squeeze or finesse?

[kgr]

[hv=d=s&v=n&n=sqjha6dakq74c9875&s=sa9hkq82dj53cakj4]133|200|Scoring: MP[/hv]

1♣-1♦

2NT-4NT (4NT=blackw)

5♥-5NT

6♥-6NT

 

Lead ♠5: J-K-A

You continue with ♣A, ♦A and ♦J, everyone following

Q: Will you finesse ♣ or play for ♥/♣ squeeze?

[Little Kid]

How about cash AK clubs, then squeeze?

[lmilne]

Yeah, I think that's the question that was being asked.

 

How's this for a line?

 

Win ♠, cash 5 rounds of diamonds (pitching a club and a spade), then a club to the ace. Assuming the club queen doesn't drop, and that clubs aren't 5-0;

 

Against good opponents, who have discarded well (no clubs gone), cashing the other top club then playing a heart to dummy for a 4-card squeeze ending. This picks up ♣Qx/Qxx/Qxxx and 4+♥ with LHO, along with JT9 tight of hearts.

 

The alternative, which involves cashing 1 less diamond and then taking a 2nd round club finesse, picks up all the ♣Qxx/Qxxx holdings with RHO where he also has 0-3 hearts (when he has 4+ hearts the squeeze also works).

 

I'm no mathematician, the first line seems better, as it forces opps to pitch (someone could easily pitch from 9xxx of hearts if they weren't awake). I'm not entirely sure what the actual percentages are on those two chances, but they look kind of close (?)

[Fluffy]

you forget that squeeze also picks LHO with ♣Qx and less than 4 hearts, that makes it the right play.

[lmilne]

you forget that squeeze also picks LHO with ♣Qx and less than 4 hearts, that makes it the right play.

oh yeah, forgot to mention that one B)

 

all that previous post was basically mumbo jumbo trying to justify my intuitions that the squeeze is right, because A people suck at discarding, B i often play against people who are less than perfect defenders and finally C squeezes are for the cool kids!

[Free]

Obviously go for the squeeze.

[kgr]

I also did go for the squeeze based on intuition. I wondered how to go for it based on 'logic'.

Finesse wins if RHO has ♣Qxx or longer and no 4c♥

Squeeze wins if:

LHO has ♣Qx

LHO has ♣Qxx or longer and 4c♥

=> 4c♥ with ♣Qxx or longer compared to not is below 50%, but this is compensated by LHO having ♣Qx???

 

My guess: B)

LHO has 4c♥ with ♣Qxx or longer: 45% => Edit: Is there a tool to calculate this?

LHO having ♣Qx: 8%

 

Edit: verified with suitplay:

LHO having ♣Qx: 10.17%

[gwnn]

Don't forget the most prevalent case:

• opps are idiots 90%
  

[pooltuna]

Obviously go for the squeeze.

besides it's more fun than the finesse B)

[Phil]

Why would you cash the ♣A early?

 

edit: In case you think this is a silly comment, the operative word is early.

[pooltuna]

Why would you cash the ♣A early?

it let's you claim faster if there is a stiff Q♣?

[inquiry]

I love squeezes, so typically when the odds are even, I go for the squeeze.

 

Here the odds are not even. In the absence of any additional information, the odds here clearly favor the squeeze (you have to cash second club early -- vienna coup), and use a club in dummy as the threat.

 

You are missing 7 hearts and 5 clubs. For the squeeze to work, you need the hand with 4 (or more) hearts to also hold the club queen.

 

One might consider the odds (based on vacant space) to favor the hand short in hearts to hold the club queen, and quess what? You would be right. The odds of the hand long in hearts (at least four, but could be more) to hold the club queen is significantly below 50% (I think I have calculated it correctly at just short of 42%). So you might think playing for the squeeze to be 42% while playing for the hook to be 50%, but this overlooks the chance of short club queen. There is an additional 16.8% chance the club queen will be singleton or doubleton when it is not with the long club hand... of course you have eliminated the singleton queen of club chances, so the odds need to be recalculated for doubleton queen (since the singleton has been eliminated). In fact, no singleton queen also removes some of the hands where the queen is with the long heart hands as well. The new odds are 38.7% the queen is with long hearts (but not stiff queen) and 14.3% the queen is doubleton opposite the long hearts. Still 38.7+14.3 is still higher than the 50% for the hook.

