[lamford]

---

IMPs converted to 20-0 scale. Lead ♦3

You reach a reasonable slam against the Gold Cup winners, so a pretty good standard. West leads a small diamond consistent with Hxx or Hxxx and East plays the queen. You win, ruff a diamond and draw trumps, West starting with three. Nothing interesting happens on the ace of clubs. What now?

[The_Badger]

Personally I would have played the hand a little differently, try to get a partial count. If West had a singleton I am sure he wouldn't have led a ♦, so after ruffing a ♦ at trick 2 I would play ♥Q or even a cheeky ♥2 from dummy towards the closed hand, put East under a bit of pressure. Drawing trumps and how to play the ♣ suit can come later.

[Cyberyeti]

I would have ruffed a diamond, drawn one trump and played a heart to the 9. If it loses to the A or K, yes E can return a small heart away from the other top honour if he reads the position, but he can go wrong, if he wins the top heart and returns a small one without thought (or his partner takes the heart), I'll play him for ♣Q.

[GrahamJson]

You can set up a hear, or get a ruff and discard, but it doesn’t help; you still need to find the club queen.

As east has one spade and probably seven diamonds if he also had a still club that would give him four hearts, probably to AK, certainly one of them. If so he might have bid 2H rather than 3D. I’ll therefore play a club to the king, hoping the queen falls.

[ahydra]

East could stick in 3D on just about any of his possible hands if he felt like it (anything from x Kx KQ10xxxx Qxx to x AKxx KQ10xxx Qx), given the vulnerability. Cashing the CA might have even been a bit premature - what if East is 1363? Agree with those who would lead a heart early - West might give a count signal, and East might win ace rather than king (though that could be an easy falsecard).

Did we learn anything from the second round of diamonds? For example, did West confirm 3 or 4? Assuming not, perhaps 7 diamonds with East is more likely than 6 given that West never supported them, though West could keep quiet even with four given he has a flat(tish) hand with very few HCPs (even on the first round, would he bid 2D on e.g. xxx 10xxxx Jxxx x?). So let's assume East has 1x7x. I don't agree that East would necessarily be bidding 2H rather than 3D with 1471, so East has 1471 or 1372.

If East is 1372 we think he has x AKx KQ10xxxx [Q/x]x. Both are pretty equally likely. So I guess I take the finesse as that caters for half the 1372s and the 1471.

ahydra

[nige1]

lamford, on 2017-October-16, 10:40, said:

IMPs converted to 20-0 scale. Lead ♦3. You reach a reasonable slam against the Gold Cup winners, so a pretty good standard. West leads a small diamond consistent with Hxx or Hxxx and East plays the queen. You win, ruff a diamond and draw trumps, West starting with three. Nothing interesting happens on the ace of clubs. What now?

Agree with GrahamJson that It looks like East has 1♠ and 6+ ♦s.
Over North's 2♦, with 4 ♥s, East might double or bid 2♥.
So declarer should probably try to drop ♣Q.

But the Badger seems right that playing a ♥ at trick 2 gives declarer extra chances.
e.g. If RHO wins and gives you a ruff and a slough, then a squeeze could save you the bother of guessing the ♣s.

---

Edited to show a possible squeeze ending.
After defenders give declarer a ruff and a slough,
here is a possible 4 card ending with South on lead.
South intends to play for the drop in ♣s.
It does no harm, however, first,
to cash the last ♠, discarding a ♣.

---

This post has been edited by nige1: 2017-October-17, 14:51

[Cyberyeti]

GrahamJson, on 2017-October-16, 15:25, said:

You can set up a hear, or get a ruff and discard, but it doesn’t help; you still need to find the club queen.

As east has one spade and probably seven diamonds if he also had a still club that would give him four hearts, probably to AK, certainly one of them. If so he might have bid 2H rather than 3D. I’ll therefore play a club to the king, hoping the queen falls.

You can choose what you do next if 9♥ draws A or K, if he returns anything other than a low heart in tempo (which surely is automatic if he doesn't have both top honours, and if he's missing a heart honour he WILL have Q♣), a ruff and discard allows you to take a ruffing heart finesse to discard the second losing club and trying to cash a second heart is immediately fatal. It basically loses nothing but puts him under pressure.

[PhilG007]

[quote name='lamford' timestamp='1508172006' post='935522']

---

IMPs converted to 20-0 scale. Lead ♦3

You reach a reasonable slam against the Gold Cup winners, so a pretty good standard. West leads a small diamond consistent with Hxx or Hxxx and East plays the queen. You win, ruff a diamond and draw trumps, West starting with three. Nothing interesting happens on the ace of clubs. What now?
[/quote

You have to hope that clubs are 2-2 and play for the drop of the queen as the old adage dictates (8 ever 9 never)

[Cyberyeti]

PhilG007, on 2017-October-17, 08:38, said:

You have to hope that clubs are 2-2 and play for the drop of the queen as the old adage dictates (8 ever 9 never)

Nothing like that simple, what if you discovered before playing the clubs that E only had 2 hearts for example to go with his one spade, still think the clubs are 2-2 ?

