Your line?

[1eyedjack]

[hv=d=w&v=n&w=s963h7d987cqjt842&e=sakjt75ha9864dcak]266|100|Scoring: IMP

Uncontested

W...E

P...2C

2D..2S

4S..6S

 

Lead ♦K[/hv]

[Trpltrbl]

Ruff.

J of ♠.

 

Mike :D

[inquiry]

Intriquing at matchpoints... compare with Free's line.

 

Trick one.. Ruff with the ♠Jack

Trick two.. SPADE ACE (we come back to spots in a second)

Trick three CLUB ACE

Trick four CLIB KING

 

Trick FOUR...IF Spade queen fell at trick two,

cash SPADE KING, and spade to nine, claim. Not making al 13 tricks at matchpoints with singleton queen would be huge mistake.

 

Trick FIVE if SPADE eight fell at trick one,

Spade five to spade six, to force the queen. Later, spade 7 to spade nine as entry. This is why ruff with spade JACK not low.

 

TRICK FIVE if only small spades played at trick one.

Spade seven towards dummy. If LHO plays the eight, I cover... if he goes up the queen, I am home (remember to ruff next diamond high again).

 

This line makes 13 tricks with singlton Queen, and 12 tricks with singleton 8, or 2-2 spades or 3-1 spli with LHO having three spades.

 

Now does playing at imps make any difference? That is do you gain anything by leading the jack at trick two? The answer is no. IF LHO has three spades to Queen you make with either play, as you do with ACE first. If RHO has three to teh queen-eight, you are toast either way. No one is going to fall for the "trojan horse" The real key is ruffing the first diamond high.. cause if you ruff low and lead Ace or Jack, you go down when WEST has thee spades to the Queen. The jack is ducked,,, if you lead low (your last low after unblcoking clubs), west pops up with Queen and return spade and dummy is dead...

 

So turns out correct play, matchpoints and imps.. ruff high, lead ace, unblcok clubs, lead low spade.

 

 

Ben

[Trpltrbl]

I guess I am just to lazy to type everything out.

But it goes without saying, well at least in my mind, to ruff with the 10 of ♠.

 

Mike :D

[1eyedjack]

I missed the part about ruffing with the J or T at trick 1, and sleepily ruffed low and led out S:J

 

It occurred to me that opps should duck the J when holding Qxx. If the J holds then I reckon on that holding and play for Hearts to be 4-3: HA, Hruff, CA, hruff, Druff, SAK, concede H.

 

This makes when Spades are 3-1 whichever way round, although it does of course require H to be 4-3 (but then I only have to worry about that if the opps are alert enough to let the SJ win).

 

I am not saying that this is better than Ben's line, but it may possibly make a difference between IMPs and MP play.

[inquiry]

well i can help you with the odds. with no other infomation, a 43 heart split is 66% of the time. Guess free might talk about law of symmetry and play for more wild split.

 

The spade play i suggested works against any of the following WEST holdings in spades

 

Q

8

Q8

Q2

Q3

82

83

Q82

Q83

832

32

 

If you do the math, this comes to nearly 78%. There is no way to trick you on my line, i guess on your line two things might happen, they might grab their queen good for you... they might duck with Qx when hearts are not 43, very bad for you...

 

Ben

[1eyedjack]

Sounds pretty close.

My line also makes when either hand has stiff Q, albeit not 13 tricks.

I think it significantly harder to duck the Q with Qx doubleton, but perhaps I am wrong about that.

Quantifying the likelihood of their ducking with Qx(x) is one of those imponderables. I think an expert should get it right, at least with Qxx.

Your line definitely wins the Bols elegance factor.

And the play that relies on a misdefence needs to be significantly better than the genuine line to justify going for it. Given the amount of catchup required just to equalise the odds I guess that is never going to happen.

 

Do you want to know the tragedy?

[Flame]

There are things between the lines for 4-3 and the line for getting into dummy for clubs, one option that could be best, is to play the J of spade and only if not taken (which is rare because its hard for the opponents even when they got the right hand to do that.

[inquiry]

My line also makes when either hand has stiff Q, albeit not 13 tricks.

Which is why i said at mp, spade jack at trick two is huge mistake, as it doesn't cater to stiff queen, and gains nothing against a clever or not even especiallly clever opponent. Beware good bridge players bearing gifts.

 

I think it significantly harder to duck the Q with Qx doubleton, but perhaps I am wrong about that.

 

Beware good bridge players bearing gifts. If declerer ruffs high and leads J or T... you can pretty much duck if you can (maybe he needs two entries to dummy becasue he has !CA stiff and is going to ruff finesse the king in your partners hand...something like that. You don't necessarily have to work it all out..... if you trust you excellent opponents.

 

Do you want to know the tragedy?

 

Yes

[1eyedjack]

North (sitting over the 963 of Spades), held 3-5-4-1 shape including Q84 of Spades, so neither line works.

 

To make it I have to cash the C:AK before playing any trumps at all. North does best not to ruff (else AK of Spades when next in, followed by trump to table and established Clubs).

 

Once the Clubs have held I need to Cash H:Ace and ruff Heart to table, again without playing on any trumps. At that point I can lead Clubs and overruff (or even discard when North ruffs) and still make.

 

OK, this may be a bad line at MP, but is it the best at IMP?

 

By the way, the only defence that guarantees beating it is the singleton Spade 2 lead. Is it not strange that the one occasion that classically illustrates the dangers of leading singleton trump (finding partner with Qxx) is the one occasion that happens on this hand and yet is the only defence? I find that quite amusing. Best is for declarer to play lowest card from dummy, and North must then also follow with his lowest card to beat the slam.

[1eyedjack]

At MP it is of course a no-brainer, but of some interest to me is a comparison of the relative merits of 6C and 6S as contracts at IMP scoring.

 

Leaving aside the difference in score, which tends not to feature in the IMP argument, despite having fewer trumps 6C has some attraction in the added communication to the Club suit. As against that, in many cases you can afford to lose a Spade trick in 6S. In 6C if you lose a Spade trick you are likely to then lose a quick diamond trick (or two). And if you test the Spades before trumps (in order to preserve control over the Diamond suit) you risk being cut off from the Spades, as well as possibly having a top Spade ruffed.

 

So it is all down to picking up the Spades without loss (in 6C). This seems to be rather worse than playing in 6S on any reasonable line for 6S.

[1eyedjack]

Having had a day at the office to sleep on it, I am rethinking the merits of a 6C contract (at IMPs).

 

I reckon that in 6C the best line would be:

 

Win trick 1 with Ace (whatever suit is led).

At trick 2 Cash C:Ace if it is still on the table

Cash S:Ace.

If S:Q falls on first round, claim. Assume not:

Ruff Heart to Hand and finesse Spade.

If all follow to a losing Spade finesse they cannot continue Spades (they broke 2-2) and you still have communication to the Spades. They cannot cash Diamonds because there is still C:King to ruff.

If the Spade finesse gets ruffed then the position is essentially the same.

 

You lose if the Spade finesse loses to (a priori) Qxx offside, although there is still an opportunity for the defence to slip up and ruff in front of the losing finesse.

 

Again you have problems evaluating the likelihood of a misdefence, but if you assume that is negligible then 6S on Ben's line still seems to be superior (as well as higher scoring), mainly because of the effect of Singleton Spade 8 falling under the Ace enhancing the prosepects of 6S whilst having no effect on the chances of 6C (otherwise each contract fails on a particular Qxx Spade break, only in different defenders' hands).