Playing in 6S

[mangosteen]

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How should one go about playing 6♠ on this hand after K♥ lead from West? On discussion with a friend, the 2 obvious lines were to either guess the clubs or discard the club on the diamonds and cross ruff. However, could I ask how one should approach calculating the probability of the x-ruff line? I'm having a lot of trouble piecing the break probabilities together to convince myself its better than the <50% that the clubs provide. (Need 3-2 spades)

 

Edit - Noted that the full hand had the T♠, no idea why it was left out, my apologies.

Edited August 27, 2012 by mangosteen

[MrAce]

I dunno about calculations but i wld take the ♥A and play a club towards dummy.

[sailoranch]

It's going to be difficult to score eight separate trumps. If you ruff two hearts, it'll promote a trump trick for the defense, and you don't have enough entries into dummy to win your four trump spots through ruffing.

 

You may be able to drop the ♣A after ruffing clubs twice. You ruff a heart with the ♠A and pitch your final heart loser on the established ♣K. The hope is that the opponent with the short clubs also has the three spades and must ruff with the promoted trump trick. You must also hope that this opponent cannot lead a red card for a further trump promotion.

[mangosteen]

I was actually thinking something along this line for the cross ruff line.

 

Win A♥, AKQ♦, discarding 2 clubs. Now, club ruff, heart ruff, club ruff, heart ruff. And my hand would be the one below now.

 

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If the A club drops, I have the line as you describe above. And if not, I can play the club. If E follows, I have many alternative lines like ruffing 8♠, and hoping the J♠ drop in 2 rounds. Or even ruffing 10♠, cashing a round of spades, and if the 9♠ drop, play E for 4 cards spade suit by endplaying him with the last heart and finessing the forced spade return. If E shows out, I can overruff E and hope for the spades to be friendly.

 

I'm sure that the percentages are not dismal when the possibilities stack together. But I can't really even get a close gauge of the percentage, especially when we need to consider so many suit breaks, and that the probabilities would theoretically increase due to more breaks being required.

[sailoranch]

If the A club drops, I have the line as you describe above. And if not, I can play the club. If E follows, I have many alternative lines like ruffing 8♠, and hoping the J♠ drop in 2 rounds. Or even ruffing 10♠, cashing a round of spades, and if the 9♠ drop, play E for 4 cards spade suit by endplaying him with the last heart and finessing the forced spade return. If E shows out, I can overruff E and hope for the spades to be friendly.

 

If East is out of clubs, he can uppercut you with ♠Jx, promoting West's ♠9xx. You also lose if West has ♠Jxx, since it's likely East will be able to win or ruff your heart exit. So you're basically playing for a 2-3 or 1-4 (or maybe 4-1) division. If East discards on the third club, you can either play to drop West's ♠Jx, or instead cash a spade and exit with your heart. East will get in and likely play a red card, promoting ♠Jx if West has it. So ♠Jxx(x) or ♠J9(x)(x) on the right, or exactly 4333 on the left?

 

If East follows to the third round of clubs, West is likely to overruff when able. If you ruff with the ♠8, you need the ♠J9 on the right. If you ruff with ♠T, you need to drop West's stiff ♠9.

[sailoranch]

Actually, it's a bit worse when East has two clubs. He can ruff with the ♠J from ♠J9xx to give you the option of playing to drop ♠9 in two rounds. He can also play the jack from ♠Jxx to preserve the chance to promote West's ♠9x if you choose to put him in.

 

Alternatively, West can drop the ♠9 from ♠9x if East doesn't ruff with the jack, but won't do this more than a third of the time? I think the equilibrium is that you play for ♠J9 tight if West plays the nine, and you play for ♠J9xx with East if he ruffs high. You should win on these occasions, but lose when it's ♠9x opposite ♠Jxx.

[sailoranch]

I guess this is a prime example of a falsecard-uppercut that gets you to throw him in for a trump promotion.

[phil_20686]

If East is out of clubs, he can uppercut you with ♠Jx, promoting West's ♠9xx. You also lose if West has ♠Jxx, since it's likely East will be able to win or ruff your heart exit.

 

So if rho ruffs in with the J, on some layouts you can just discard a heart. Like if the hearts were 4-4, now rho cannot give a trump promotion, he exits a red suit you ruff low and your hand is high.

[Finch]

The "playing on clubs" line is a lot under 50%, although quite how bad it is depends on the auction.

 

On double dummy defence, if you win the heart at trick 1 and play a club then you go off every time time clubs are 4-1 (even with stiff ace you can't pick the clubs up), & every time spades are 4-1 (as you aren't playing double dummy)

If your planned line is to play on clubs, you also go off with both black suits 3-2 and the CQ right if a club to the jack holds, because your entries are in such serious trouble. You can cash the DA and ruff a diamond to play a second club, but now you can't get to dummy to run the clubs.

 

Here's a third line: win the ace of hearts and play a club to the king. If that holds, cash 3 diamonds (discarding a club & 2 hearts), ruff a club, ruff a heart, cash the ace of trumps and ruff something with the 8 of trumps. If LHO rises with the CA, it might depend a bit on what he does next. But this line feels it must be better than simply winning and playing a club to the jack.

[sailoranch]

So if rho ruffs in with the J, on some layouts you can just discard a heart. Like if the hearts were 4-4, now rho cannot give a trump promotion, he exits a red suit you ruff low and your hand is high.

 

You're right, thanks. With ♠Jx and two clubs, East should have a fifth red card to lead. But I'm rethinking how the other layouts would go. I think East is still supposed to ruff high with ♠J9xx, and sometimes ♠Jxx. If declarer chooses to discard the last heart, then has to guess whether to ruff high or low on East's next lead, depending on whether West can ruff with the ♠9 or not. Then would East ruffing with the ♠Jxxx provide a losing option as well?

