[Valardent]

IMPS
<br>6clubs by south, lead x diamond

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What line would you play for?


I think, 2 lines are sensibly better than others :

1) A♠, ♠ruff, ♣ to the J

2) club finesse (♣9 to the Q)

[Zelandakh]

Could you also try ruffing a ♥ before touching the clubs? So ♦K, ♥K, ♠K, ♠ ruff, ♥ ruff, ♣J. I doubt this is the best line but it feels like it should be somewhat competitive against the 2 given.

[PhilKing]

Line two is better than line one.

The key scenario is when West has three clubs and a doubleton spade. In line one, if the finesse loses and a red card comes back we are in danger of running into a trump promotion. In line two, we also run into the same problem, but less often, since if West has three clubs and two spades, he is more likely to have the king.

Also, line two is better when West has the stiff ten of clubs (the singleton kings cancel eachother out).

[gszes]

due to entry problems we do not want to be at
the mercy of a 33 spade break. Since the opps are
going to get a trump trick and can knock out our
extra entry prematurely (by returning a dia) it seems
we need to rely on a hybrid play.

trick 1 win (yay)
trick 2 spade A
trick 3 ruff a spade
trick 4 club A
trick 5 club to J

This LOP leaves us in position to make 6 even if
the club K drops singleton.


This line fails when rho has
Kx (with 4 spades) 16%
there is a singleton T in either hand 5.75%

The proposed line 1 fails when rho has
Kxx (with 4 spades) 18%
Kx (with 4 spades) 16%
K 4%
while it makes when the club T is singleton in either hand
5.75%

the overall % chance of success is about 15% less since
both lines need 33 or 42 spades to succeed.



Line 2 is definitley easier to calculate

it fails whenever lho has the club K and spades fail to break 33 32%
it fails to any singleton T (have to lose 2 clubs) 5.75%
it fails to lho with singleton K (have to lose 2 clubs) 2.9%

note that all lines fail when trumps 50 or 41 with one opp having KTxx so they
were not considered in the calculations (relevant cases).

[nige1]

Valardent writes "IMPS 6♣ by south, ♦ lead.
What line would you play for? I think, 2 lines are sensibly better than others :
1) A♠, ♠ruff, ♣ to the J
2) club finesse (♣9 to the Q)"

Gszes suggests
3) ♦K, ♠A, ruff a ♠, ♣AJ

IMO, also worth considering is a line similar to Zelandakh's
4) ♦K, ♠AK, ♦A, ♥K, ruff a ♦, ruff a ♥, ♣J

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