dellache

At the table, partner had a non suitable 7HCP 3325 Hand, bid 1NT and went 3 down after a few misguesses (double dummy was 1 down, good play would have been 2 down imo). LHO had 4351 16HCP (stiff ♣J), and decided to pass this (?!). At the other table, East passed in 3rd, and declarer had to be very clever to manage 9 tricks in Spades (we miraculously stopped in 3♠ with silent oppos, south having 4351 - 16HCP). I guess if you pass they usually reach 4♠ and go 2 down on the board. So it was a practical 12 imps loss. We are not result merchants, but were just wondering afterwards what was the real purpose of opening 1♦ RED in 3rd with those defensive values : do we really want to play 1NT after 1♦ 1♠ 1NT or 1♦ 1NT ? Do we really think that if partner cannot bid 1♠ we will prevent oppos to find Spades and not facilitate their cardplay ? Or do we think that we must enter the bidding and the pros are higher than the cons ? I'm still perplexed about this. NOTE: I would have not resisted the temptation to open 1♦ myself, as a "gut" bid. This hand has opening bid values...

Thank you "Free", it's exactly the sequence I suggested to my teammates. North had Kxx AQxx Kxx Axx, and 3SA was making... from the West hand. 5♦ by East is down 2, down 1 by West. My teammates duly bid 3NT... but wrong-sided. A lot Imps were at stakes, coz' oppos managed to stop in 2♦(!!) at our table. At any rate, I think that one of the most important point is to strive to make WEST declare, on general principles.

[hv=pc=n&e=sqthkt98dat92cqt2&d=w&v=b&b=4&a=pp]133|200[/hv] Would you open 1♦ or Pass ? Why ?

[hv=pc=n&w=sajt8hk852d6ckj82&e=sq43hj6daqjt9543c&d=w&v=b&b=4&a=1c1n]266|200[/hv] IMP. What contract do you reach from EW, and how ? NOTE: if East doubles now, South will XX="Please bid 2♣, I've 5+cards somewhere", North will bid 2♣ if possible, and then NS will pass throughout.

I'd play [3] a ♥ to the King : 1. West won't probably be able to duck that if he has the Ace. Now if he takes it, according to 1st trick, Diamonds are not 2-5, and we can almost conclude that East is 12-14 Balanced. Now we'll make because East is marked with Jx+ Jx+ Axxx AQx+ : Spade finesse leads to 5+1+3 tricks. 2. So East has the Ace and [3] I'll probably score my ♥King. I'll now play [4] the ♥Q. What happens ?

♦8. Neutral. I hate those overrated H9xx leads.

Here both minor leads could help declarer, but Diamonds may also easily be needed to score the 5th trick in defense. So I'll lead my 4th♦. BTW, imo, leading any Major is terrible with Axx.

indeed.

Or maybe instead of playing well, declarer will plays *extremely* well ? We play [2]K♥ ducked *and* unblock ♥Q [3]K♠ and declarer ruffs in dummy. Now declarer may [4]cash ♦Ace, and [5]small ♦ discarding a ♣ (game over with 3-2 diamonds). Now that he knows Diamonds are 4-1, it seems that RHO as a counterplay : finesse our ♥T, ruff a ♦ High, and claim. Still ♥King looks like a nice shot !

Here's my analysis. 1. We suppose that East doesn't have 7+ HCP or 6HCP+spade-fit (pass over DBL). Hence combinations like ♥Qx by West become unlikely. Anyway this has a small impact. 2. The EW combinations that remain where we may succeed seem to consist of : KQxxx(x) KQ x(x+) A(x+) KQxxx(x) KQx x(x+) A(x+) KQxxxx Kx xx Axx KQxxxx KT x Axxx (unlikely). 3. If we start with [1]♠Ace, [2]♣ to King, [3]♠J ruffed, [4]♣ruffed, [5]♥ up, it seems that we preserve our chances in almost all cases (Rainer's cute case where West has KQxxx KQ xxx Axx is one of the exceptions !) 4. At this stage, defense comes into play : if West plays a small ♥, we must play the ♥J. If East takes that, we have to hope West was 6223. If the Jack scores, the rest should be fairly easy. The problem is when West plays an honor (we take the Ace). After this... 5. We have a true problem : we can always proceed with [6] ♣ruff, and we suppose the Ace falls (there are variants if it doesn't fall, and we can still make -- can't we ? Yes). NOW this is decision time : - if West had KQxxxx KQ xx Axx, we just have to play on Diamonds and abandon trumps ; - if West had KQxxx KQx xx Axx, we must play trumps before diamonds (♠9 is a nice card). Now I don't really see how to decide (frequencies favor the latter, play of the ♠J favor the former ?). The same kind of guess may arise in less likely distributions of the minor (variants). Difficult to conclude.

