[pclayton]

This is from yesterday's STAC (Sectional Tournament at Clubs):

Scoring: MP

---

Pard makes an aggressive mild slam try in hearts over your 15-17 NT and with your primos you decide to take a shot in 6♥.

You escape a club lead and get a trump out. So many options. Where do you win T1? What do you do at T2?

[SlickRicky]

Hi,

Two possible lines come to mind immediately.

1) Run off all the trumps and lead a diamond to the jack. Assuming 3-2 trumps (very likely from lead) this will make when the DQ is on or when diamonds are 3-3. It will also make if LHO pitches a diamond from Qxxx, or if RHO pitches a diamond from 4 small which seems very possible given that they know nothing about my hand. If trumps are 4-1 fall back on 3-3 diamonds with Q on.

2) Win the heart ace, heart to king. Assuming 3-2 trumps run spade ten. Assuming it loses and a club comes back we have to win, pull trumps, diamond to hand, and spade to the jack. This line loses with both spade honors off or with LHO having Hxxx(x) of spades AND the DQ. This line is worse than line 1, especially given the opening lead decreasing the chances of the KQ of spades being onside.

Line 1 looks to be the best both technically and in giving the opponents a chance to err. Please note I ignored undertricks/overtricks as I expect to be the only one in this slam.

Ricky

[pclayton]

Ricky:

I appreciate the comments. You seem like a pretty competent player based on what I've seen from you, and I think you'll contribute a lot here.

I also appreciate not being afraid to jump into a hand like this. What you will frequently see is on BBF is that many have no qualms about rambling on and on about bidding problems, because its so hard to prove whats 'right' and 'wrong'. Difficult defense and play problems usually get the short shrift, and thats unfortunate.

I won't post my ideas yet, but I think there's a better way than the #2 you suggest, which is a sensible option I think. I honestly don't know how to compare any line to your #1, because its very difficult to assess the relative occurrence of a defender pitching a meaningful diamond or spade, especially when you have to find four pitches out of your own hand (presumably 3 spades and a club). It should be evident that the hand with diamonds needs to keep them, especially when they will have the opportunity early and often to tell the other they have club cards. Your #1 also has problems with 5-1 diamonds onside, but that seems impossible in a blind auction since LHO would have led a stiff.

[ArcLight]

Why did RHO lead a trump? Probably the Spades and Clubs are split.
And he may have the Dime Q.


The problem with playing on spades is if they are split, you will have 1 loser and still need a discard for your club.
You win if LHO has KQ, lose if RHO as KQ, unless tight. In the split case, you need the off side honor dropping in 3 rounds. OR the dime finesse.


I think its best to pull trumps, and take the dime finesse. if it loses, you still get 3 discards if the dimes split 3-2.



I dont see a way to combine the chances, such as cashing 2 dimes to see if the Q falls. Because you are then exposed to a trump promotion. Also, if the Dime Q is coming down in 3 rounds, you might as well finesse in dimes and later get the 3 discards.

[pclayton]

ArcLight, on Sep 26 2008, 10:02 AM, said:

Why did RHO lead a trump? Probably the Spades and Clubs are split.
And he may have the Dime Q.


The problem with playing on spades is if they are split, you will have 1 loser and still need a discard for your club.
You win if LHO has KQ, lose if RHO as KQ, unless tight. In the split case, you need the off side honor dropping in 3 rounds. OR the dime finesse.


I think its best to pull trumps, and take the dime finesse. if it loses, you still get 3 discards if the dimes split 3-2.



I dont see a way to combine the chances, such as cashing 2 dimes to see if the Q falls. Because you are then exposed to a trump promotion. Also, if the Dime Q is coming down in 3 rounds, you might as well finesse in dimes and later get the 3 discards.

Arc, I think you mean the spade honor needs to fall from the onside hand (LHO), not the offside hand.

[Mosene]

My thoughts were line 2. That works if spade honors split and

1. Spades are 3-3 or West (opening leader) has Qx or Kx in spades or
2. You can pick up or guess the diamond Q.

If west has 4 spades to an honor, you finesse the J of diamonds. It might be best to cash the diamond ace after cashing the A and K of hearts.

the point about East having a slightly higher chance of having KQ of spades is a good one.

[mikeh]

SlickRicky, on Sep 26 2008, 10:57 AM, said:

Hi,

Two possible lines come to mind immediately.

1) Run off all the trumps and lead a diamond to the jack. Assuming 3-2 trumps (very likely from lead) this will make when the DQ is on or when diamonds are 3-3. It will also make if LHO pitches a diamond from Qxxx, or if RHO pitches a diamond from 4 small which seems very possible given that they know nothing about my hand. If trumps are 4-1 fall back on 3-3 diamonds with Q on.

