[lamford]

---

IMPs

You get the lead of the ten of spades after a normal auction 1NT-2C-2D-3NT, and East plays an encouraging five. How do you play?

[Tramticket]

Standard leads? Or does the 10 promise higher honours?

[lamford]

Standard; the ten could have a higher honour but not the jack

[pescetom]

If I too can stall for time, is it MP or IMPs?

[lamford]

pescetom, on 2019-October-16, 14:45, said:

If I too can stall for time, is it MP or IMPs?

You are right. I should have said. A multiple teams decided by total IMPs.

[pescetom]

lamford, on 2019-October-16, 16:52, said:

You are right. I should have said. A multiple teams decided by total IMPs.

I feared that. So we need to tackle clubs without going down in spades. I'll leave that to more valiant souls

[mikeh]

I've been holding off on this one, but it reminds me of a hand I played in the Vegas Nationals, where I had a diamond suit that was essentially identical to the club suit here.

I think the best line is to win the spade....ducking risks a diamond switch, which would be nasty if the King were offside.

Lead a club from hand.

Assume LHO wins the J or Queen....he will likely continue spades, and now you duck. Win the third spade, overtake a heart honour and lead a club.

On 3-2 club breaks, this line wins when RHO holds the Ace, whether doubleton or tripleton: you can't be stopped from scoring 3 clubs. If spades were 5-3, RHO is out of spades when he wins the club Ace (you are playing the King if he plays low). If spades are 4=4, you lose 4 black tricks.

You can also win on this line if spades are 4=4 and RHO holds QJ tight in clubs. In theory you could win if he has QJx, by ducking the second club to the now-stiff Ace but absent superb table feel one has to decide whether to play the K or duck: one cannot say that one ducks when LHO has the stiff Ace and plays the King when he has the stiff Q/J.

You also win if LHO has the stiff Ace, and wins the first club, unless he can successfully switch to diamonds, and chooses to do so.

Note that I am assuming that spades are either 4=4 or that LHO has the long spades, and that is not necessarily true.

You win, a priori, about 35% of the time, based on 3-2 breaks with the Ace onside, and there are some additional low probability extras for stiff A on your left, or QJ tight on your right (with spades 4=4 or LHO short in spades), but some minuses as well, for LHO winning the first club with the Q or J and being able to successfully play diamonds. There are other issues, but they are modest in terms of probabilities and I;m not going to try to set out everything that I'd be thinking about at the table.

I can't pretend to do the math, and indeed in real life the defenders may not beat us even when they could....LHO might plug away at spades when diamonds work better. After all, if he lacks the diamond King, why can't I have the diamond King instead of the heart King? The fact that I am playing clubs rather than hearts (as I might were I thinking I have at least 3 diamonds) doesn't always point the defence in the right direction, nor will they always go there even when they should.


I think this line is demonstrably superior to hoping that the diamond hook works and that we can play to score just one club trick, say diamond to the Queen and either right away or later club to the King. That seems to me at best about 25%.

[Cyberyeti]

mikeh, on 2019-October-18, 12:21, said:

I've been holding off on this one, but it reminds me of a hand I played in the Vegas Nationals, where I had a diamond suit that was essentially identical to the club suit here.

I think the best line is to win the spade....ducking risks a diamond switch, which would be nasty if the King were offside.

Lead a club from hand.

Assume LHO wins the J or Queen....he will likely continue spades, and now you duck. Win the third spade, overtake a heart honour and lead a club.

On 3-2 club breaks, this line wins when RHO holds the Ace, whether doubleton or tripleton: you can't be stopped from scoring 3 clubs. If spades were 5-3, RHO is out of spades when he wins the club Ace (you are playing the King if he plays low). If spades are 4=4, you lose 4 black tricks.

You can also win on this line if spades are 4=4 and RHO holds QJ tight in clubs. In theory you could win if he has QJx, by ducking the second club to the now-stiff Ace but absent superb table feel one has to decide whether to play the K or duck: one cannot say that one ducks when LHO has the stiff Ace and plays the King when he has the stiff Q/J.

You also win if LHO has the stiff Ace, and wins the first club, unless he can successfully switch to diamonds, and chooses to do so.

Note that I am assuming that spades are either 4=4 or that LHO has the long spades, and that is not necessarily true.

You win, a priori, about 35% of the time, based on 3-2 breaks with the Ace onside, and there are some additional low probability extras for stiff A on your left, or QJ tight on your right (with spades 4=4 or LHO short in spades), but some minuses as well, for LHO winning the first club with the Q or J and being able to successfully play diamonds. There are other issues, but they are modest in terms of probabilities and I;m not going to try to set out everything that I'd be thinking about at the table.

