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Not so well known suit combinations


luis

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The idea of this thread is to post no so well know suit plays as we see them appearing in BBO hands or Vugraph broadcasts.

 

From Vugraph:

 

a) J642 and A973

 

How do you play the suit for 3 tricks?

 

Answer: Lead the 7, if the T appears then cover with the J and play the Ace next.

If the ten does not appear then play low if the K or Q appears then cash the Ace.

If the K or Q appears when you play the 7 then run the J trying to pin the T.

You win 3 tricks if either opp has KQ doubleton or if south has QT or KT

Your percentage of success is 10.17%

And this is not the correct play if you need only 2 tricks.

 

Pls feel free to post other no well know suit plays if you see them!

 

Luis.

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The idea of this thread is to post no so well know suit plays as we see them appearing in BBO hands or Vugraph broadcasts.

 

From Vugraph:

 

a) J642 and A973

 

How do you play the suit for 3 tricks?

 

Answer: Lead the 7, if the T appears then cover with the J and play the Ace next.

If the ten does not appear then play low if the K or Q appears then cash the Ace.

If the K or Q appears when you play the 7 then run the J trying to pin the T.

You win 3 tricks if either opp has KQ doubleton or if south has QT or KT

Your percentage of success is 10.17%

And this is not the correct play if you need only 2 tricks.

 

Pls feel free to post other no well know suit plays if you see them!

 

Luis.

 

Good idea Luis. I will point out that while your line is correct, you made a mis-statement in when you said the following:

You win 3 tricks if either opp has

KQ doubleton or if south has QT or KT

This is of course untrue, as your proposed line is to lead low towards the J and if the hand in front of dummy jumped up with high honor, to lead the Jack from dummy to "pin the ten". Thus, when hand in front of Jxxx has KQ doubleton you will lose two tricks (you do gain when has KT or QT doubleton).

 

The odds are catching "south" with

Txx = 3.391....%

KT or QT = 6.78....%

To arrive at your 10.17 %

 

Bang Ace and duck is only 6.8%. The reason why you try to "pin" the Ten in a high-Ten doubleton is that HT (where H = K or Q) is twice as likely as KQ doubleton. That is, simply stated, if South has a doubleton honor, he could have: KT, QT, or KQ. Two chances is better than one.

 

So banging the A and then low, works when East has KQ doubleton or West has KQ doubleton. Each 3.391% = 6.8%...

 

The low towards the Jack work when EAST has KQ doubleton (as you bang the second time), at 3.391) or when West has KT (3.391%) or QT (another 3.391%). 3.391 * 3 = 10.17. B)

 

As for the best line to make two tricks. This occurs anytime the suit is 3-2 (67.8%), so the trick is to pull in as many of the 4-1, 5-0's as you can. The solution is to bang the ACE. This works anytime WEST has 4 or 5 in the suit, or when West has stiff K, Q, or T. All in all, playing the ACE will win at least 2 tricks 92.3% of the time.

 

Ben.

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I think, a slightly better line is to play low towards the Jack

 

1. If LHO wins Q/K, then play low towards to the jack again, if LHO now shows out, you can finesse RHO ten next time.

 

2. If RHO wins Q/K, then next play low towards the A9 combination hand and insert the nine if RHO follows.

 

This line will fail only when RHO has Q/K singleton which is 28% (4-1 break) * 50% (4-1 with RHO singleton) * 40% (Q/K singleton) = 5.6%

 

So, low to the Jack will give 2 tricks 94.4% of the times. Of course, this is assuming abundance of entries in both hands.

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Yup... low towards the Jack is a better line than the one I suggested.... I just assumed my line was best and didn't even calculate other ones. :-

 

Since this is a discussion of suit combinations and how to play them,

this is a good time to mention to bring up the concept that distributions in other suits could affect the odds of how to play a combination like this. If RHO had preempted in a different suit, say opening 4D's, you would just realize that he has lots more diamonds than his partner, so is less likely to have this suit (say spades). Say you estimate their diamonds to be split 2-7.... Now, banging the ACE is way better. The actual odds are Play the ace wins... 98.9%, while low to the jack only works 87.2%.

 

Without doing the difficult math (well spreadsheets help) on that one, everyone would just "guess" that West is much more likely to have long spades than East.

 

What about if you had pulled trumps, and EAST had 2 more trumps than West, would that affect the odds? If you knew nothing else about the other suits, yes it would. Now leading ace then low wins 94.9% of the time and leading low towards the Jack "only" 92.6%.

 

If you pulled trumps, and East had one more than west, the odds of the two lines are essentially identical (ACE-first 93.54, low towards JACK-93.66).

