A very strange suit combination

[fred]

If anyone can figure this out WITHOUT using suitplay I will be most impressed!

 

Qxx

 

K9xx

 

You need 2 tricks.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[Free]

My first thought was to finesse the 9 immediatly, but after some thought it seems quite useless.

 

With 3-3 split you always have 2 tricks. So the 4-2's are the biggest problem I think. I think the best chance is low to the Q, and give one trick away (2 small ones). Then decide if you're going to finesse or not, when the Ace and Jack/Ten both have fallen.

[Chamaco]

with 33 split all is well.

 

With 42 split, need to find a doubleton keycard.

 

I play low to the 9: if lose to Ten or J, I next lead to Qx, guessing whether 4th hand has Ax, but probably playing the Q (even if loses, I make 2 tricks with 33 split)

[sceptic]

lead Q from dummy first and keep leading from dummy (assuming you have enough entries)

 

I think this will break most splits except AJ108 with LHO

[sceptic]

if the split is 3/3 I doubt you would be asking the question :blink:) so I have not even considered it

[pclayton]

3-3's don't matter.

 

Low to king and back to Q. This picks up JEN - x on left and only loses to Ax on left. I even pick up A-Jen on left.

[flytoox]

play small from both hands in the first round, then play from hand to the dummy's Q. This wins whenever spade breaks 5-1 and one of opp has singleton Ace. It also wins if LHO has singleton J or T. If spade breaks 4-2, you still win if LHO has Hx, H=A,J or T.

[fred]

Let's back up a bit. There are several reasonable ways to play the suit. I have attempted to list all of them below.

 

In order to really solve this problem you have to figure out all of the winning and losing cases for each of these lines.

 

Another question: What do you think the "intuitively correct play is"? In other words, if you had to make a play without thinking it through, what would you do?

 

So far all of the world class players I have asked have answered this question the same way.

 

Here are the possible plays:

 

1a. Lead low to the Q. If it loses to the A play the K next.

 

1b. Lead low to the Q. If it loses to the A play low to the 9 next.

 

2. Lead low to the K.

 

3a. Lead low to the 9, if it loses to the J/10, lead low to the K next.

 

3b. Lead low to the 9, if it loses to the J/10, lead low to the Q next.

 

4. Duck the first round completely unless either the 10 or J appears when you lead toward an honor. Guess which honor to leave toward on the 2nd round.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[hrothgar]

I'm miserable at these things. With this said and done, I beleive that the standard approach is low to the Queen, hoping to establish the King-9 as a tenace...

 

With this said and done, the odds of this working seem best if you start by ducking a round before doing anything else. FOr me, this is the "intuitive" way to play, since I haven't sat down and enumerated the different cases...

[Guest Jlall]

low to the king and then duck on the way back is the right line i think. You pickup on your left:

 

Tx

Jx

any 3

Axxx

JTxx

Jxxx

Txxx

The intuitive line (low to the queen then low to the 9 on teh way back if it won and if it didnt cash the king and lead up to 9x) picks up on your left:

 

Ax

Jx

Tx

any 3

Axxx

 

So the first line is better.

[Guest Jlall]

If one of the other lines is right then I will get this wrong since i didnt think about any of the others fred posted. hehe.

[DrTodd13]

Is this question really about how good one's intuition is about how to play suit combinations? Sure, we could go through each of the combinations and compute the odds just like a program would but realistically, how much time do you have to decide something like this at the table. Either you know the combination by heart or you go with your gut. Exhaustively computing the best line seems to be not possible at the table and not fun outside the table when we have computers to answer the question. Is the point of this exercise to develop good intuition?

[fred]

Is this question really about how good one's intuition is about how to play suit combinations? Sure, we could go through each of the combinations and compute the odds just like a program would but realistically, how much time do you have to decide something like this at the table. Either you know the combination by heart or you go with your gut. Exhaustively computing the best line seems to be not possible at the table and not fun outside the table when we have computers to answer the question. Is the point of this exercise to develop good intuition?

I agree that this combination is too complicated to figure out at the table, but I believe it is good for one's bridge skills to go to the effort to trying to figure these things out away from the table. By doing so you develop thinking patterns that will help make you a better "at the table" player.

 

The main reason I made this post is because I find the answer so strange (and so do all the really good players who I have talked to about this problem). When I told the answer to Michael Rosenberg (who is as good at these things as anyone in the world), he didn't believe me! Later he wrote down all of the winning and losing cases for various lines and agreed that I was right.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[fred]

low to the king and then duck on the way back is the right line i think. You pickup on your left:

 

Tx

Jx

any 3

Axxx

JTxx

Jxxx

Txxx

The intuitive line (low to the queen then low to the 9 on teh way back if it won and if it didnt cash the king and lead up to 9x) picks up on your left:

 

Ax

Jx

Tx

any 3

Axxx

 

So the first line is better.

When I was shown this problem I was told that low to the K was the right play.

 

That seemed so weird to me (I, like everyone else, thought the right play had to start with low to the Q) so I thought about it some more.

 

After a while I figured it out. I (and presumably the person who showed me this problem) had made the same mistake as Justin. You can't pick up both:

 

J10xx

 

and

 

Jx/10x

 

on your left. Do you see why?

 

In any case, the above does not necessary imply the right answer is any specific line, but low to the K is not as good as it first appears.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[Guest Jlall]

oh cute, they can falsecard. Nice I will remember that when im defender lol.

[Guest Jlall]

and Ax is more likely than Jxxx/Txxx by 3 to 2. This would suggest if they were capable of falsecarding low to the queen is better then low to the king.

[Fluffy]

MY intuitive playis low to Q, but the first I looked for was low to K, it seems to work whenever LHO has 10 or J doubleton or singleton. (regardless of where the Ace is), and I like it very much.

 

 

Now thinking deeper about first fred's post I beleive first movement should be low from both sides since its the most antinatural, and althou it may fail on some 3-3 holdings it may be better on the rest.

[luke warm]

i think free is on track... lead low from dummy and cover whatever east plays... could be the 9, could be the king... but i admit i'd have played differently without fred's hints

[Free]

i think free is on track... lead low from dummy and cover whatever east plays... could be the 9, could be the king... but i admit i'd have played differently without fred's hints

I checked with suitplay now, and I'm impressed! I won't say why :rolleyes: Nice suit combination Fred!

[Guest Jlall]

ok:

 

I think have it this time but this has taken me forever to figure out (longer than any other suit combo). If i dont have it right now, I give up but here goes:

 

Lead towards the 9. If rho sticks in the jack or ten, play the king and if lho ducks, duck a round next. If LHO wins the ace, play queen and towards teh 9.

 

If rho plays low, put in the 9 then lead low towards the king again (!) This line wins vs (with LHO):

 

Jxxx

Txxx

Ax

xx

JTxx

Axxx

any 3

 

Compared to the intuitive line this gains in the cases of lho having:

 

JTxx

Ax

xx

 

and loses to the cases of

Tx

Jx

JT

[jdulmage]

If anyone can figure this out WITHOUT using suitplay I will be most impressed!

 

Qxx

 

K9xx

 

You need 2 tricks.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

Depends on bidding, hestitations, etc. gotta look at all aspects.

 

At first, I'm thinking low to the Q, if it holds, play a small one, duck completely and hope your LHO is Ax in the suit, he has to win it, now you are home free. The problem arises if it is sitting.

[hv=n=shqxxdc&w=shaxdc&e=shjt8xdc&s=shk9xxdc]399|300|[/hv]

 

You obviously don't want to play the K here, you must duck, the doubleton A must be won now. Why the 9? You are dead anyways if your LHO has A+honor or better.