Fascinating Slam Hand: How do you play?

[dank]

Here's a hand that I thought was interesting and caused a lot of discussion among the kibitzers.

 

You've bid well and gotten to this small slam in hearts. The lead is a non-descript diamond. How do you play?

 

[hv=n=sat743hj7da832ct9&s=s2haqt654dk5cakq3]133|200|Scoring: IMPs[/hv]

[inquiry]

Well, a couple of lines suggest themselves. One is to play for heart and club hooks. This is less than 75% as some heart splits are difficult to handle.

 

Can you find a safer line? One thought is lead the heart Queen (or hook it) but when they win (or if the hook loses), they can return a heart and force you to fall back on the club hook, or a potential compound squeeze if EAST has any four plus clubs.... of course you would play for the club hook.

 

Can you do better? Another line is to win diamond in hand, cash heart ace, cross to dummy and take club hook. That seems very poor.

 

A better line is to win diamond in dummy, cash heart ace, cash two top clubs, and ruff a club with the heart jack. This line these seems to work when clubs are 43, 52 (combined 93%), and hearts are no worse than 3-2 (or 4-1 with a singleton king). hearts 3-2 is 68% and 4-1 with stiff king is 6% for 74%. 0.93x0.74 is 68.8% which is markedly less than the "near" 75% for double hook. But the double hook also fails when the club hook is off and hearts are 4-1 even with the king on side. So i guess one has to figure 50% of time club hook wins, and of the 50% of time it loses, you make 1/2 time heart hook is on, and hearts are no worse than 3-2 (or stiff king on sides). This works out to be something like 18% additional (rather than 25%) additional (1/2 time the club finesee looses, the heart finesse wins and of the 25% of the time, hearts are 3-2 or 4-1 with singleton king onside (68% and 3%). 50+18 = 68%. I probably made a math error in here somewhere, but it looks like double hook, and cash heart ace and play to ruff third round of clubs are about equal. There is the added problem of losing 2nd heart to doubleton king and someone then ruffing a club, so the double hook seems best to me.

[jdonn]

Inquiry if you cash the heart ace and ruff the third round of clubs, aren't you down if someone has Kx of hearts and four or more clubs, since he will next give his partner a club ruff?

[Fluffy]

Another line is to just play ♣AK and ruff, it doesn't waste ♥J when clubs 2-5 and ♥4-1.

[Fluffy]

Ben, maybe you made a small error when you took 3-2 to be 68%, but a ♥finese to be 50%, ♥ finese won't work if ♥ 5-0, so if you give up on 5-0 breaks you have to improve 3-2 to 70%

 

 

By the way, it is very refreshing to see you posting again Ben. Missed you :)

[inquiry]

Inquiry if you cash the heart ace and ruff the third round of clubs, aren't you down if someone has Kx of hearts and four or more clubs, since he will next give his partner a club ruff?

i think i covered that in my last sentence, which is why i decided to go with both finessees.... not very original... see a finessee take a finessee,

[jtfanclub]

just curious...

 

what about winning in dummy, cash two clubs, ruff the queen of clubs with a small trump, diamond back, ruff the small club with the jack of trumps, ace of spades, ruff a spade, and the AQ of hearts?

 

Ah well, I'm sure it doesn't work.

[Halo]

just curious...

 

what about winning in dummy, cash two clubs, ruff the queen of clubs with a small trump, diamond back, ruff the small club with the jack of trumps, ace of spades, ruff a spade, and the AQ of hearts?

 

Ah well, I'm sure it doesn't work.

I really like this solution because ruffing the fourth club high is so hard to see.

 

However, your are at risk of being overruffed on the third round of clubs and then losing when you might have made, and later you risk a trump promotion after playing AQ of hearts when the diamonds are 52/25. In addition if hearts are 14 there are situations you could recover from when taking the finesses that you no longer can.

 

Attractive as it is I suspect it may be a little worse than just finessing - but it seems close at first look.

[Finch]

just curious...

 

what about winning in dummy, cash two clubs, ruff the queen of clubs with a small trump, diamond back, ruff the small club with the jack of trumps, ace of spades, ruff a spade, and the AQ of hearts?

 

Ah well, I'm sure it doesn't work.

I was thinking of something along these lines, but taking a couple of spade ruffs in hand en route. Something like

 

Win in hand

Ace of spades, spade ruff

Two top clubs, ruff a club low

Spade ruff

Ruff a club high

 

planning to use the DA to try and ruff another spade in hand.

 

This works well against a poor trump break with the side suits breaking evenly, but you might think the converse is more likely, so I'm not sure if this line isn't worse than the two-finesses-line.

 

it's a very good hand. I'm not committing myself to the best line yet.

[keylime]

I like Frances' line as well; the T♥ is a prime card here and it does cater to 4-1 trumps (5-0 trumps, well....) and clubs being somewhat civilized. I would think that if someone has 4 trumps that if they hold 4 clubs as well (and 3 clubs probably) that this line should function.

 

I would guess that since we have odd remainders and one shortage, that we should be able to handle this hand if there exist a 4-1 trump break, but not a 4-1 trump AND 5-2 club break.

[dank]

This hand is fascinating because there are 3 lines of play that are virtually identical %-wise:

 

1. Win the diamond in dummy and immediately lead ♥J. If necessary, you can take the club finesse against the ♣J if hearts are unfriendly.

 

This line wins against hearts 3-2 onside, or the ♣J onside which is approximately a 66.5% chance.

 

2. Cashing ♣AK and ruffing with the ♥7 is approximately 66.5% if you intend to run the ♥J next.

 

3. Cashing ♣AK and ruffing with the ♥7 is also curiously approximately 66.5% even if you intend to ruff your ♣Q with the ♥J next if LHO doesn't show out. (I did not figure in the increased chances of an enemy ruff by them being able to discard effectively on the later round of clubs, which makes this line somewhat lower percentage than calculated).

 

4. Cashing ♣AKQ intending to ruff fourth club is approximately 59%.

 

5. Cashing ♣AK intending to ruff with the ♥J if LHO follows, then playing ♥A,Q is approximately 56%.

 

 

Curiously, probably the most intuitive line (line #5) is by far the worst.

 

At the table, lines 1 and 2 and 3 fail, and only lines 4 and 5 work (the inferior lines!).

 

These odds change slightly, and in this case significantly, if you have clues about the distribution. For example, if you are fairly sure that clubs will never break worse than 5-2, lines 2 through 5 increase in value, and lines 2 and 3 increase by enough percentage points to make them preferable over line 1; alternatively, if you are certain that diamonds are 6=1 (singleton on your right) then line 4 gains a lot of value.

 

I don't think I've ever seen a problem before where 3 distinct lines are so extremely close.

[cnszsun]

The correct line of play:

 

1. Win the diamond in dummy and immediately lead a heart to the ♥Ten, planning to cross back to the ♠A and repeat the finesse if it wins. If necessary, you can take the club finesse against the ♣J if hearts are unfriendly. This line is slightly better than leading the ♥J from dummy for a finesse since you no longer win against singleton ♥K onside.

 

This line wins against hearts 3-2 onside, singleton ♥K onside, or the ♣J onside which is close to a 69% chance.

What if LHO ducked first ♥ with Kx(x)?

You would have only one entry left to try both ♥ and ♣ finesse.

[dank]

What if LHO ducked first ♥ with Kx(x)?

You would have only one entry left to try both ♥ and ♣ finesse.

Ahh... yes... no wonder I had rejected that line last night and calculated it at 66.5% by leading the ♥J from dummy ... sometimes your reasoning is better in the middle of the night than by the clear of day!