 

At the table it is totally impratical to try to figure out these odds (unless you are some kind of mental math freak)... but you can make use of this "principle" though simple bridge logic... if RHO is longer in suit "A" he is much more likely to be shorter in suit "B". With this logic firmly in mind, with a two way finesse, available, you usually finessee though the person who has less know cards in the other suits. This affects the "eight ever, nine never" rule for playing for a drop of a queen...

 

In the following table. The columns are a) number of extra known cards in other suits in RHO's hand, B) frequency of catching Qxx in LHO hand when missing Qxxx, c) the odds "drop" versus d) hook (of LHO) working after first cashing one top honor in your suit.

 

 

0 – 18.7 - 57.9 - 56.2

1 – 20.3 58.78 57.78

2 – 22.2 61.57 59.55

3 – 24.2 64.6 60.19

 

If RHO is known to have just one more card in a side suit than LHO, then the odds swing in favor of "hook" (cash one top winner first). Here is a matchpoint hint... people use "eight ever, nine never" way more than they should. Needing a board, consider the finesse even with no known distributional clues. In some games this will convert an average to a near top (or bottom)...but if you need a board, the 1% differernce is well worth the risk.

 

Ben

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The idea of this thread is to post no so well know suit plays as we see them appearing in BBO hands or Vugraph broadcasts.

 

From Vugraph:

 

a) J642 and A973

 

How do you play the suit for 3 tricks?

 

Answer: Lead the 7, if the T appears then cover with the J and play the Ace next.

If the ten does not appear then play low if the K or Q appears then cash the Ace.

If the K or Q appears when you play the 7 then run the J trying to pin the T.

You win 3 tricks if either opp has KQ doubleton or if south has QT or KT

Your percentage of success is 10.17%

And this is not the correct play if you need only 2 tricks.

 

Pls feel free to post other no well know suit plays if you see them!

 

Luis.

 

 

Consider this:

 

2nd hand should play the 8 from 108x and

the 10(!) from 108 doubleton.

 

Does this change your calculations at all?

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

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[quote author=fred link=board=6;threadid=577;start=0#msg3326

Consider this:

2nd hand should play the 8 from 108x and

the 10(!) from 108 doubleton.

Does this change your calculations at all?

 

Hi Fred,

I don't think this changes the play for 3 tricks. Does it?

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[quote author=fred link=board=6;threadid=577;start=0#msg3326

Consider this:

2nd hand should play the 8 from 108x and

the 10(!) from 108 doubleton.

Does this change your calculations at all?

 

Hi Fred,

I don't think this changes the play for 3 tricks. Does it?

 

 

 

You are correct that it does not, but supposed

that the original combination included the 8:

 

Axxx

 

J987

 

Now when you lead toward the J987 and the

10 is played, you cover with the J and it loses.

 

If you do not consider the (bizarre but correct)

falsecard of the 10 from 10x then you should

play to drop the K10 or Q10 doubleton next.

 

If the person you are playing against is capable

of this play (ie nobody) then you should finesse

on the 2nd round instead.

 

All this really proves is that the best play on

paper is not always the best play at the table!

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

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All this really proves is that the best play on

paper is not always the best play at the table!

 

"Does he do this because he knows I know he knows?" :-)

 

If you can be so kind I'd like to ask you a question that you may answer based on your international experience. How do you handle this sort of "bluff, double bluff, triple bluff" situations....

 

Take for example this situation,assuming the Tx falsecard is a play that all expert players will know. Do you change the way you play the suit? Or do you just play the Ace trying to get a doubleton Hx knowing you can be a victim of the falsecard?

If I have HT it can be easy to play the ten knowing declarer will finesse then thinking I've just falsecarded....

 

8-) this can drive you crazy....

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All this really proves is that the best play on

paper is not always the best play at the table!

 

"Does he do this because he knows I know he knows?" :-)

 

If you can be so kind I'd like to ask you a question that you may answer based on your international experience. How do you handle this sort of "bluff, double bluff, triple bluff" situations....

 

Take for example this situation,assuming the Tx falsecard is a play that all expert players will know. Do you change the way you play the suit? Or do you just play the Ace trying to get a doubleton Hx knowing you can be a victim of the falsecard?

If I have HT it can be easy to play the ten knowing declarer will finesse then thinking I've just falsecarded....

 

8-) this can drive you crazy....

 

 

 

 

 

 

First of all, the play I mention is one that only a small

percentage of experts would know about and most of

these would not make sure a play at the table.

 

Fortunately there are not a lot of situations in bridge

like this, but as a player you just have to do the best

you can when they arise. Sometimes you have to guess

"is my opponent capable of this play?".

 

At the highest levels, you will never go far wrong by

ignoring possible falsecards from your opponents and

just falling back on the % play if you are not sure.

 

One advantage of this strategy is it stops you

from going crazy :)

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

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