Q9x

[kgr]

Q9x - ATxx

What is best play of this combo for 3 tricks?

Does it make a difference if you have:

Q96 - AT72

[BunnyGo]

Not sure it's best, but in the first case I'd play small to the 9. If it holds, lead small to the Q, if it loses to the K, hope for 3-3, if it loses to the J hope the K drops doubleton.

 

With the 6 and 7 too, I'd probably play the same way, but haven't thought about it enough. Maybe small to the 6 and then trying to pin the J or drop the K is best (depending on what happens).

[MrAce]

Q96 vs ATxx Play small towards 9, if it loses to J then play 6 to T, if 9 holds play small towards Q. If it lost to K then cash out AQ

 

Q96 vs AT72 Play small towards 9, if it loses to J then play Q, if it is covered and 8 didnt show u can cash the T or finesse 8. Depends on other suits known may help you i guess.

[dave_w]

Why is it that every time someone gives me a suit combination I learn how ridiculous the assumptions behind the "best way" to play the suit is. For instance - with this combination you play small to the 9 and it holds the trick and so you lead small to the Queen and it loses to the King!! What do you do now? If you don't finesse the Ten then LHO might hold KJxx and will take two tricks! But I've never met anyone who defends like that.

 

The "best" play is small to the 9. If it holds then small to the Queen (if this loses to the King then you have to pay off to the opponents hoolding KJxx and cash the Ace!).

When small to the 9 loses to the Jack then the two cass are a bit different:

if you have small cards you should lead low towards the ATx. You'll make 3 tricks with KJx onside or KJ tight.

if you have the 7 then you should lead the Queen towards the ATx (and finesse). The reason is that KJ8xx is more likely than KJ tight (perhaps the rest of the hand will suggest that this suit isn't 5-1 however which would change the correct play).

 

Here are two great sites for analysing card combinations:

www.suitplay.com - a downloadable program for windows. Enter in the two hands and it'll play the hands for you (you have to go through the different combinations of plays yourself to work out what it thinks the line is).

 

http://www.rpbridge.net/xcc1.htm - Richrd Pavlicek's card combination analyzer. Put in the suit combination and it'll give you the odds of all the different breaks. Go through each of them and tick the box if your line of play works - and it'll add up the percentage of that line of play. Be careful though - you have to realise when the opponents can falsecard you to give up tricks (eg it's "right" to duck th Jack with KJxx sitting over Q9x in this combination in order to get two tricks!!!).

 

I find that if I want to learn a suit combination that I'll use Pavlicek's site because it makes you think about which hands the different lines work on - why the different lines gain tricks - which can be very useful (eg learning which line is better when you expect RHO or LHO to be longer in a suit). Or for instance learning that you should play the Queen to pick up KJ8xx which is more likely than KJ tight (but perhaps not when the whole hand is considered!).

 

So from now on you can do all your own research in to card combinations because they are a lot of work and I don't want to do it for you again ;-)

[gwnn]

dave_w, we know about suitplay and rpbridge. However, it pays to analyse card combinations on the forums without suitplay because it is practice to real bridge conditions (i.e. without a computer).