[Tramticket]

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What is the best line in a contract of 7♥ by East on the 8♠ lead (no opposition bidding).

Match-point Pairs, Non-vul. Vs. Vul.

Bonus question: how would you bid this after East opens a Multi?

[wanoff]

Win, draw trumps, 2 top ♦s and ruff one. If ♦s break or there is a doubleton Q then we have 4 discards.
Otherwise finesse ♣J before ruffing out ♦Q.

2♦-2N
3♣(any max wk 2)-3♦(which?)
4♦(♥s short ♦)-4NT
5♣(1/4)-5♦
6♥(♥Q no K/void)-7♥

[Tramticket]

Thank you.

Yes, that's where I was coming out - you can't cope with a 4-2 diamond break without relying on the club finesse (which works on this occasion). My back of an envelope maths makes this about a 60% line - not quite good enough odds for bidding the big one at pairs.

Our auction was similar (different responses to the 2NT enquiry, but same in all of the essentials). I probably should have stopped at 6♥.

[Tramticket]

Deleted - Duplicate post

[wanoff]

My fag packet says 74% - what is the pairs % for a grand.

[Tramticket]

I did:

3-3 break = 36%
4-2 break = 48% => so 4-2 and club finesse = 24%

Total 60%

But I may be wrong - its many years since I studied probability theory!

[bigbenvic]

Tramticket, on 2016-May-11, 08:59, said:

I did:

3-3 break = 36%
4-2 break = 48% => so 4-2 and club finesse = 24%

Total 60%

But I may be wrong - its many years since I studied probability theory!

There's also the 1 case of stiff Q offside, where you can finesse the ten (1/12 of .15 = 1.25%) and the 4-2 breaks where the Q falls doubleton, (10 of the 30 4-2 combo's or 1/3 of 48%, which is 16% plus half the other ones (48-16=32 halved is 16%) which gets me to 36 + 1.25 + 16 + 20 = 73.25%

There's about a 0.5% of the K♠ being stiff, which takes us to 73.75% which is almost 74%

Edit: I edited this as I originally only had 5 of the 30 4-2 combo's but given either hand can have Qx it should be 10 of the 30 combo's.

[Tramticket]

Thanks - yes, I said my maths was rusty!

I'm feeling a bit happier about bidding the grand

[kuhchung]

Just picking a 1.25% nit. Which diamond are you going to lead to finesse when the Q drops stiff?

[bigbenvic]

kuhchung, on 2016-May-12, 10:53, said:

Just picking a 1.25% nit. Which diamond are you going to lead to finesse when the Q drops stiff?

Lol, I'll try the 2 again :-)

Sorry I was so busy working on the maths that I totally overlooked that tiny little flaw. A cunning plan Baldric.......