[mikl_plkcc]

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There were 2 certain ♥ loser, a small ♣ loser, a small ♦ lower and a possible ♠ loser after the opening lead. I planned to get rid of one of the small losers by ruffing in the third round. I didn't draw trump right at the beginning as in case the ♠Q finesse failed I would need 2 ruffs in the dummy.

So I played the ♣ from the top, planning to discard a ♦ on the ♣q, then ♦AK to ruff the 3rd round of ♦, and finesse against the trump Q from there (as 8 ever, 9 never).

but West showed out at the 3rd round of ♣, indicating a 5-2 break. My contract was doomed at that point.

There were 3 other tables who made 4♠ with the same bidding sequence:
2 table drew trumps immediately by dropping the Q. It dropped at the second round, so the contract was safe by ruffing a small and discarding another small.
1 table switched to ♥ first, then after regaining the lead, drew trumps by dropping the Q again, with the same outcome as the above.
Ironically, no one attempted for a trump finesse despite the saying 8 ever 9 never, when there is no hint from the bidding suggesting otherwise.

What's wrong with my reasoning?

[DavidKok]

You can't pitch a diamond on the clubs. Your third round isn't high no matter how the clubs break if you play them from hand.
There is no spade finesse. There are more interesting options in the spade suit, but not a simple finesse. Presumably that's why nobody tried for it.
To make 4♠ I would draw some trumps and aim to establish hearts to pitch the diamond loser and possibly also a club loser.

P.S. I understand this is a robot game. In bridge I think it is a bad habit to open 2NT here, but in this game I am not sure. Bid high, play well.
P.P.S. This might be more suitable for the N/B forum.

[mikl_plkcc]

DavidKok, on 2025-June-13, 06:20, said:

You can't pitch a diamond on the clubs. Your third round isn't high no matter how the clubs break if you play them from hand.
There is no spade finesse. There are more interesting options in the spade suit, but not a simple finesse. Presumably that's why nobody tried for it.
To make 4♠ I would draw some trumps and aim to establish hearts to pitch the diamond loser and possibly also a club loser.

P.S. I understand this is a robot game. In bridge I think it is a bad habit to open 2NT here, but in this game I am not sure. Bid high, play well.
P.P.S. This might be more suitable for the N/B forum.

Isn't this hand worth an upgrade into a 20-21 NT due to the two aces and the lack of quacks?

Trick 1 was won by the ♣A so the ♣Q was high in the 3rd round.

[DavidKok]

Sorry, I missed the tricks in the diagram completely. This covers your diamond loser, as long as you draw trumps first.
How are you proposing getting rid of your spade loser, and how does this depend on your clubs? To me there is still no spade finesse, so failing to draw trumps only increases your risk.
This is not remotely close to being worth an upgrade to me.

[mikeh]

David has it right.

Technically there is a spade finesse here but it’s not one that you’d try nor is it one that can help. The usual finesse is something like xx opposite AQJx where one leads towards the AQJx hoping the K is n front, so that the Q and Jack win tricks. But leading towards the Jack when holding, say, AKxx opposite Jxx is also a finesse…hoping the player in front of the Jack has something like Qxxx.

Also, technically, you have what is known as a double finesse position in spades.

Jxxx opposite AK9x….you can pick up the suit by leading the Jack if RHO holds the Queen and the 10….he’ll cover the Jack but you go back to dummy and lead low to the 9, finessing against the 10.

Or you could hope the suit splits 10x-Qxx….lead tge Jack, winning the king when it’s covered and then dropping the 10.

However, as with all bridge technique, your play should be guided by mathematics, specifically percentages relating to distribution, influenced by the bidding and any clues from earlier plays.

The percentage play to avoid a spade loser with this combination is to hope for one of two situations, neither of which is likely.

The most probable is to hope either opponent has Qx or Q10….the AK will drop the Queen and the Jack will pull the last trump.

3-2 break is 68.5%. Any bridge player needs to memorize the most common percentages. When a suit breaks 3-2, the odds of any particular card being in the doubleton hand is 2/5 or 40%.

The other, much less common, good holding is the stiff Queen sitting behind the AK. When the Queen drops at trick one, lead to the Jack and finesse RHO’s 10…from an original 10xxx.

The odds of this are miniscule, but since you should cash a top spade anyway, it’s sort of a bonus for the best play….playing to drop Qx.

Note that the double finesse against the Q10 is only 25% likely to succeed….the odds of either the Queen or the 10 being onside are 50% and the odds that both are onside is thus 25%.

Since playing for the Queen to drop doubleton, even without the bonus of stiff Queen offside, yields a 40% chance, that’s clearly the right play. So the players who dropped the Queen played the suit correctly.

The fact that you don’t understand these concepts suggests that you very much need to get your hands on a basic book on card play. This is not an intermediate level failing…your card play is very much at the beginner level.

