Guest Jlall Posted April 28, 2008 Report Share Posted April 28, 2008 Assume you are playing in real life (ie, not against optimal defense necessarily). You have a trump suit of J82 in dummy, AK943 in your hand. You need 5 tricks in the suit and have to play it immediately. You have entries to both hands. Your length is fairly unknown, other than that you have 5+ of the suit. What is the optimal way to play this suit? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
655321 Posted April 28, 2008 Report Share Posted April 28, 2008 I can't think of anything clever. :) I would just play the 2 towards the AK. If the Q drops on the first round (over the Jack) I will play for singleton Q not QT doubleton. Otherwise cash the other top card. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pclayton Posted April 28, 2008 Report Share Posted April 28, 2008 Pretty sure I need to bang down the AK here. I'm picking up all the Qx's (let's not get into the QT dub in RHO lol). Double hooking needs QT onside and a 3-2 split or a stiff 10 offside. When you have all the spots, I think double hooking is better but its close. In real life? Are you implying that RHO won't cover from Qxx? A Grue is possible but seems desperate. I'll let someone lay out the odds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
han Posted April 28, 2008 Report Share Posted April 28, 2008 Phil if you cash the ace and the queen drops on your right, how will you play then? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pclayton Posted April 28, 2008 Report Share Posted April 28, 2008 Phil if you cash the ace and the queen drops on your right, how will you play then? You tell me Han. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenrexford Posted April 29, 2008 Report Share Posted April 29, 2008 There are two big drops of interest under the Ace. The Queen behind the Jack and the 10 to the left. Either is interesting. The drop of the 10 to the left seems to be a simple odds situation, whether stiff 10 or Q10 tight. The drop of the Queen to the right is more interesting. It is interesting from a number of perspectives. One is as to which honor you should play first and the other is to how to play it (lead it out, or lead toward it). The easy part is that banging down the King seems obviously dumb, so do we lead toward the Ace or bang down the Ace as most effective. The psychology of the thing for a person with the Q10 is also interesting. If he envisions partner wit the Kxx, he may wonder, if he respects your game, why you are not pursuing an intrafinesse position on this hand. So, RHO should decide that Kxx for his partner is unlikely. So, he will imagine a possibility of no King, where the falsecard seems great. If he imagines K9x, conditions for Declarer look meager. Declarer might be desperately trying to crash a stiff honor in RHO's hand, in which case obliging with Q10 would be a bad decision, particularly so because that now gives Declarer the suit with only one loser. One idea (joking!) would be to drop the 9 on the table on the play of a different suit in dummy and look at RHO as you correct the revoke. :) [Actually, I might do this against a friend. Heck, I might even pull the card out, show it to a friend, and ask him how interested he is in this card.] Another idea (also joking!) is to be prepared for this layout ahead of time. When partner tables J-third in a suit like this, make some irritated and snide comment to partner about his bidding on that sort of crap support. LOL As to the legitimate options, I'm still undecided as to whether small toward the hidden A-K or banging down the Ace will be more effective in dissuading a falsecard from RHO. If stuck with numbers, it seems that stiff Queen is less likely than Q10, but I don't know whether the difference is fully eaten up and surpassed by the chance of a falsecard or not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Finch Posted April 29, 2008 Report Share Posted April 29, 2008 If you might have 6 of them they generally won't cover from Qxx. Sadly they might cover from Qx however, which rather depresses the chance of the run-the-jack line Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apollo81 Posted April 29, 2008 Report Share Posted April 29, 2008 cash AK works in 8 cases. assuming you can always get Q?? onside right (assuming rho will cover only if he has the 10), running the jack works in 7 cases. and that's an assumption that is not necessarily 100% even if you had put the ♠7 in declarer's hand im not sure running the jack makes sense. what if the jack wins? will you play RHO for Qxx or for Q10xx ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jlall Posted April 29, 2008 Report Share Posted April 29, 2008 Ok so we agree AK is right. Ken was getting to my next point... 1) If you led the ace and a good RHO dropped the Q what is your play?2) If you led small from dummy and a good RHO dropped the queen what is your play? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apollo81 Posted April 29, 2008 Report Share Posted April 29, 2008 2) If you led small from dummy and a good RHO dropped the queen what is your play? Surely to play him for a singleton queen. He doesn't know you have AK9xx exactly. What if you had K9xxx(x)(x) or Axxxxxx ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenrexford Posted April 29, 2008 Report Share Posted April 29, 2008 Ken was getting to my next point... "Getting" there? I droned on and on about it, reaching a grand conclusion of "not sure." LOL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jlall Posted April 29, 2008 Report Share Posted April 29, 2008 Ken was getting to my next point... "Getting" there? I droned on and on about it, reaching a grand conclusion of "not sure." LOL Yes, I meant you got there and then reached no conclusion heh (and thus did not make my point, but you were getting there). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenrexford Posted April 29, 2008 Report Share Posted April 29, 2008 OK, then. Let's delve deeper. The concern is seeing the Q drop behind the Jack. The other Queen drop is meaningless. The only problem scenario is Q10 tight, as the drop of Queen from Qx might be tricky, but I cannot go wrong. Tricky for tricky's sake is just tricky. If RHO has Q10 tight, I could have A-seventh, I suppose, where playing toward the Ace slows him down from this play, for fear of crashing the Queen and King together. Also, if I could have K-sixth, he also would be ill-advised to pop Queen. So, leading toward the Ace seems right and seems to reduce the chances of a tricky Queen play. It increases his possibilities for error. If I play the Ace, I eliminate the possibility of a crash and I eliminate the possibility of the K-sixth scenario. That said, he still might have figured out what my likely holding is, based on a number of possible but unknown factors. I also might have options to confuse his expectations by making plays along the way that create illusions as to my total hand pattern. Analyzing this situation in the context of a complete picture is likely to be more beneficial than analyzing in a whole spectrum of possible scenarios. But, I sense that leading at the Ace-King is likely to be the best approach, which is the usual default (take advantage of the concealed hand as much as possible). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gnasher Posted April 29, 2008 Report Share Posted April 29, 2008 Sorry - wrong thread. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Echognome Posted April 29, 2008 Report Share Posted April 29, 2008 Sorry - wrong thread. Yes. Was going to comment on your comment, but figured it had to be on the wrong thread. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jlall Posted April 29, 2008 Report Share Posted April 29, 2008 If RHO has Q10 tight, I could have A-seventh, I suppose, where playing toward the Ace slows him down from this play, for fear of crashing the Queen and King together. Also, if I could have K-sixth, he also would be ill-advised to pop Queen. So, leading toward the Ace seems right and seems to reduce the chances of a tricky Queen play. It increases his possibilities for error. If I play the Ace, I eliminate the possibility of a crash and I eliminate the possibility of the K-sixth scenario. Yep, exactly. If you lead from dummy he cannot profitably play the Q from QT tight since it costs him too often. If you lead the ace from his hand he can play the Q from QT tight, so you're supposed to lead from dummy first. At the table I led the ace from my hand (couldn't afford to lead from dummy) and RHO played the queen, so I tried small to the jack next. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenrexford Posted April 29, 2008 Report Share Posted April 29, 2008 If RHO has Q10 tight, I could have A-seventh, I suppose, where playing toward the Ace slows him down from this play, for fear of crashing the Queen and King together. Also, if I could have K-sixth, he also would be ill-advised to pop Queen. So, leading toward the Ace seems right and seems to reduce the chances of a tricky Queen play. It increases his possibilities for error. If I play the Ace, I eliminate the possibility of a crash and I eliminate the possibility of the K-sixth scenario. Yep, exactly. If you lead from dummy he cannot profitably play the Q from QT tight since it costs him too often. If you lead the ace from his hand he can play the Q from QT tight, so you're supposed to lead from dummy first. At the table I led the ace from my hand (couldn't afford to lead from dummy) and RHO played the queen, so I tried small to the jack next. Did you pay the compliment unnecessarily, or did you catch the culprit? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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