 

The thing is, here you DONT need to make the decision to play hook or finessee yet. There is still time to investigate further...

 

You could cash all the diamonds, throw a heart and spade from your hand. If nothing unusual happened, you could cross with the club king, play back to the heart ace. Cash the last spade and then try to run the hearts. If WEST showed up a lot of diamonds, you can reconsider the club hook.

[CSGibson]

You could cash all the diamonds, throw a ♣ and spade from your hand.

edited to what you obviously meant

[kgr]

Why would you cash the ♣A early?

 

edit: In case you think this is a silly comment, the operative word is early.

Yes, I like lmilne's line more.

To be sure: Cashing the ♣A doesn't matter, beside that it gives more info to opps for their discards?

[kgr]

For info: This was another hand against Jack.

LHO had a 6c♠ and RHO 4c♥ and ♣QTxx

[Phil]

Why would you cash the ♣A early?

 

edit: In case you think this is a silly comment, the operative word is early.

Yes, I like lmilne's line more.

To be sure: Cashing the ♣A doesn't matter, beside that it gives more info to opps for their discards?

Exactly.

 

Why would you ever cash the ♣A unless you held specifically AKJ?

 

edit: I see this was against Jack. I don't expect him (it) to get this inference.

[OldPalooka]

Now that Diamonds are known to be 3-2, play one round of clubs before choosing. ~7.5% Clubs are 5-0 on side or Queen drops and we claim. ~1.9 % that Clubs are 5-0 off side and we will pray for squeeze, good luck.

 

Both lines win if JT9 of hearts is tight: ~1.8%

 

So at this point both lines make about 9 percent and fail about 2% and we only care about the remaining 89%.

 

Plan to finesse line wins 50% of remainder plus ~2.5% when East holds 5+ hearts and 3 little clubs. If West errs and throws a heart from 3 the line improves another 6%. Plan to finesse line therefore wins in 9%+ 44.5% +2.5% + a generous 2% for defensive error or roughly 58% overall.

 

Plan to squeeze line wins 27% when CQ is doubleton + 25% when Qxx(x) with long hearts plus 9% where both make less 1% for double counting heart JT9 drop, with very little chance of defensive help, or 60% overall.

 

For what it is worth, squeeze line never goes set more than one, while finesse can lead to -2.

 

If not for the secondary showup squeeze possiblities in the finesse line, it would be decidedly inferior. And I believe this is generally the case.

[inquiry]

For what it is worth, squeeze line never goes set more than one, while finesse can lead to -2.

While my math skills are pretty poor, I don't see anyway either line can go down even one, much less two (assuming as everyone is that diamonds run)

 

If you just want to finesse. Cross in dummy and hook club. It wins that is 13 tricks, it loses, you still have 12 (2S, 5D, 3H, 2C). On squeeze lines, you always take 12 top tricks. If the squeeze worked, you have a 13th, if not you are stuck with 12.

 

There are two lines for squeeze... keep both threat cards in south (heart has to be). This is the line that leads to a showup squeeze (should EAST have both hearts and clubs), and has a bonus of dropping doubleton queen offside. This seems clearly inferior to having the club threat in dummy where the squeeze works against either opponent with both clubs and hearts. It is just me, but if I was going to play for a squeeze, I would play for the one that works against both opponents (vienna coup) instead of just against EAST.

[lmilne]

Dealer: South Vul: N/S Scoring: MP

♠ J ♥ 6 ♦ [space] ♣ 98 ♠ [space] ♥ KQ82 ♦ [space] ♣ [space]

Yeah, this was my intended ending.

Cash diamonds to allow opps maximum chance of making a mistake (by throwing a revealing club, or throwing a heart from a 4-card holding - this is more likely as you have concealed the heart suit in the bidding), followed by cashing 2 top clubs, going to dummy with a top heart, and using the ♠J as the squeeze card.

 

We pitched a club first and then a spade (spade last to try to encourage an opponent to hold on to spades, instead pitching clubs or hearts).

