[Cyberyeti]

Played a gold cup match at the weekend, and having dialled 3N-7 for -350 when an overweight weak 2 had an unexpected extra entry, we struck back with 3N-6 for 600 on this board. Declarer is on a horrible guess. The rest of the hand is irrlevant but suffice it to say if you get this right in practice you have 9 top tricks, if you get it wrong, opps have 9 or 10.

The auction is the slightly odd 1N(15-17)-(P)-2N(♦)-(3♥)-3N and LHO leads the ♥6 (third from Hxx, second from xxx(x), 4th from Hxxx). Dummy is void, you as declarer have Q105, RHO wins the A and returns the 7.

Do you play RHO for AJ or AK ?

[manudude03]

I suspect the rest of the hand does have some relevance (how likely is it that RHO has a 2-suiter). How good are the opps? Against weak opps, I'm playing the T all day long. Against strong opps, I think AKxxxx is closer to an overcall than AJxxxx is so I'll go for the former and play the queen.

[Cyberyeti]

manudude03, on 2015-February-05, 08:52, said:

I suspect the rest of the hand does have some relevance (how likely is it that RHO has a 2-suiter). How good are the opps? Against weak opps, I'm playing the T all day long. Against strong opps, I think AKxxxx is closer to an overcall than AJxxxx is so I'll go for the former and play the queen.

I was the overcaller, I suspect declarer didn't know much about me but from experience in the 48 board match we seemed to be decent.

I would have thought that a 7th one was extremely likely for the overcall.

The hands were something like:

---

, if you play the 10 and it loses to the K they can possibly theoretically beat you with a diamond switch if HJx opposite Hx but it's not very likely.

[ArtK78]

Against a poor player the 10 is clear, and I expect it to force the K.

Against a good player it is a guess. On the bidding RHO should have at least the AK for his bid, but AJ98xxx with a card or two on the outside could be enough. There is some restricted choice to this situation. Without the AK, RHO has no choice as to what to return. So, unless you know that this particular RHO would not bid 3♥ without the AK, the 10 is probably the best play.

[manudude03]

Cyberyeti, on 2015-February-05, 09:16, said:

I would have thought that a 7th one was extremely likely for the overcall.

That may be true, but I suspect the hands that overcall on AKxxxxx and not on AJxxxxx are far fewer than the 6 card equivalents.

[Cyberyeti]

manudude03, on 2015-February-05, 09:26, said:

That may be true, but I suspect the hands that overcall on AKxxxxx and not on AJxxxxx are far fewer than the 6 card equivalents.

I should have said, was red/red, I don't think too many people overcall on 6 although if they do it will be AK.

My point in asking the question was that I felt that if I was dealt AKxxxx(x) I would win the A 100% of the time and this was not a restricted choice situation in that I'm much more likely to overcall on AKxxxx(x) than KJxxxx(x) but if I leave the possibility of AJxxxx(x) there is less of a gap between that and the AK holding.

[gszes]

Vulnerability plays a huge part in these kinds of decisions. We know from -600 that NS were vulnerable
but what about EW?? There are quite a few hand types where W might be more than willing to bid 4h as a
sacrifice and it would probably help eliminate many holdings if we know their vulnerability.. but I digress

I think there is a more than slight advantage to playing the Q vs the T and it revolves around two totally
different concepts.

Someone is looking at the diamond ace. If it is lho then rho has no obvious quick reentry and they may be
severly tempted to insert the J in order to maintain communications (especially true if they upgraded the dia
king and saw dummy and went ooooops). Looking at the AK and the lead is would be totally obvious that winning
the ace (card they are virtually certain to hold) and leading small is safe and quite possibly very gratifying.

The other is if we are assuming lho has Jxxx there are many hands they might well have chosen to sac over
3n (having no reason to assume we do not double stop the suit. This further cuts down on the total number of
hand types responder might have held and the number is much greater when they are not vulnerable.

[Fluffy]

I posted a similar problem not that long ago and Justin said that average players always win the Ace from AK.

In theory it is a restricted choice situation, in practice it might not.

[Zelandakh]

Cyberyeti, on 2015-February-05, 10:22, said:

My point in asking the question was that I felt that if I was dealt AKxxxx(x) I would win the A 100% of the time and this was not a restricted choice situation

Fluffy, on 2015-February-06, 00:25, said:

I posted a similar problem not that long ago and Justin said that average players always win the Ace from AK.

Ouch.

[gszes]

The situation is maybe similar but not specific--It is very unlikely that rho
hazarded a vul heart call with KJxxxx IMHO playing the K from AK as a random event
is doing nothing more than giving away the ballgame in this situation. There are
a huge number of cases where randomizing is correct.