[ArtK78]

Matchpoints.

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The opening lead is the ♣2 to the 7, Q and your Ace.

You cleverly inhibited the fatal diamond lead. Now can you bring in the contract?

[billw55]

I can if spades are 4-2 and trumps 2-2, or if spades are 3-3 and any trump break. Can I combine these chances? Sort of .. cash the ♥A first. If trumps 4-0, draw them and rely on 3-3 spades. If both follow, then ♠K, ♠A, ♠ruff high and return to ♥K, hopefully pulling trump. If trumps are 3-1 and spades 3-3, I go down when it is makeable, but with few entries to dummy I don't see how to try everything.

[gnasher]

After all follow to the first round of trumps:
- Spades 3-3 is still about 36%
- Spades 3-3/4-2 and trumps 2-2 is 84% * 40/90 ~= 37%

Drawing trumps has one extra chance: RHO might have ♣K, ♦AK10, and four spades. If he has, he won't be able to survive the run of the trumps. That's worth a few percent, so I'd probably draw trumps.

[mikeh]

If LHO has 4 spades and the club K (the latter seems probable), then running all of the hearts causes him serious pain....after the 8th trick, he has to hold all 4 spades and the club K, so has no more diamonds....we, pitching after him, reduce dummy to AQx J10 in the blacks.....cash spade K and A and exit a club.

So is this better than Bill's line?

We make anytime spades are 3-3 (if we read the position) and some percentage of the 4-2/5-1 spade breaks (lho cannot hold 6 spades since RHO would double with a spade void). What that latter percentage is depends on how confident we are of the location of the club K.

I wouldn't be able to work out the percentages at the table or even here, since I am not going to spend time on it (and may lack the skills anyway), but it makes roughly 35.5% of the time on a spade break (again, assuming we read the position) and I think something north of 25% of the rest of the time.

So it is always better than 50%. Assuming 4th best leads, LHO rates to hold the spade length more often, by a slim margin, than RHO. And against most opps, the lead of the 2 would suggest an honour in clubs, so if we assume LHO is about 50-52% likely to hold long spades, when they are not 3-3, we can see that he rates to hold both long spades and the club K about, say, 30-35% of the time (this is not a calculation).

Of course, all of this assumes that we can read the situation.....we'd look silly if we played for the strip endplay and LHO cunningly had a diamond left, and spades had been 3-3.

However, having reached this contract by deception, I want to continue to show off, so I'll take this line anyway Part of the reason is the pleasure I would get from this line working. Besides, if LHO throws the diamond A or K to keep a small one, with spades 3-3....I'd enjoy complimenting him on his defence....that would be one to treasure.

[WellSpyder]

Not sure I can improve on the above contributions if the defence are playing double dummy, but I would have better squeeze chances if I could rectify the count. Having successfully inhibited a ♦ lead in the bidding, I wonder whether I can build on this during the play. If I cross to ♥K at T2 and then "run" the ♦Q are the oppo likely to cash 2 ♦ tricks straight away?

[gnasher]

I like Mike's extra chance more than my extra chance.

[Cyberyeti]

There are other possibilities here too in the squeeze department.

Either opponent with 4 spades and ♦ AK10 can be caught if you read the position, as can W with 4 spades and ♣K. I'd be inclined to think the K♣ is with the opening leader and read accordingly. If E unsqueezed is capable of throwing ♦ K10 while retaining A8 (dummy's Q will have been thrown), well done to them.

[ArtK78]

Unfortunately, Mike, the opening lead was 6th best! And while the opening leader had the ♣K, he did not have 4 spades or any other holding which subjects him to pressure.

The winning line was to play for 2-2 trump and 4-2 spades. My pard chose to play for 3-3 spades (after running all the trump to see if anything fortuitous happened). The full hand:

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[mikeh]

Was the point of the OP to find out who chose the winning line or to find out the best line? The two are frequently different.


I don't know if my line, or any other losing line, was indeed technically superior to the actual winning line, but I think it was, by a narrow margin. If I'm incorrect, that would be good to hear....but if I am correct, then I frankly don't give a damn that my line failed and an inferior line worked

[ArtK78]

The point of my post was to find the best line. Of course, at the table, I prefer that my partner find the winning line.

[han]

If the lead is fourth best (highly dubious in the Netherlands, where almost nobody leads 4th best and certainly not against a trump contract) then I think that mikeh's line (running hearts and hope to guess the end position) looks much better than hoping for a 3-3 spade split.