 

P.S. my favourite type of problem - layout is such that whatever you do works :blink:

[lmilne]

Also, cashing 5 rounds of diamonds is getting pretty close to committing you to the squeeze, for the reason that after you have squandered all your diamond entries, you have to take a club finesse immediately if at all (provided that the finesse isn't safe after cashing a top club, i.e. LHO shows out or something).

 

If you don't take the finesse then, and instead cash a top club, your last entry is the heart, so you have to cash the spade immediately, leaving yourself open to the possibility of taking a losing club hook and having spades cashed against you :blink:

 

You can avoid this problem by only cashing 4 rounds of diamonds and leaving yourself a spade, but for reasons already stated, this seems very much inferior.

[jdonn]

For info: This was another hand against Jack.

LHO had a 6c♠ and RHO 4c♥ and ♣QTxx

Were the clubs QT6x? I just want to make sure running the club 5 works too.

[kgr]

For info: This was another hand against Jack.

LHO had a 6c♠ and RHO 4c♥ and ♣QTxx

Were the clubs QT6x? I just want to make sure running the club 5 works too.

QT32

[gszeszycki]

MP is a curious game especially when it comes to deciding how to SAFELY try for

an overtrick like this hand. Our mathematicians have shown us that playing a top

club going back to dummy in dia and taking club finesse is roughly 58% while

playing for the squeeze is roughly 60% thus making the squeeze not only more

aesthetically pleasing but a superior LOP (or so it seems).

 

In a strong field where everyone knows squeeze play (like the readers of this forum :rolleyes: ) choosing which LOP is still dependent on the sccore you need.

If you merely want average than do the squeeze since most will do that but if you

need a good score then you go against the field and cash a top club and take the finesse.

 

Against an average field where maybe up to 60% of field never studied squeeze play if you want average go with the finesse (what the field will do and some of them wont cash one top club first to pick up stiff club Q) but if you need a top

go for the squeeze.

 

This theme comes up frequently at MP and is rarely a consideration at IMPS. This

hand at IMPS go for the squeeze even though its only 2% better (assuming strong defense) casinos make vast fortunes on that mere 2% why not you. Plus winning an uptrick on a finesse gets a shrug while winning it with a squeeze warrants at least a momentary self pat on the back and we can all use those.

[OldPalooka]

MP is a curious game especially when it comes to deciding how to SAFELY try for

an overtrick like this hand. Our mathematicians have shown us that playing a top

club going back to dummy in dia and taking club finesse is roughly 58% while

playing for the squeeze is roughly 60% thus making the squeeze not only more

aesthetically pleasing but a superior LOP (or so it seems).

 

In a strong field where everyone knows squeeze play (like the readers of this forum  :rolleyes: ) choosing which LOP is still dependent on the sccore you  need.

If you merely want average than do the squeeze since most will do that but if you

need a good score then you go against the field and cash a top club and take the finesse.

 

Against an average field where maybe up to 60% of field never studied squeeze play if you want average go with the finesse (what the field will do and some of them wont cash one top club first to pick up stiff club Q) but if you need a top

go for the squeeze.

 

This theme comes up frequently at MP and is rarely a consideration at IMPS. This

hand at IMPS go for the squeeze even though its only 2% better (assuming strong defense) casinos make vast fortunes on that mere 2% why not you. Plus winning an uptrick on a finesse gets a shrug while winning it with a squeeze warrants at least a momentary self pat on the back and we can all use those.

Actually the 58% number was based on going all out for the overtrick and risking the contract. [Mea culpa, I did not count tricks when I looked at the problem]. Safely taking the finesse is only about 53%. The difference is a large premium to pay on your matchpoint insurance.

 

This does invalidate your point when the percentages are closer or if you consider 7% a reasonable premium to pay.

[lmilne]

I don't know about all these numbers, but it really comes down to:

 

♣Qxx/Qxxx onside (with 0-3 hearts with the club length, and no JT9♥)

 

vs.

♣Qx (and any other shape) + Qxx (with 4+ hearts, and no JT9♥ with his partner) offside.

 

All the other cases, clubs are 5-0 (where you are either laydown or forced to take the squeeze), 4-1 offside (forced into squeeze), 4-1 queen dropping (laydown) or club length onside with heart length (both lines work).

 

And of the two situations where it matters, the second is clearly more likely.

 

What is all this talk about risking the contract and going all-out for the overtrick? My line is perfect! ;)