What's your line?

[Hanoi5]

[hv=pc=n&s=saj542ha743dat2c6&n=skq6ht98dk6ckj875&d=s&v=n&b=15&a=1sp2cp2hp4sppp]266|200[/hv]

 

♠3 was lead. I took it in dummy and the only line I thought of was playing a club towards dummy so that I could throw a heart loser on a surplus club winner (this line included hearts 3-3). Afterwards I thought of two heart finesses (this one includes hearts 3-3, too), what is better?

[Codo]

I would always play on hearts. But I cannot count the winning scenarios.

[Zelandakh]

Are you not home if hearts are 3-3 and trumps behave? 5 spades, 2 hearts, 2 diamonds and a diamond ruff, as long as we get our fourth heart set up before they can tap us out. We need to be looking at how to handle worse breaks than this. My intuition is that playing on hearts is best but better to leave it to Rainer and co to calculate things more precisely.

[gnasher]

With trumps breaking, we can combine a club finesse with playing for a long heart: win in hand; club to some honour, losing; win the trump return; ruff a diamond; run ♥10; ruff the return; draw the last trump; play hearts. That works when we guess clubs, or hearts are 3-3, or hearts are HHxx-Hx/Hxxx-HH/xx-HHHx.

 

The alternative of going only for hearts is clearly worse. Suppose it goes: trump won in dummy; heart finesse; trump. We're now forced to take the diamond ruff, so we can only take one more heart finesse. That gains us Hx-HHxx and loses HH-Hxxx (ie six more heart breaks), but it gives up the 50%+ chance of the club finesse.

[Codo]

Andy,

 

in which scenario do you win if you get an extra club trick? When hearts are 3-3 it does not matter, so which 4-2 breaks are critical?

 

 

[gnasher]

We're comparing

(1) Taking two heart finesses.

(2) Taking one club finesse and one heart finesse.

 

Assuming all combinations are equally likely and it's a pure guess in clubs:

 

(1) fails when the suit is:

KQJxx-x and we would have a club trick (1.5 combinations)

KQJx-xx and we would have a club trick (1.5)

HH-Hxxx (3)

H-HHxxx and we would have a club trick and LHO has three trumps (~ 1)

 

(2) fails when the suit is:

Hx-HHxx and we have no club trick (4.5)

H-HHxxx and we have no club trick (1.5)

 

So, if I've got that right, (2) is at least slightly better than (1). However, I think that we'd get clubs right more often than half the time, so the edge for (2) is greater.

[gszes]

going for the club immediately seems to have much better chances overall

(gnasher)

 

After hearing you have 9+ cards in the majors it is a lot tougher (seemingly suicidal)

for lho to duck the club A if you lead toward the dummy. Even at its worst this play alone

is 50% + 33 hearts + (by taking 1 heart finesse) Hx HH HHH HHHx with rho.

 

While going after hearts alone will reward you with some extra chances in

hearts those chances are nowhere near the 50% (at its worst) the club suit offers.