Actually I think there's no need to hope that West has got H10 or KQ(x) in Hearts, in case spades are 6-2. As an example, let's suppose West has : KQxxxx Kx xx Axx to East : Jx QTx xxx KTxxx which looks compatible with the bidding/play. If we play [1]♠Ace, [2]♣ to J/King, [3]Ruff the J♠, [4]Ruff club, [5]♥ to Jack and Queen, what can East do ? Nothing. We just loose 1♣ and 2♥. Still I'm still not sure how to play this throughout. I'll try to finish my own analysis and post something later if I find it interesting.

(Edited) Well we are done if East plays back a Heart after SK. [2]Heart-Ace is surely a mistake. The solution seems to be to play [2]Spade immediately to avoid entry problems (need to unblock Diamonds).

The lead tells us that spades are 3-5/5-3 or 4-4. Then we can just play [2]♥Ace, then [3] Spades discarding Diamonds till they take their King. Then we can just cash the second High trump, finish the diamond discards on Spades and finally ruff our Diamond. That looks too simple. If somebody discards at trick 2, we may need to reconsider.

As long as you avoided the "women and men" title, that's not so bad :P .

I think we may try to show that the "Diamond line" is inferior to the "Heart line" this way : - if you take the Jack of clubs at trick 1 and run the ♦King, you go down if East takes this (he returns a Spade) ; HENCE the Diamond line needs ♦Ace at least in West's Hand (42% using vacant places : West has 5+ Clubs) + nothing nasty in ♠/♥ ; HENCE Diamond line is inferior to 40%. - the Heart line works everytime Hearts and Spades behave (that's also around 42% using basic calculation) and also works with some 4-1 and 5-2 breaks in the Majors. HENCE Heart line is clearly superior to 40% (probably superior to 50%). Those are really vague approximations, but imo it shows that it's certainly better to ruff a Heart at trick 2.

He obviously should have found the only killing lead : small ♣. And finally declarer added insult to injury by grosvenoring at trick 2. Geee... B-)

I agree, and that is why we want to know EW leading conventions. In France leading xx(x) is totally standard even after the 3D "support" bid. If the "x" in your example is attitude, then West has to have the ♦K, and it changes everything.

Clearly South has 4 Hearts to the KJ if I believe the play at trick one (attitude is known : count is given). Cashing one Spade now never costs anything and is absolutely needed if South happens to have the ♣Q. And what I want to know in Spades is COUNT so I lead the ♠King : - if pard shows an even number, I go on with Spades (making if pard has H9xx, or Jxxx and the ♣Q) ; - if pard shows an odd number and opener plays a small one, I'll normally shift to a Heart ; - if pard shows an odd number and opener plays the 9, decision time : did opener rebid 1NT with 1444/1453 ? Ducking the 1st diamond would have allowed me to detect the latter case (but as declarer will have played a diamond to Jack next, I'll still have to decide when I take the Ace in the 1444 case). Note: if pard has the ♠9, anyway you may have to guess, because he cannot show the count with J(9)x.

I just said that the ethical problem could not arise if South had Jxxx, because the Kxx Vs Jxxx looked almost impossible (even by weak players) with the play so far. You just confirmed that :).

Obviously, most of the field is in 4♠, making 10+ tricks, unless West has got doubleton Heart and finds the lead. In 4♠ otherwise, there's also a good chance for 11 tricks on the same Club lead (East appears to have QTx) if the Heart are guessable : take lead, duck Diamond (they are not 5-2), ruff a Diamond small, club to hand, ruff Diamond High, ruff out ♣Q, trump, Heart toward dummy. But there's nothing we can do about that when we play 3NT. Our target is to make 9 tricks when Hearts are 2-5 (beat 4S), and 10 tricks otherwise. At trick 1 we have made a good job : East will place us with AKx. If we finesse the ♥Q and it fails, East will have a good picture of our HCP : we should have 28 HCP (do we always open 19 counts ?), and he will know about the Heart and Club situation, probably (that's 8 of the 12 missing from his POV). If (1) he has a Diamond honor, he probably won't play one now because his partner only asset rates to be a (small) Spade honor. So he'll play a Heart back and we'll probably be dead ; if (2) he doesn't have a Diamond honor he'll play Diamond, and we'll also be in a bad situation. Hence we hope that West has the Heart Queen if we happen to play a Heart. A good play seems to be [2]♥J covered to the King (East should normally duck with the Ace to offer us a chance to go wrong on the next turn). [3] ♣ to Ace, [45]KQ of Spade and if Spades are 3-2 [6] ♠J to Ace [7] Club. East to play.

