6NT with chances

[HighLow21]

6NT is not a hopeless contract, but there are only 9 top tricks- ♠A, ♥KQJ, ♦AKQ, ♣AK. There are, however, opportunities to get 3 extra tricks. How do you go about it?

 

Also, why do my pickup partners on BBO always leave whenever they get a minus score?

The squeeze on righty has already begun, if there is one. (Even if there isn't, there is still pressure, as he is already discarding my long suit. And when declaring I love pressuring my opponents.)

 

I play another heart to force another discard from righty. If it is a diamond, I try to run those, and if that fails, I hook a spade. If not a diamond, I take the spade hook--a priori, it is a 3 to 2 favorite. I like my chances a lot if the spade hook wins. (Back to dummy with the club, take the last heart and diamonds, watching the discards carefully, and by then I should know what to do.) If the spade hook fails, so be it, but I still have 11. (I realize I could lose a spade, a heart, and a diamond with this combo, but that would be one heck of an unfortunate parlay.)

 

Here's my opinion on why partners leave after a minus (especially if they take the minus as dummy when a plus was possible, and especially on a big momentous hand like a failed slam or allowing a doubled contract through): on BBO there are a ton of terrible players. A reasonable heuristic is to leave immediately if you get a bad result, especially if you haven't had a chance to evaluate that partner and see signs that he/she is actually a decent player. I do it all the time, because I hate taking 10 IMP losses for which I am blameless. And people have done it to me--I take a 10-IMP loss on a difficult, incorrect guess, and they run away. Sure, in this case, I'm actually a good player, but they don't know that. All they know is that they got a bad result with me and as a result, from their perspective, it's much more likely that I'm a fool than that I'm a good player who happened to lose 10 IMPs on the one hand they sat down for. If they only have seen this one hand, my odds of being a fool have increased from, say, 20% to 80%, and they leave based on that data. (Call it Bayesian analysis with a very small prediction sample.)

 

They are also far more likely to leave in that case if they themselves are bad players. This is because they are much less likely to differentiate between a "bad guess/hard luck -10 IMPs" and a "you're a terrible player -10 IMPs."

 

In this case, your partner played the hand and probably ran away because (1) he couldn't follow your bidding logic, (2) he was embarrassed, (3) he blamed you for putting him in a difficult contract in which he failed.

[HighLow21]

Why?

 

I think the main reason to lead ♥A is the thought that partner might have the ♥K.

No it's more likely that the player isn't very good and "is playing the Ace to see dummy." :-)

[johnu]

I play another heart to force another discard from righty. If it is a diamond, I try to run those, and if that fails, I hook a spade. If not a diamond, I take the spade hook--a priori, it is a 3 to 2 favorite. I like my chances a lot if the spade hook wins. (Back to dummy with the club, take the last heart and diamonds, watching the discards carefully, and by then I should know what to do.) If the spade hook fails, so be it, but I still have 11. (I realize I could lose a spade, a heart, and a diamond with this combo, but that would be one heck of an unfortunate parlay.)

 

If they don't discard a diamond, you will go down when diamonds would have run and the spade finesse + squeeze doesn't work.

 

By cashing a third round of hearts immediately, you destroy the transportation needed to take 2 spade finesses and also unblock the ♣K. Since the ♣K hasn't been played, you could still have a spade-club squeeze against East but you would have to guess the distribution, and you haven't rectified the count done a Vienna coup for a diamond-spade squeeze so that squeeze isn't possible now. Read the nate_m's first post for the best percentage line.

[HighLow21]

If they don't discard a diamond, you will go down when diamonds would have run and the spade finesse + squeeze doesn't work.

 

By cashing a third round of hearts immediately, you destroy the transportation needed to take 2 spade finesses and also unblock the ♣K. Since the ♣K hasn't been played, you could still have a spade-club squeeze against East but you would have to guess the distribution, and you haven't rectified the count done a Vienna coup for a diamond-spade squeeze so that squeeze isn't possible now. Read the nate_m's first post for the best percentage line.

Possibly, but perhaps I'm overly influenced by the fear of going down more than necessary. I have a bias towards pressuring the opponents early rather than playing for a short-suited drop (precisely Jxx with either opponent is what percentage? Maybe 20%? it's about as likely as Jxxxx in this scenario) and as I said, I love my chances if the spade finesse works.

 

I did read his line and I agree it is also a good one.

[johnu]

Possibly, but perhaps I'm overly influenced by the fear of going down more than necessary. I have a bias towards pressuring the opponents early rather than playing for a short-suited drop (precisely Jxx with either opponent is what percentage? Maybe 20%? it's about as likely as Jxxxx in this scenario) and as I said, I love my chances if the spade finesse works.

 

I love my chances when diamonds run and I don't need a spade finesse plus squeeze :rolleyes: I also love my chances when I play my cards in the right order to execute a squeeze and give myself the best chance of making a slam (which may not be bid at the other table(s))

 

I did read his line and I agree it is also a good one.

 

One of the lines is a good one :P

[HighLow21]

One of the lines is a good one :P

M'kay then. Nice to meet you too.