I can't pretend to do the math, and indeed in real life the defenders may not beat us even when they could....LHO might plug away at spades when diamonds work better. After all, if he lacks the diamond King, why can't I have the diamond King instead of the heart King? The fact that I am playing clubs rather than hearts (as I might were I thinking I have at least 3 diamonds) doesn't always point the defence in the right direction, nor will they always go there even when they should.


I think this line is demonstrably superior to hoping that the diamond hook works and that we can play to score just one club trick, say diamond to the Queen and either right away or later club to the King. That seems to me at best about 25%.

You are assuming that if the clubs are QJx, Ax E isn't good enough to overtake the J with the A and play another spade, I suppose you still get home if you take a successful diamond finesse.

[Tramticket]

I also held back on this post. I had drafted a response, but deleted it because it didn't seem to quite hold water.

But I offer the alternate line in any case. A possibility is to win the opening spade and immediately finesse in diamonds. If this wins, we can run the 9 of clubs. Assuming that west wins and continues spades, we win and over-take a heart in order to run the 8 of clubs - this will establish a cub winner if east holds either the queen or jack of clubs.

This line needs the King of diamonds right (50%), East to hold either queen or jack of clubs (75%) and spades to be 4-4. It seems quite likely that spades are 4-4 based on the play at trick one - East chose to encourage rather than discourage or overtake, so a holding of JXXX or QJXX seems quite likely.

Having gone through this logic it still seem to need a bit more than Mike's line.

[Cyberyeti]

Tramticket, on 2019-October-19, 04:15, said:

I also held back on this post. I had drafted a response, but deleted it because it didn't seem to quite hold water.

But I offer the alternate line in any case. A possibility is to win the opening spade and immediately finesse in diamonds. If this wins, we can run the 9 of clubs. Assuming that west wins and continues spades, we win and over-take a heart in order to run the 8 of clubs - this will establish a cub winner if east holds either the queen or jack of clubs.

This line needs the King of diamonds right (50%), East to hold either queen or jack of clubs (75%) and spades to be 4-4. It seems quite likely that spades are 4-4 based on the play at trick one - East chose to encourage rather than discourage or overtake, so a holding of JXXX or QJXX seems quite likely.

Having gone through this logic it still seem to need a bit more than Mike's line.

Jxx in spades is also not impossible. Also if you run the 9♣ and W wins and plays the diamond K, what do you do now ? If you win the ace, east will have had 5 and have 3 to cash, if you don't he'll switch back to (the 4-4) spades and you'll have 5 losers. If you're going with the diamond finesse, just go for a club to the K.

[Tramticket]

Cyberyeti, on 2019-October-19, 04:34, said:

Jxx in spades is also not impossible. Also if you run the 9♣ and W wins and plays the diamond K, what do you do now ? If you win the ace, east will have had 5 and have 3 to cash, if you don't he'll switch back to (the 4-4) spades and you'll have 5 losers. If you're going with the diamond finesse, just go for a club to the K.

Yes, JXX is possible. I guess that JXXXX and QJXXX are also possible, but my guess is that the 4-4 split is most likely. Credit to West if he/she switches to the diamond king.

[lamford]

The winning line is to win the spade and play four rounds of hearts immediately, pitching a club. Both opponents are squeezed in an unusual way. The full layout:

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Say both opponents pitch a diamond. Now you lead the nine of clubs and have to guess that East has QJx if he ducks. Say that he splits. You rise, West winning with the ace and playing another spade which you must duck. Now West switches to a diamond, and you cannot afford the queen, but the ace or low works, followed by another club. East will eventually have to give you two more diamonds or access to the South hand! I must confess to not finding this line, and finessed the diamond when West switched to it.

The initial lead of a small diamond beats the contract by breaking up the endplay, as East was quick to point out at the table. Readers can amuse themselves in working out why the ten of diamonds fails.

[mikeh]

lamford, on 2019-October-21, 13:43, said:

The winning line is to win the spade and play four rounds of hearts immediately, pitching a club. Both opponents are squeezed in an unusual way. The full layout:

---

Say both opponents pitch a diamond. Now you lead the nine of clubs and have to guess that East has QJx if he ducks. Say that he splits. You rise, West winning with the ace and playing another spade which you must duck. Now West switches to a diamond, and you cannot afford the queen, but the ace or low works, followed by another club. East will eventually have to give you two more diamonds or access to the South hand! I must confess to not finding this line, and finessed the diamond when West switched to it.

The initial lead of a small diamond beats the contract by breaking up the endplay, as East was quick to point out at the table. Readers can amuse themselves in working out why the ten of diamonds fails.