[phil_20686]

Here's a third line: win the ace of hearts and play a club to the king. If that holds, cash 3 diamonds (discarding a club & 2 hearts), ruff a club, ruff a heart, cash the ace of trumps and ruff something with the 8 of trumps. If LHO rises with the CA, it might depend a bit on what he does next. But this line feels it must be better than simply winning and playing a club to the jack.

 

There are other variations, but something along this line seems best to me. One of the most difficult things on this hand is that the defence can make a real nuisance of themselves. For most reasonable lines the defence can take reasonable countermeasures. For example if they pop the ace and play a diamond, then you are in difficulties, as it will be hard to get back to your hand twice and still get the diamond winners.

 

I think if you are going to play this line why not ruff a heart at trick two, cash the spade ace, and play three rounds of diamonds pitching hearts. You play the fourth diamond off the deck, and you are fine when diamonds are 4-4 or rho has three diamonds, assuming you can guess the clubs. It gives up the chance of them ducking the ace, but that is not too likely anyway imo.

[phil_20686]

Deleted.

 

PS: anyone think that if the trumps were 4-1 and lho has the club ace he might have led it?

[MrAce]

If your planned line is to play on clubs, you also go off with both black suits 3-2 and the CQ right if a club to the jack holds, because your entries are in such serious trouble. You can cash the DA and ruff a diamond to play a second club, but now you can't get to dummy to run the clubs.

 

Here's a third line: win the ace of hearts and play a club to the king. If that holds, cash 3 diamonds (discarding a club & 2 hearts), ruff a club, ruff a heart, cash the ace of trumps and ruff something with the 8 of trumps. If LHO rises with the CA, it might depend a bit on what he does next. But this line feels it must be better than simply winning and playing a club to the jack.

 

1- I don't understand why we can discard a club on diamonds when the ♣K holds but we can not when the ♣J holds.

 

2- How will you discard 1 club+2hearts on diamonds when you have ♦ AKQx in dummy and x in hand ?

[phil_20686]

1- I don't understand why we can discard a club on diamonds when the ♣K holds but we can not when the ♣J holds.

 

2- How will you discard 1 club+2hearts on diamonds when you have ♦ AKQx in dummy and x in hand ?

 

1) its only half as likely that the J holds as that the K holds. You need AQ onside, instead of A. Besides, it would be close to automatic to rise with the ace, and if they have both club honours its more likely they have small cards (one case of AQ, three of AQx and four of AQxx), and can give their partner a ruff.

 

2) if the club holds, you can afford to make a loser on loser play to prevent a trump promotion on the diamond when you cross back to hand.

[MrAce]

1) its only half as likely that the J holds as that the K holds. You need AQ onside, instead of A. Besides, it would be close to automatic to rise with the ace, and if they have both club honours its more likely they have small cards (one case of AQ, three of AQx and four of AQxx), and can give their partner a ruff.

 

2) if the club holds, you can afford to make a loser on loser play to prevent a trump promotion on the diamond when you cross back to hand.

 

 

Read before you say something please.

 

1-I never said we should play a club to J. I think it is better than playing to K though.(and i will explain why at the end of this reply) She said "if we play club to J and this holds we still go down because etc etc..." I just said if J holds she can play the hand as the way she suggested (discarding remaining club on diamonds instead of trying to come to hand and playing another club) So when you play a club to K or J and if that holds, one of them is not any better than the other.

 

And where did you come up with this funny idea that when we play club to J and if that holds AQ must be onside ? A offside may duck this as well, taking the ace can be a mistake in a lot of hands that defense may have hard time to figure. Depending on how the cards dealt it may as well be a mistake on this hand to take offside ace on first round when J is played.

 

2-Again, read what she wrote, she is not talking about playing 4 rounds of diamonds, she is talking about playing 3 rounds of diamonds and making 3 discards ! ;) She is talking about taking the ♥A, winning the ♣ K in dummy and playing 3 rounds of ♦ and ruffing a club. What you saying is totally different, which requires playing 4th ♦ and discarding another ♥, which in this case defense will get to hold the hand before you do anything else. But i don't think thats what Frances says because she also said "ruff something with 8 of trumps" So she is talking about "ruff a ♦ or ♣ with trump 8" Thus she did not mean to play 4th ♦ and play loser on loser.

 

By the way i think her line is pretty good, i like it overall, not as much as i like playing to J though. I was just asking questions about some details she said. What you do not understand is, playing to J is also legit.

 

When you catch Qx(x) onside and if they take the offside A on first round they can not knock your both minor entries to dummy at the same time, you are pretty much home unless they duck the Ace,( or bad breaks) which then turns into same situation as she suggested. If they duck the ♣J you then discard club on diamonds. Also playing A onside and Q offside requires LHO to duck his Ace, popping up the Ace and playing 2nd ♣ or even a ♦ will basically lock you to dummy. You may still survive of course but you need more friendly splits than the line where ♣Q was on and A offside. In fact you are pretty much down when both spades and clubs are 3-2 if they pop up the ace and play a minor. Assume LHO held Jxx KQxxx xxx Ax (not sure if this is possible from the bidding)

 

So i think playing to J is better because it needs less to succeed when our long suits behave and it doesn't require opponents to make the wrong decision. But i am not very strong on this.

[mangosteen]

I considered playing small to the K♣, but I have to say that small to the J♣ must be the better line, because if LHO manages to duck the A♣ seeing the AKQX♦ on dummy, that would surprise me a lot.