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CSGibson

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[hv=n=s87hkqt97dkj8765c&s=saj3ha85daq9ct932]133|200|Scoring: MP[/hv]

 

You're in 7 hearts, and the K is led, after no opposition bidding (South opens 1N, and cue-bids spades, North cues clubs and shows the reds on the way to 7 if you care). Any chances to make this, or do you just play for down 1 to be there with anybody who accidentally languished in 3N?

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Sure there is a chance. Ruff a club with the 9 of hearts, 7 to the 8 (if rho puts in the jack it doesn't hurt you at all), ruff a club, ace of diamonds, ruff a club, king of hearts, queen of diamonds. You need 2-2 diamonds or singleton with a doubleton heart, hearts 2-3 or 3-2 with the jack on your right. Not the best of contracts but certainly worth a try.
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I think Josh's line can be improved slightly by playing a spade to the ace instead of the diamond queen. Then pitch dummy's spade loser on the last trump, and run diamonds. This requires only hearts 3-2 with the jack onside, and diamonds not 4-0. Alternately you can play for the jack to fall doubleton, but this line is slightly better odds.
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If you can ruff 3 hearts in dummy you make 6 heart tricks altogether.

 

So ruff the club,

Heart King

Heart Queen

Diamond to Ace

Club ruff

Spade to Ace

club ruff

diamond to queen

Heart Ace pitching the spade

run the diamonds.

 

This needs hearts 3-2 and diamonds 2-2 or the singleton diamond with a doubleton heart.

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I think Josh's line can be improved slightly by playing a spade to the ace instead of the diamond queen. Then pitch dummy's spade loser on the last trump, and run diamonds. This requires only hearts 3-2 with the jack onside, and diamonds not 4-0. Alternately you can play for the jack to fall doubleton, but this line is slightly better odds.

Yeah of course, it's late and I'm tired as hell. So it's still bad but not as bad as I said. I guess it's almost a 1 out of 3 contract.

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So ruff the club,

Heart King

Heart Queen

Diamond to Ace

Club ruff

Spade to Ace

club ruff

diamond to queen

Heart Ace pitching the spade

run the diamonds.

An improvement on this, which you'd find at the table, is that if East plays the jack on the second round of hearts you can overtake, avoiding the risk of a second round of diamonds.

 

That makes it (given trumps 3-2 and diamonds not 4-0):

- Diamonds 2-2, or

- East having Jx, or

- Singleton diamond with doubleton heart

 

This must be better than a heart finesse.

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Imo you don't really need 2-2...

 

I'd start with: ruff (with the 9), K, A, ruff (with the 10), A, ruff high.

Now you can finesse (7 opposite A8) without needing the as an entry. If the finesse fails however, you'll go down a lot since you totally lost control of the hand...

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Imo you don't really need 2-2...

 

I'd start with: ruff (with the 9), K, A, ruff (with the 10), A, ruff high.

Now you can finesse (7 opposite A8) without needing the as an entry.  If the finesse fails however, you'll go down a lot since you totally lost control of the hand...

Well, as gnasher mentioned earlier, the heart finesse is actually worse.

 

On the assumption that any line needs 3-2 trumps:

 

The heart finesse needs diamonds 3-1 or 2-2, and the heart jack onside:

90% * 50% = 45% of the 3-2 heart breaks.

 

Gnasher's line (on the assumption that hearts are 3-2) makes whenever diamonds are 2-2, and also makes when diamonds are 3-1 but the doubleton heart Jack is with RHO, and also when diamonds are 3-1 with the singleton diamond having 2 hearts:

 

40% + (50% * 20%) = 50% (of 3-2 hearts) without even counting 2-1 in the red suits.

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Since I have to assume hearts 32, I'd play for diamonds 22 or [Edit] favourable 31 .

 

If I think about matchpoints, this line is reasonable versus the 7D players, if you think a lot of your field play grands, and the level of defence is very good.

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As a quick aside, 7 looks like a better contract. If you get a club lead, you ruff, diamond to Ace, ruff a club, diamond to Queen (need 2-2 split), club ruff, spade to Ace, club ruff, heart King, heart to Ace. If heart split, ruff a club and claim. If a heart finesse needs taken, take it, run hearts pitching spades, cross-ruff last two.

 

7 needs more, and the lines provided so far look best. Another technically plausible line is a spade-club squeeze, if RHO has the KQ of spades and very long clubs, but that would be an insane line without bidding by the opponents.

 

I cannot imagine anyone bieng in 3NT, so I would play to make this thing.

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As a quick aside, 7 looks like a better contract. If you get a club lead, you ruff, diamond to Ace, ruff a club, diamond to Queen (need 2-2 split), club ruff, spade to Ace, club ruff, heart King, heart to Ace. If heart split, ruff a club and claim. If a heart finesse needs taken, take it, run hearts pitching spades, cross-ruff last two.

 

7 needs more, and the lines provided so far look best. Another technically plausible line is a spade-club squeeze, if RHO has the KQ of spades and very long clubs, but that would be an insane line without bidding by the opponents.

 

I cannot imagine anyone bieng in 3NT, so I would play to make this thing.

See above

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