2) Win the heart ace, heart to king. Assuming 3-2 trumps run spade ten. Assuming it loses and a club comes back we have to win, pull trumps, diamond to hand, and spade to the jack. This line loses with both spade honors off or with LHO having Hxxx(x) of spades AND the DQ. This line is worse than line 1, especially given the opening lead decreasing the chances of the KQ of spades being onside.

Line 1 looks to be the best both technically and in giving the opponents a chance to err. Please note I ignored undertricks/overtricks as I expect to be the only one in this slam.

Ricky

Apart from Phil's comments, line 2 has a slight problem in that you state, that after the club switch, you win and pull trump and then a spade to the J. Precisely how did you get to dummy to pull the trump?

I assume you win the club A and then play a spade to the J, playing for LHO to hold (at least) one spade honour.. you then pull trump... however, when you do, just take out the last trump then cash the spade A so that you know whether your 4th spade is good.

Note: I am not suggesting that I like this line... I haven't yet thought the hand through, but I did notice that your stated line 2 didn't make sense

[mikeh]

Ok, I have given the hand about the amount of thought that I would take in a long match.

I win the heart on the board and cross to my hand with the King... I need to know if I have a trump loser... if I do, then I have to play for a miracle in diamonds...

At the same time, if trump are 3-2, as they probably are based on the lead (who leads a stiff trump, and no-one leads from a trump trick), I need to be in hand to lead spades early. So I play to leave a trump outstanding.. no-one is getting an early ruff as far as I can see.

spade to the J. Win the club return (as good as any for the opps), cash a top diamond (to tighten the end position and to cater to the remote stiff Q) and lead a spade up towards the A8, planning to insert the 8 if lho plays low.

I am down immediately if rho has KQ of spades, any length, or a stiff spade Honour and the 3rd trump... but roughly 75% of the time, he won't have those holdings.

If LHO held Hx or Hxx in spades, I am now cold. I draw the last trump, throwing a club, and cash the spade A.

If this fails to establish my last spade, I run the trumps, reducing to void x x 10 opposite 10 void KJ void in the 3 card ending, with 9 winners in, needing the rest of the tricks.

RHO may have been dealt KQJ of clubs along with the diamond queen and the last trump will force him to shorten the diamonds.. I will throw my spade.

I will then have to guess diamonds, altho I may have some inferences about the count... say east has switched, after winning the spade, to the club K or the club Q.. if he switched to the Q, I can tentatively place west with the K, and if he swtiched to the K, there is some reason to hope he had KQJ... yes, he could try to cross me up by switching to the Q, but my opps never seem to do that... and I seriously doubt that any STAC opp would be capable of this.

So I might be able to take the view, in the endgame, that LHO began with Qx of diamonds...maybe east had to pitch the club Jack and then had to pitch a couple of diamonds to reduce to x Q in the minors from an original xxxx KQJ(x)(x) in the minors.

I think this line wins outright whenever LHO has KQ of spades. This is not impossible, since the lead of the K could and would on this hand have been fatal. I would estimate this at maybe 5-10%, rather than the a priori 25%.

I'm not very good at remembering the percentages of various layouts of a suit, but I would guessestimate that my chances in the spade suit alone are slightly over 50%.

As for the odds of the KQ being offside, I would estimate those at slightly less than 25%, because xxx or xx may be slightly more attractive than a trump, whereas Hx(x)(x) might well be regarded as too dangerous on the auction, especially if LHO owns pieces in both minors as well.

If we survive the spade suit, but can't claim, we can always fall back on the diamond hook, which a priori is 50%, altho that figure may change by the time we get to tackling the suit, and, as I pointed out above, there may in fact be small-percentage situations in which we can drop the Qx offside.

[dburn]

Not quite sure why I should block the trumps, as seems to have been suggested above.* Obviously it would be convenient to discover whether hearts are 4-1 before following some committal line, but the original post says merely that the opening lead was a trump. If I have the impression from the trumps played to my left and right that the hearts are 3-2, I will win the first trick with ♥K and lead a spade to the jack.

*Edit: by "above" I did not mean mikeh's post, which I did not see while I was writing mine, but an earlier post that I had skimmed. No doubt it is technically correct to play as mikeh suggests, just in case hearts really are 4-1. But [a] if they are, you will need to cross to the ace of spades to play for the diamond miracle, and that could result in a lot of extra undertricks; [b] I hate telling the opponents anything early in the play, such as by giving away the trump distribution at trick two.

I plan to win a minor-suit shift, play a spade to the eight and draw trumps. Unless by now I have lost two spade tricks, I should have plenty of chances for the contract.

Edit: of course, another advantage of playing two trumps ending in hand before the first spade finesse is that East might have two hearts and a singleton spade honour. And pigs might fly, and banks might be a good place to keep your money.

