Play this slam

[paulg]

[hv=d=n&v=b&w=sak65hj7djt43ckt3&e=s74hak95dakq5caj2]266|100|Scoring: IMP

West East

-   2NT

3♣  3♦

3♥  3NT

6NT  Pass

 

3♦ shows one or two 4-card majors, 3♥ shows spades and 3NT shows hearts[/hv]

South leads the seven of clubs (3/5 from good, top of 3+ small, low from doubleton) around to your jack. While bemoaning the fact that you are not in seven diamonds on this lead, you still have to make 6NT.

 

What is your plan?

[Simplicity]

At the table would take the Jack and play a small heart immediately. Looks like i'm a make with the ♥Q onside, The ♥T falling in 3 rounds or a ♥/♠ squeeze.

 

I'll praps come back and take a harder look to see if there is a technically superior line

[shyams]

At the table, I'd play 4 rounds of diamonds (opp ♦ not 5-0) before I do anything else. This forces three discards by opps, and should guide our future action.

 

I thought finessing twice in hearts (running Jack and then finessing 9) should be good enough odds. But the play by Simplicity possibly gives much better odds. However, in either case, there is no hurry and we should play diamonds first.

[wclass___]

Low ♥ to J, if it loses to Q and they return ♥ - finesse.

[paulg]

Playing the diamonds reveals that North held three and South two. South pitches two small clubs and North pitches the eight of clubs.

[nige1]

[hv=d=n&v=b&w=sak65hj7djt43ckt3&e=s74hak95dakq5caj2]266|100|Scoring: IMP

West  East

-   2NT

3♣  3♦

3♥  3NT

6NT  Pass

3♦ shows one or two 4-card majors, 3♥ shows spades and 3NT shows hearts

South leads the seven of clubs (3/5 from good, top of 3+ small, low from doubleton) around to your jack. While bemoaning the fact that you are not in seven diamonds on this lead, you still have to make 6NT. What is your plan?[/hv]

At the table, I'd play 4 rounds of diamonds (opp ♦ not 5-0) before I do anything else. This forces three discards by opps, and should guide our future action. I thought finessing twice in hearts (running Jack and then finessing 9) should be good enough odds. But the play by Simplicity possibly gives much better odds. However, in either case, there is no hurry and we should play diamonds first.

Playing the diamonds reveals that North held three and South two. South pitches two small clubs and North pitches the eight of clubs.

(On 3rd thoughts) ♣J, ♦JAKQ. ♥5 to ♥J (RHO wins ♥Q). If RHO returns ♥, then finesse ♥9. Otherwise cash ♣KA Edited May 13, 2010 by nige1

[Fluffy]

3 lines, all of them close

 

-Cash 3 diamonds ♣K, 4th diamond and low heart to the jack, finesing the 10

-Cash 3 diamonds ♣K, 4th diamond and low heart to the jack, drop or squeeze

-play a low heart to the 7 and test south's nerves who shouldn't be good after the lead. This would be the winning play against 95% opponents I think

[dellache]

3 lines, all of them close

 

-Cash 3 diamonds ♣K, 4th diamond and low heart to the jack, finesing the 10

-Cash 3 diamonds ♣K, 4th diamond and low heart to the jack, drop or squeeze

Maybe I didnot get what you suggest...

What happens now if South plays the ♥Q and plays a club back ? (did you allow South to block Hearts ?)

 

As for the line, I would reject the squeeze (rather unlikely, both because of initial distribution factors and the fact that the situation is clear to opponents) and play the simple "consecutive finesses" line.

[gnasher]

Ignoring what we know or infer about the minor suits, after a heart to the jack loses, leading hearts from the top works when:

- ♥10 is trebleton (3/7 * 62)

- ♥10 is doubleton (2/5 * 31)

- The same hand has 5 spades and 4+ hearts (about 10% of the remainder, I make it, using Pavilcek's calculator).

 

That's about 45%, so a bit worse than the 48% you get for a finesse of ♥9.

 

A possible reason for following the squeeze line is that a heart lead would have looked safer from xxx than from 10xx. I'm not sure if that inference is worth 3% though.

[nige1]

Ignoring what we know or infer about the minor suits, after a heart to the jack loses, leading hearts from the top works when:

- ♥10 is trebleton (3/7 * 62)

- ♥10 is doubleton (2/5 * 31)

- The same hand has 5 spades and 4+ hearts (about 10% of the remainder, I make it, using Pavilcek's calculator).

That's about 45%, so a bit worse than the 48% you get for a finesse of ♥9.

A possible reason for following the squeeze line is that a heart lead would have looked safer from xxx than from 10xx.  I'm not sure if that inference is worth 3% though.

On the evidence so far, the squeeze is impossible. so I concede Gnasher is right that the 2 X ♥ finesse line is best (against best defence).

[Fluffy]

I still think the intrafinese is the practical play, I haven't met the man who can duck ♥Q at trick 2 against a slam smothly.

 

 

Dellache you are right, I blocked the hearts, should be more careful :).

[dellache]

I still think the intrafinese is the practical play, I haven't met the man who can duck ♥Q at trick 2 against a slam smothly.

This is indeed an interesting idea, if South always plays the ♥Q when he has it (you play 75% + extrachances like Q8xxx or QT8 in the North hand). South might not play the Queen when he has Qxxx (sometimes fearing A10xx in you hand, depending on what he knows about the HCP-situation). But then also, what about the tempo ?

 

Looks like a nice "practical" line, but I'd still be nervous about it.

 

South is broke in Diamonds. If you took 10 seconds when dummy went down, he can count these tricks for you : 2♠, 3♥(if you have AK and he plays Queen), 3♣, 4♦. I expect thus that good opposition will duck the ♥Q smoothly *more* than 10% of the time when you play small toward Jack, making the psychological line borderline at best ?

 

I admit I like your line, very worth considering depending on the table feeling. I would have missed it at the table.

[paulg]

[hv=d=n&v=b&n=sqt3hq86d862cq984&w=sak65hj7djt43ckt3&e=s74hak95dakq5caj2&s=sj982ht432d97c765]399|300|Scoring: IMP[/hv]

Both declarers in my match led the ♥J (covered) and subsequently took the losing second finesse but discovered that their five of hearts had been established. They both said that this line seemed to keep squeeze chances alive and not everyone covers the ♥J - I was not convinced, but they had +1440.

 

Naturally a number of others went down by playing towards the jack of hearts.

 

Some then rushed to SuitPlay to see the 'right' line but, as Fred would no doubt approve of, it refused to offer an opinion.

 

Paul

[gwnn]

Did it not? Did they include the 7 too? If so, why? If not, weird, my suitplay said low to J then low to 9.

[paulg]

My SuitPlay, v1.4.3, also says insufficient memory to compute.

[twcho]

Yes, suitplay says insufficient memory to compute. But you may try to change the card a little bit. e.g. AK95 vs J6, the programme will then be able to calculate the best percentage line being 74.4845% by playing towards J first and then finesse 9 back.

[minimonkey]

I think you guys are missing a trick.

 

Paul also posted this hand on hos blog and my first thoughts were the technical line of starting with 3 rounds of diamonds to find if somone could be 5-4 in the majors before I made any more decisions.

 

Anyway there, as here, I found that South started with 3C and 2D. However discarding the 2Cs instead of 1C and an idle 5th in a major made me think that S was 4-4 in hearts and spades, leading to the obvious squeeze when I cash a club.

 

I wouldnt reccommend this line against strong S players who have thought about their discards on the 3rd diamonds but If they have played in tempo I think this is a 90% inference.

 

Frazer