You miss the safer 7NT

[inquiry]

[hv=n=sqj953hk82dq9ckt8&s=sak8hadak3caj7654]133|200|North opened a weak 1NT despite 5♠ and East overcalled 3♥ Vul. You became declarer as East in 7♣

 

Ppening lead is the ♥7, there leads are top of doubleton, low from three. [/hv]

 

Would your play change in 7♠ or 7NT?

 

 

[eidt... i had West open and north overacll.. obviously, i rotated the hands for display and forgot to correct the language. North opened, East preempted in hearts.]

Edited October 6, 2010 by inquiry

[hanp]

How can low to the 10 be an option and running the jack not? Running the jack picks up the 4 clubs with LHO (you confused me with your west's and norths), while low to the ten only does better when RHO has 4, that has to be worse.

 

The vulnerability is relevant. After playing low in dummy on the first trick we also get to see a card from RHO that is relevant. In practice I think you should know at least 90% of the time whether the seven is third or highest.

 

I would either play the ace and finesse, or run the jack.

 

To complete my critique, you wrote "there" where you meant their.

[ONEferBRID]

You have 10 winners outside of the Cl suit.

In 7NT ( or 7S ) you can play your winners first to see if you can get a count on the hand or an opp helping you with a helpful Cl discard or two.

 

In 7C you can't do that.

 

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Edit: In 7S you can ruff a Ht in the short trump hand for an eleventh trick, so you would only need 2 Cl tricks.

[hanp]

In 7NT I'd try some other suits first.

 

In 7S I would try cashing the AK of spades and ruffing a heart. Works unless RHO has 8 hearts (vulnerability) or 3+ spades and a club void.

[Fluffy]

blame methods for openign 1Nt with 5c major to miss the proper grand lol.

 

I'd finese south for the vacant space thing by cashing ace first I think. But I'd rather be in 7NT.

[ArtK78]

All you know about the distribution of the opponent's cards is that East should have at least 7 hearts and West should have no more than 2 hearts, and that East believed his hand merited a vulnerable 3♥ call over a weak 1NT opening despite the fact that he is missing the A and K of hearts.

 

East could easily have 8 hearts. He could also be 74, 75, 84 or 85 in the red suits.

 

In any event, I believe that the holding of Qx of clubs by East is unlikely. Certainly, his holding of Qx of clubs is not something that would cause him to think his hand is "good enough" to make a vul preempt over a weak NT.

 

Initially, I missed the play of running the ♣J. Once you have decided to play East for club shortness, running the ♣J wins against any short holding in the East hand except the singleton Q. I voted for club A then low to 10 initially, but I can see the wisdom in running the J.

 

If I am in 7♠ or 7NT, I will be able to get more information about the distribution in the non-club suits before I tackle the clubs. That may effect my play in the club suit, especially if East is void in spades.

 

Edit: As was pointed out above, in 7♠ you may be able to ruff a heart high in the short hand for your 13th trick. If spades are 5-0, that won't be possible, since you won't be able to pick up the spade suit if you ruff a heart in the short hand.

 

I don't know if cashing the AK of spades in 7♠ is the right line, since it is not unreasonable that East has 8 hearts, in which case you won't be able to ruff a heart low in hand (assuming that West has long spades).

 

Edit: Compass directions edited after they were changed in initial post.

[hanp]

In Art's world north can be 8-5 for overcalling 3H but can't have a 6-card suit?

[ArtK78]

In Art's world north can be 8-5 for overcalling 3H but can't have a 6-card suit?

In your world do players preempt at the 3 level vul over a weak NT on a 6 card suit?

[Fluffy]

when my opps are ???? in unknown scoring I can trust their preempts to be sound

[Cyberyeti]

In Art's world north can be 8-5 for overcalling 3H but can't have a 6-card suit?

In your world do players preempt at the 3 level vul over a weak NT on a 6 card suit?

I do frequently, particularly if my bid at the two level would not show that suit and the vul is right, but in this case it says that the 3♥ was vul so it probably isn't only 6.

[hanp]

Ben didn't give the complete vulnerability but yes, I see people bid 3H vul all the time. Usually they are 6-5 when they do.

[ArtK78]

Yes, 6-5 is certainly possible, but when they are missing the AK in their known "long" suit and AKQ in their second suit, even 6-5 may not be enough vul.

[ceeb]

♣J.

 

Since this is vacant space week I suggest the following argument:

Comparing running the ♣J with ♣A then finesse, is to compare LHO's ♣Qxxx vs. ♣xxx. Therefore we may as well assume that the ♣x's are distributed 3=0. If the hearts are 3=6 then vacant spaces are equal; if hearts are 2=7 or worse then RHO is more likely to be void than ♣Q alone.

 

But a stronger clue is that RHO's 3♥ bid with no A or K, especially vulnerable, is easier to envision with a void.

[TheoKole]

East is more likely than not to have a red 2 suiter.

 

If he is void in ♣, then the only play that works is to run the J ♣ on the first round,

if West covers the Q and East shows out you can still pickup the trump suit.

 

I agree with others that the vacant spaces calculation, suggests overwhelmingly to play West for the Q.

 

Theo

[straube]

If I entered the problem correctly, this site says that Qxxx on my left is more probable than stiff Q on my right. So run the jack.

 

http://www.automaton.gr/tt/en/OddsTbl.htm