That may have been the winning line, but that doesn't make it the right line.

The analysis gets messy, since the best line/defence depends on who has what, especially in clubs, but the main point is that after you run the hearts, and concede a club, you have to duck the next spade, and LHO, if he holds that, can switch to a diamond.

Say you rise with the A, to play another club....say RHO ducks and you win in hand (of course, on a bad day LHO has QJ tight): do you cash your spade now? If you don't, you may never score it. If you do, they may score 2 or 3 spades, a diamond and 2 clubs. Say you hook...if it loses, you are down. If it wins, you play a club, and guess to win....again, do you cash your spade or do you give up in that, and any other club tricks...scoring 1 spade, 4 hearts, 2 diamonds and a club?

While there are a lot of permutations, I think your line needs either great guessing or misdefence...as an example of the latter, you assume that East splits from QJx. I think it unclear, to be charitable, that such is the correct defence for East. Note that if he ducks, you imply that declarer may float the 9 or fly with the King...you can't analyze a hand based on the notion that declarer will make a good guess.

While it is, I think, close, I remain of the view that the percentage play is to place RHO with the club Ace, doubleton or tripleton, since there is very little he can do to beat you with that holding, and there is zero need to 'guess' at any point. I do see that my line fails....that doesn't bother me. I'd rather fail on the better line than win on the inferior...in the long run I will be ahead of the game.

Cyber pointed out that an astute East might win the club Ace from Ax if LHO hopped up with the J from QJx. Yes, that is possible. I've played against some of the best players in the world, and I would be worried about that if I were playing Meckwell, or Rosenberg, or Zia...etc....but I very much doubt that any of the 99% of 'normal' players we encounter would find that play. Plus, it is a very low frequency holding....no other holding works.

[Cyberyeti]

mikeh, on 2019-October-22, 11:03, said:

Cyber pointed out that an astute East might win the club Ace from Ax if LHO hopped up with the J from QJx. Yes, that is possible. I've played against some of the best players in the world, and I would be worried about that if I were playing Meckwell, or Rosenberg, or Zia...etc....but I very much doubt that any of the 99% of 'normal' players we encounter would find that play. Plus, it is a very low frequency holding....no other holding works.

Actually in some ways it's easier to find at a lower level against unimaginative players. If you know S wouldn't open 1N with 6 clubs, what holding do you think partner has ?

[mikeh]

Cyberyeti, on 2019-October-22, 11:23, said:

Actually in some ways it's easier to find at a lower level against unimaginative players. If you know S wouldn't open 1N with 6 clubs, what holding do you think partner has ?

I think, and indeed am sure, that there is a huge difference between seeing a play double-dummy and finding a play at the normal level of play. There is nobody in the background ringing a bell or raising a flag when an important play comes along, and the vast majority of players simply aren't 'at the table' enough to get this sort of thing right.

In any event, even against truly world class players, I am still of the view that low to the 98x in dummy is correct. Assuming that my WC opps, or lesser players who are 'on' at the table can work it out, it still seems to me to be the right line. Firstly, the chances that the cards are such that the opps can even make this play are low. Secondly, even when that is the case, and they find the play, spades may well be 4-4, so who cares?

Bridge is played in the real world, and in the real world, for most of us, the opps not only tend to make mistakes, but in fact not to recognize, even later, that they did so.

[Cyberyeti]

mikeh, on 2019-October-22, 12:56, said:

I think, and indeed am sure, that there is a huge difference between seeing a play double-dummy and finding a play at the normal level of play. There is nobody in the background ringing a bell or raising a flag when an important play comes along, and the vast majority of players simply aren't 'at the table' enough to get this sort of thing right.

In any event, even against truly world class players, I am still of the view that low to the 98x in dummy is correct. Assuming that my WC opps, or lesser players who are 'on' at the table can work it out, it still seems to me to be the right line. Firstly, the chances that the cards are such that the opps can even make this play are low. Secondly, even when that is the case, and they find the play, spades may well be 4-4, so who cares?

Bridge is played in the real world, and in the real world, for most of us, the opps not only tend to make mistakes, but in fact not to recognize, even later, that they did so.

I agree, it's one of those that if you actually think about it isn't that difficult to find, but too often you've already played the card, and it's not that common a layout.

[lamford]

mikeh, on 2019-October-22, 11:03, said:

That may have been the winning line, but that doesn't make it the right line.

No, as I stated, I went off, and didn't particularly think the winning line was the right one, just a pretty stepping stone. East split at the table, but I would have played the king and gone down more quickly if he had not split. And I was basically just playing the simple line of the diamond finesse and a club guess. The actual winning line is, as you say, probably not best.