Also, while it’s correct to hope to pitch a diamond on a high club, yiu must surely see that this can’t happen if either top club is taken by the Ace. You need to play for the ace to be in front of the KQxx….and you can score both the K and the Q only by leading towards them twice (once is enough if RHO plays the Ace the first time. Btw, leading towards KQxx here, in the hope of scoring both top cards, is also taking a finesse.

Finally, the reason experienced players upgrade is because they know enough about how to play the cards that on appropriate hands, they can get as many tricks from their hand than they’d expect from a less attractive but slightly stronger (in terms of hcp) hand.

You may want to emulate good players by upgrading but you shouldn’t. You don’t seem to have much clue about proper card play. This means that you simply won’t play your hands well enough that you can bid to contracts with fewer than the ‘normal’ combined values that such a contract requires. Sure, you’ll score the occasional good result due to a very lucky lie of the cards or due to errors by the defence but, in the long run, you’ll be consistently in the bottom half of any matchpoint or Swiss team field.

Nobody was born knowing card play technique. Everyone has had to learn it. Some find it easy, others have to work very hard at it. I’m pretty good…I’ve had some hands written up….but I’m not a natural card player…any edge I have in card play technique is the result of many, many hours of reading, many hours of playing badly, and many hours of watching better players play….and for quite a few years now being lucky enough to play with and against extremely good players.

Until you put in that kind of effort, don’t upgrade many hands.

Of course, on this hand, you had zero business upgrading. Put it this way….i doubt there’s a top player in the world who would upgrade unless, maybe, they were hoping to create a swing….maybe they were behind in a match or needed a top board. Make it AK10x 10x AKx KQ10x and I’d expect the majority of good players to upgrade. Notice how having the black 10s dramatically improves your odds in both black suits. You’ll pick up the spades more than 50% of the time rather than the 40% chance with AK9x as just one factor.

[mw64ahw]

Congratulations - you've abandoned your stoppers in all suits rule.
The hand's K&R is 20.2, but one of those points comes from a weak doubleton
Tricky to play, if it is indeed makeable, but I don't think Id find the line at the table and may be in 3N or Pass 2N

[hrothgar]

mikl_plkcc, on 2025-June-13, 06:10, said:

Ironically, no one attempted for a trump finesse despite the saying 8 ever 9 never, when there is no hint from the bidding suggesting otherwise.

What's wrong with my reasoning?

Well, to start with, your understanding of the word "finesse"

If you had better transportation to dummy, it might be reasonable to run the Jack of Spades.
If this gets covered, you could cross to dummy once again and then finesse against the 10.

However, I wouldn't describe the initial lead of the Jack as a finesse

[Cyberyeti]

mw64ahw, on 2025-June-13, 08:08, said:

Congratulations - you've abandoned your stoppers in all suits rule.
The hand's K&R is 20.2, but one of those points comes from a weak doubleton
Tricky to play, if it is indeed makeable, but I don't think Id find the line at the table and may be in 3N or Pass 2N

Is it makable ? what is the lie of the opposing cards ? they seem to have a club, 2 hearts and a trump on this defence.

I would upgrade, AK, AK, KQ is worth more than 19, but I would only be upgrading to "good 19-21"

[mikl_plkcc]

Cyberyeti, on 2025-June-13, 08:17, said:

Is it makable ? what is the lie of the opposing cards ? they seem to have a club, 2 hearts and a trump on this defence.

I would upgrade, AK, AK, KQ is worth more than 19, but I would only be upgrading to "good 19-21"

DD would not make before the 3rd hand won the 1st trick with the ♣A.

[smerriman]

Let's pretend there was a 50% spade finesse available, even though there wasn't (no idea why you thought there was). Your plan would still have been doomed; you already know West has at most two clubs from the lead.

Edit - thought this sounded familiar. In this thread you thought you had a two way finesse with AQx vs x in a trump contract needing to find a discard and tried leading the A then Q. Leading an unsupported honor doesn't gain a trick even when the card is onside.

[johnu]

mikeh, on 2025-June-13, 08:06, said:

Also, while it’s correct to hope to pitch a diamond on a high club, yiu must surely see that this can’t happen if either top club is taken by the Ace. You need to play for the ace to be in front of the KQxx….

The ♣A was played at trick 1.

[johnu]

A fair amount of talk about a double finesse in spades if split 3-2. That's basically an impossibility since you need 2 entries to dummy to lead spades. First you would need to ruff 2 clubs or club and diamond to get to dummy, but you usually need to pitch a diamond on a club winner to avoid a diamond loser. And then there's the problem of trying to ruff the 4th club in dummy with no usable spot cards. West can uppercut by ruffing the 4th club and forcing you to overruff with the jack if short in clubs (or just ruff with the queen), or East can overruff if short in clubs.