It should be noted that since West did not lead a high spade, the chance that East in fact has both spade honours has increased from an original 25% to... well, to what?

If you believe that West would always lead a high spade from KQ, then the chance that East has both spade honours goes up to 33%, and the odds probably then favour the simple line of drawing trumps and playing a diamond to the jack (making with 3-3 diamonds or 4-2 diamonds with the queen onside, around a 64% chance). But if you believe that West would sometimes lead a passive spade without an honour than a passive heart, the chances that he has an honour increase again by a factor that is difficult to calculate.

At the table, of course, I would have seen the trump spots (or honours) played by the opponents to trick one. Such information is often helpful when presenting play problems; perhaps one of the reasons that people are more willing to tackle bidding problems than play problems is that at least in the former, one has all the information one needs before one starts.

[Mosene]

The odds are very close between the 2 stated lines so far. By my rough calculations, line 2 is about a 65% chance and line 1 is about a 60% chance. I would think the chance for discard error is at least 5% so line 1 wins (along with the non spade honor lead)??

For line 1, you cannot revert to line 2 because the run of the hearts forced spade discards from declarers hand. So, essentially, the calculation is: Half of 84% for all 4-2 and 3-3 distributions where RHO has the queen = 42%. Then when diamonds are 3-3 and LHO has the queen you also win (36%*50% = 18%). 42% + 18% = 60%.

For line 2. More complicated, so I went to a hand distribution/probability calculator. Essentially, you have a 60% chance of winning on spades alone (75% of splitting minus 15% chance of RHO having honor fourth or worse) - and when that does not work - that 15% of the time you can fall back on the finesse of diamonds - or about 7%. I reduced it by a point or 2 due to the threat of a ruff of spades when you need to get back to your hand after taking the first spade finesse. (Yes, knowing RHO has honor fourth in spades may make it slightly more likely for the diamond finesse to work).

[pclayton]

At the table, I confess I clawed this.

I won the heart on the board, played a diamond to hand. My reasoning at the time was that I wanted to retain a heart entry to my hand to cater to 4-2 diamonds, but that is very fuzzy thinking. Once in hand, I led a spade up. LHO played a fast Queen!

Now I was in trouble. I unblocked the hearts and found myself handlocked. I tried a 2nd high diamond, ruffed by RHO, locking me back in my hand with a club. Oh the horror! Down 2.

I like an early spade (drawing two round of trump could stop an extra under if one hand 1-2 in the majors), finessing the spade to get to dummy, drawing trump, checking the ♠A for the suit. Mike's squeeze is possible, but that risks extra unders if the diamond finesse loses and LHO cashes the spade.

Not withstanding any lead inferences, I think the overall success of this plan is about 74%-ish

(I get this from 25% (both spade honors on) + 1/2 the time spades are split (when LHO has 1, 2 or 3 spades); I'm estimating at 23%. You also get the diamond finesse for another 1/2 x 52%. Check my math if you like, I suck at these things.

What may be interesting is that RHO may play a diamond instead of a club, which may deflect you from the winning line if the diamond Queen is onside four or five times. Might you then play for the diamond drop?

[SlickRicky]

mikeh, on Sep 26 2008, 01:14 PM, said:

Note: I am not suggesting that I like this line... I haven't yet thought the hand through, but I did notice that your stated line 2 didn't make sense

Hi Mike,

Obviously I just mistyped, and meant play a spade to the jack then pull the last trump rather than pull trump and lead a spade to the jack. I would hope a player of your caliber could see that I just reversed a trick, and would not disregard the whole line of play because of it!

Ricky

[SlickRicky]

pclayton, on Sep 26 2008, 02:41 PM, said:

Not withstanding any lead inferences, I think the overall success of this plan is about 74%-ish

(I get this from 25% (both spade honors on) + 1/2 the time spades are split (when LHO has 1, 2 or 3 spades); I'm estimating at 23%. You also get the diamond finesse for another 1/2 x 52%. Check my math if you like, I suck at these things.

Hi Phil,

Your math is off by quite a bit. I think you can see this if you think of it like this:

You go down with both spade honors offside which is 25 %. So if your line is 74 %, you are making almost every single time that both spade honors are offside. Obviously this is not the case as you also are losing to Hx or stiff H on right and DQ on left. That is about an additional 7.5 % of the time, which makes your line 66.5 %

However, if you agree with me that LHO is likely to lead from KQ of spades at least some of the time, then the percentage of success for that line becomes even lower.

