5 from dummy and finesse the J (this preserves an entry at the cost of losing a trick when spades are 3-1 with the singleton Q in the West, which seems nearly impossible with East's double). If that holds, a low spade back to the king will tell if trump split 2-2, in which case you are basically home. If trump split 3-1, you have to play the diamonds, ditching two hearts unless East trumps in with the queen, when you overtrump and cash the ♥AK, then lead the ♥J back toward the board as a trump finesse (since West is basically marked with the ♥Q here). If East dosn't trump in with the Q, then after dumping 2 hearts on the ♦Q and ♦J you will trump a low diamond if the ten has not fallen, and hope that East still has at least 2 hearts left so you can cross back with a ruff to play the last diamond.
This line should succeed when trump are 2-2, or when East trumps a diamond with the Q, or when the ♦T falls on the first 3 rounds, or when East still has 2+ hearts after four rounds of diamonds have been played (all assuming West has the ♥Q and East has the ♠Q, which seems likely given the bidding).
Playing for the drop only succeeds when trump are 2-2. I think those extra chances more than make up for the times you lose out because the ♠Q was offside.
Then again, it is very late and I might be missing something glaringly obvious...

[FM75]

RHO's double suggests that he has a first round control on a diamond lead
(or he wanted an unusual lead, maybe a heart). Were you watching his
face to see if he was happy with the opening lead?

How long before he returned the King?
After he leads the club King, we still have to ponder both doubles. RHO
should expect some reasonable chance of beating the contract. But why is LHO
doubling at the 3 level after hearing about 3 suits to his left and majors likely 55 on his right?


The only thing I can think of is that he has 5 or 6 hearts, and severe shortness -
maybe void/singleton in 2 suits. If he is void in spades, you are
SOL. If RHO was void in hearts, you are SOL, too. If RHO had singleton Heart, then it would
seem more likely he would have returned that rather than the club. Is his club a singleton?
Or is he trying to set up his or his partner's Q?

Even if you pick up the finesse, you still need 5 tricks out of the red suits, so you would
have to drop the heart Q or diamond 10. I think you play for the drop.