[ncohen]

Personally, I believe E must have something for his 3 diamond bid opposite a passing partner. In fact, I'm surprised that W would have DK. A singleton club and an additional red card is a stronger hand than Qx of clubs. So, I'd play E for two singletons. If E is 1-4-7-1, I would expect a 3D rebid rather than 2H.
I agree with playing hearts early. It might help with getting a count.

[Caitlynne]

I don't know. All I know is that I could have collected a lot more information about the distribution - and, hence, how to play clubs intelligently - had I only arranged to play three rounds of hearts first.

Win the opening lead and play a small heart, planning to insert the 9 should LHO play low. Let's assume, that after winning(we hope with the Ace or King), RHO continues with a trump. You now win in hand, ruff a diamond, and play the low heart, ruffing in hand. If the other top heart honor has appeared, you now have two club discards on the remaining top hearts in dummy. If it hasn't, you can now play Ace of trump and another to dummy's Queen, noting how trumps have split. Now a third heart reveals enough to narrow the possibilities in the club suit.

It is clear from the play to trick 1 and the bidding that RHO started with a 6 or, what seems very likely, a 7 card long diamond suit in all cases headed by the KQT. We see that RHO had 1 spade. We get a pretty good though uncertain count on the club suit based on RHO's discovered length and honor structure in the heart suit. If nothing truly good has happened in the heart suit, dummy's 4th heart will always produce an entry back to hand to finish drawing trump before playing the club suit.

Playing in this fashion, I have all this information before touching clubs. Cashing King or Ace first could easily become clearly indicated as the heart story unfolds.

[johnu]

GrahamJson, on 2017-October-16, 15:25, said:

You can set up a hear, or get a ruff and discard, but it doesn’t help; you still need to find the club queen.

As east has one spade and probably seven diamonds if he also had a still club that would give him four hearts, probably to AK, certainly one of them. If so he might have bid 2H rather than 3D. I’ll therefore play a club to the king, hoping the queen falls.

What if East has something like

---

or maybe 8 diamonds and ♣Qx.

If you ruff a heart, maybe you can set up 2 heart winners to pitch 2 clubs and avoid a club finesse. It doesn't cost much to ruff a heart before making a club guess. If you ruff 2 hearts (AK don't drop) and East shows out, you may decide East is more likely to have ♣Q.

[PhilG007]

Cyberyeti, on 2017-October-17, 09:19, said:

Nothing like that simple, what if you discovered before playing the clubs that E only had 2 hearts for example to go with his one spade, still think the clubs are 2-2 ?

You are facing a certain heart loser. The only chance is to lead a low club at trick 6 from the closed hand. If West plays low you must rise with the K♣
and hope the Q falls. How would you feel if you finessed J♣ and it lost to a bare queen(?)

[Cyberyeti]

PhilG007, on 2017-October-17, 15:38, said:

You are facing a certain heart loser. The only chance now is to lead a low club at trick 6 from the closed hand. If West plays low you must rise with the K♣
and hope the Q falls. How would you feel if you finessed J♣ and it lost to a bare queen(?)

You don't get it at all, look at the hand johnu posted as an example of why you're wrong

[PhilG007]

johnu, on 2017-October-17, 12:23, said:

What if East has something like

---

or maybe 8 diamonds and ♣Qx.

If you ruff a heart, maybe you can set up 2 heart winners to pitch 2 clubs and avoid a club finesse. It doesn't cost much to ruff a heart before making a club guess. If you ruff 2 hearts (AK don't drop) and East shows out, you may decide East is more likely to have ♣Q.

If East holds this hand then its wrong to lay down the A♣ at trick 4. as you will now have an unavoidable trump loser as well as
a heart loser.

[PhilG007]

Cyberyeti, on 2017-October-17, 15:46, said:

You don't get it at all, look at the hand johnu posted as an example of why you're wrong

I saw the post and replied to it.
With 9 cards missing the queen the finesse is only 42.62% whereas playing for the drop
is 58.48% So the odds favor cashing the AK♣and hoping the queen drops.

[PhilG007]

Incidentally,was this deal from actual play? If so,how did it turn out?

[JonnyQuest]

PhilG007, on 2017-October-17, 15:51, said:

I saw the post and replied to it.
With 9 cards missing the queen the finesse is only 42.62% whereas playing for the drop
is 58.48% So the odds favor cashing the AK♣and hoping the queen drops.

Please explain the source of your numbers.
I always thought that, lacking additional information, a finesse was roughly 50% . . . or thereabouts.

[masse24]

PhilG007, on 2017-October-17, 15:38, said:

How would you feel if you finessed J♣ and it lost to a bare queen(?)

How would you feel if you played for the drop and the Queen did not appear?

[ahydra]

JonnyQuest, on 2017-October-17, 17:04, said:

Please explain the source of your numbers.
I always thought that, lacking additional information, a finesse was roughly 50% . . . or thereabouts.

I believe for 9 cards missing the Q it's something like 52-48 in favour of the drop, everything else being equal. Of course, the key point on this hand is that all is NOT equal. East has longer diamonds, so West has likely longer clubs - but at the same time West has longer spades and East has the points, so take your pick.

ahydra