That being said, my suggested line 1 has at least that good of a chance even if they pitch perfectly (more than the 64 % that dburn stated because you can pick up 5-1 or 6-0 diamonds onside so long as LHO has 1 spade honor also, making it about 69 %). If you add in the significant chance of a mispitch, I think that it is clearly the right line

Ricky

[mikeh]

SlickRicky, on Sep 26 2008, 03:14 PM, said:

mikeh, on Sep 26 2008, 01:14 PM, said:

Note: I am not suggesting that I like this line... I haven't yet thought the hand through, but I did notice that your stated line 2 didn't make sense

Hi Mike,

Obviously I just mistyped, and meant play a spade to the jack then pull the last trump rather than pull trump and lead a spade to the jack. I would hope a player of your caliber could see that I just reversed a trick, and would not disregard the whole line of play because of it!

Ricky

Well, given that in my post I made precisely the type of error that I accused you of, it seems to me that you are mistaken in your reference to 'a player of your calibre'

I suggested winning the trump in dummy and crossing to my K in case I found trump to be 4-1. I then pressed enter and went to lunch.. as I was hitting the elevator button, I realized that if trump were 4-1, my line was hopeless: no diamond miracle is enough.

And in fact the error that you made in your post and that I made in mine is precisely the type of error that can be made by a wide range of players, even experts such as I like to think I am, if not focussed... failing to project far enough ahead... in my defence, my error was dealing with a side issue, since I was pretty certain that trump were not 4-1. I could have drawn trump, crossed in diamonds to play spades, but that risks a diamond back, which might complicate matters prematurely, so I stay with my plan.

[SlickRicky]

mikeh, on Sep 26 2008, 03:21 PM, said:

SlickRicky, on Sep 26 2008, 03:14 PM, said:

mikeh, on Sep 26 2008, 01:14 PM, said:

Note: I am not suggesting that I like this line... I haven't yet thought the hand through, but I did notice that your stated line 2 didn't make sense

Hi Mike,

Obviously I just mistyped, and meant play a spade to the jack then pull the last trump rather than pull trump and lead a spade to the jack. I would hope a player of your caliber could see that I just reversed a trick, and would not disregard the whole line of play because of it!

Ricky

Well, given that in my post I made precisely the type of error that I accused you of, it seems to me that you are mistaken in your reference to 'a player of your calibre'

I suggested winning the trump in dummy and crossing to my K in case I found trump to be 4-1. I then pressed enter and went to lunch.. as I was hitting the elevator button, I realized that if trump were 4-1, my line was hopeless: no diamond miracle is enough.

And in fact the error that you made in your post and that I made in mine is precisely the type of error that can be made by a wide range of players, even experts such as I like to think I am, if not focussed... failing to project far enough ahead... in my defence, my error was dealing with a side issue, since I was pretty certain that trump were not 4-1. I could have drawn trump, crossed in diamonds to play spades, but that risks a diamond back, which might complicate matters prematurely, so I stay with my plan.

Hi Mike,

Indeed your line and my line 2 were the exact same in spirit (except that we both mistyped, but no doubt had the same [good] line in mind), except that you remembered to cash a top diamond first which is a stronger play!

Ricky

[dburn]

I am not generally given to metaphysical speculation, but I confess that if this hand had come up at my table I would be wondering vaguely if God had dealt me those spade intermediates so that I would make the slam, or so that I would go down in it.

Minor points:

If you are going to follow the "spades early unless hearts 4-1" line, the first spade you play from your hand should be the ten. West cannot know that he ought not to cover this; for aught he can tell, your only chance may be to bring in ♠10xx facing ♠AJ8 for one loser. If he does not cover, he might have found the only defence to let through a hopeless contract. When he does not cover, then, you may perhaps revise your estimate of the chance that he has a spade honour.

Someone on another thread was asking how to win matches: if there are swings to be generated in the play at all, they are often generated by playing the card that will put your opponent under maximum pressure, even though it makes no difference in percentage terms which card you play.

Suppose that the hearts were solid but that you had no spade intermediates whatever. Having escaped a club lead, so that you have a re-entry to your hand, should you play for the necessary four diamond tricks by trying to ruff down the queen, or by finessing the jack? Would your answer vary if West showed up with: three trumps? four trumps? five trumps? People who suck at math need not attempt this question, although it would perhaps be better for them if they did.

[dburn]

mikeh, on Sep 26 2008, 03:21 PM, said:

I suggested winning the trump in dummy and crossing to my K in case I found trump to be 4-1. I then pressed enter and went to lunch.. as I was hitting the elevator button, I realized that if trump were 4-1, my line was hopeless: no diamond miracle is enough.

Why not? Heart to the ace, heart to the king, spade to the ace, heart queen, diamond to the jack. Ace of diamonds, king of diamonds pitching a spade, diamond pitching another spade while a defender ruffs. You still have the ace of clubs as an entry to the last diamond, on which dummy's last club is discarded.