Hi Andy. Unethical I don't know, but "Strong" I wonder... Isn't the Heart situation (Kxx/Jxxx) puzzling : What about not covering the Queen initially with Kxx (usually wrong) ? What about discarding a Heart next in Kx, allowing declarer to score all the Heart tricks if he had ♥QJ stiff ?? It's hard to believe real strong players would do that, or maybe they were careless. Anyway I don't really think that it changes the general line of play which should be to cash diamonds.

This would also be my line. You also survive with 4-1 Spades if someone has got ♥KJ stiff, or ♥Kxx (edited).

Clearly we can squeeze South if he had ♣KQ9x+ initially : the Diamonds will squeeze him in 3 suits (Heart exit, Spade trick or club trick). We can also play for North having ♣K8 initially (cash Ace club now), or ♣8xx/98 (unlikely falsecard at trick 3). The pointed suits situation is clear. What about the Hearts ? - first round says that South doesn't have KJ (North may have KJ though) ; - Heart discard by South says he didnot have Jxxx. He could have Jxx and try not to give the show away in clubs (Club disc would mark him w/ 4315 ?) - Heart discard by North is curious (to say the least) with useless diamonds. Maybe ♥KJxx+ ? How does he know that I have Qx ? Trust south's count ? mmm... Anyway I will now cash the 3rd Diamond to extract another discard by south, and play a Heart to the Ace to assess the Heart situation (I'll see an honor now). My next move will probably be to finesse South's ♣9, and if he kept black cards, to endplay him with my last Spade.

I don't agree with my original (now edited) post which I wrote too fast and you are completely and obviously right about what we have to compare. My original post is a true syllogism because it doesn't take into account the numeric values of the case frequencies we wan't to analyse. I hope it will be clearer just below. In details : 0. We suppose the ♠AQ are split. 1. We can analyse the board by taking 2 possible "events" into account : EVENT-1 = East has the ♠Q EVENT-2 = East has the ♥K 2. Putting that into frequencies we can "produce" a %-table (example below) : West HK East HK East SQ C11= 6 C21=50 West SQ C21= 19 C22=24 3. Now the GOOD reasonning is the following : - when West has the HK (column 1) WE CANNOT FAIL because we'll make the Heart finesse ; - so don't take column 1 into account and see what's left in column 2 : that's your (correct) reasoning and we should finesse the Queen if C21 > C22. By changing theC21 and C22 in the example above, we can see why my OP is a syllogism. 4. The above figures were calculated using a simulation in which West may have ♦xxx only (which is debatable : in France that would be possible because we can lead xx(x) from 3 small). I also allowed West to bid 1♠ with ♠Axxxx and OUT, but that's extreme. I also allowed East to open 1♦ with Qxx x KQJxx QJxx. The figures tell you to play the Jack. East was dealt the ♦QJ at least. 5. If we are more strict with constraints (West has to have 6 HCP for instance), it's still in favour of the finesse of the Jack, unless we decide that both the bidding and lead tend to show ♦Hxxx by West. IMO the problem is partly about knowing the LEADING habits of EW. 6. Of course the initial play was wrong : declarer should have played the ♦Ace to avoid the problem, [2] Get to hand with a Club, [3] Play the Heart finesse. If the King is off, it changes nothing. But if it's ON, we can now change our plan and finesse the ♠K for +1. I hope that this post is correct, for a change.

Edited in RED : the following is a syllogism. Read future post to see why. --- Begin Syllogism I think that playing the Jack is by far the best play : we can afford to go wrong only if we can pick up the Hearts without loss. If we play the ♠King and we are wrong, our chances to find the ♥K by West is almost nil when East opened (and stiff ♥K by East is not very often). If we play the ♠Jack and we are wrong, our chances to find the ♥K by West is still very reasonable. Hence we play the ♠Jack and maximize. [if we were in 4♥, the best play becomes the ♠K using the same kind of reasoning]. --- End Syllogism