[awm]

Scoring: IMP

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Around the midpoint of a team match on BBO, you are leading by three imps. Looking at both the north and south hands, what contract would you like to reach on this board?

[luke warm]

midpoint might be too early, but i'd rather be in 6♠ ... if the other team stopped in 4, well done (if i'm down on the ♠ finesse)

[pclayton]

In a long tight match, I'm more than happy to play either 3N or 4♠. Let the other team chase rainbows.

[Fluffy]

I think 6♠ is a bit better than 50% so it seems best.

[han]

6S seems roughly 50%, 6NT seems significantly less. I;d be happy with 6S or game.

[Al_U_Card]

Hmmm, vul slam bonus, lots of ways to play based on the lead, may even get a trump lead (yay!)......6S at 50++% seems like a good shot.

[POJC]

Not calculating i would like 4S/3Nt

Getting this to 50%...

Trumps 3-2 plus finesse for the missing queen= 34%. Or 4-1 i need 3-3 ♦s plus finesse queen trump=4% or 4-1 west plus 4-2 ♦ west and finesse trump= not a lot.
On top single queen and double honours in Ds= few %. Al in all:

is difficult to get 50%

[mike777]

This seems less than 50% calculate 6-0 or 5-0 breaks? Even if we assume QJ of D tight?6-0 break=1.49%? 5-0 break=3.91%? 7-0 break=.52? Add back in picking up D suit for zero losers? anything else?

[Kalvan14]

6♠, which is the most likely contract in the other room too. I might get a spade lead (and missing that I'd play the ♠Q with RHO)

[mike777]

Kalvan14, on Dec 20 2005, 06:28 PM, said:

6♠, which is the most likely contract in the other room too. I might get a spade lead (and missing that I'd play the ♠Q with RHO)

6S may or may not be the most likely contract, but would appreciate seeing more logic rather than just saying so? With 3 little clubs, AQ tight in hearts, no voids, no stiffs, how likely is 6s at the other table? 90%? 60% 40%?

If we make some wild assumptions, 80% possible at other table times 50% making, really less, equals 40% winning x amount of imps and 60% chance of losing X amount of imps? Add those 2 numbers and you get an expected number of winning or losing imps with what degree of certainity?

Not sure but I expect I would be in 4s not 6s often.

[Fluffy]

trump and ♦ lead might give away a trick, take that into account with a possible ♦ honnor singleton adn chances at 6♠ are around 60%

[Kalvan14]

mike777, on Dec 20 2005, 06:41 PM, said:

Kalvan14, on Dec 20 2005, 06:28 PM, said:

6♠, which is the most likely contract in the other room too. I might get a spade lead (and missing that I'd play the ♠Q with RHO)

6S may or may be the most likely contract, but would appreciate seeing more logic rather than just saying so? With 3 little clubs, AQ tight in hearts, no voids, no stiffs, how likely is 6s at the other table? 90%? 60% 40%?

If we make some wild assumptions, 80% possible at other table times 50% making, really less, equals 40% winning x amount of imps and 60% chance of losing X amount of imps? Add those 2 numbers and you get an expected number of winning or losing imps with what degree of certainity?

Not sure but I expect I would be in 4s not 6s often.

NS hands include all the 12 controls (4 A and 4 K), a 4-4 fit with very good intermediates, and some very useful intermediates in the secondary fit in diamonds.

Playing at a decent level, I would anticipate that the contract will be 6 spades more than 80% of the time.

Oppos do not have a nice lead, unless they can lead from QJT of clubs: a trump lead would be quite normal (and the lack of a trump lead would also give very useful indications).

I prefer (at the assumed stage of the IMP match) not to swing: therefore 6♠

[Winstonm]

Game only but may be hard to avoid slam with these two hands facing each other.

Having to ruff a club in dummy and with a virtual guaranteed diamond loser, I am compelled to play RHO for the spade Q in order to pick up the suit in 4-1 breaks unless I am willing to give up on the singleton Queen and immediately finesse West for her honor.

Winston

[dogsbreath]

hi..

I strongly disagree with one point made in several posts in support of 6S contract..
..the lack of a trump lead gives you NO INDICATION of anything. I am a frequent trump leader.. but very rarely against small slams and if the problem was reversed and given as a lead problem i doubt that a trump lead would attract 10% of the vote...
.. so it adds NOTHING to the % in favour of bidding this poorish slam with two flat hands with a hole in two suits.

Rgds Dog

[awm]

It's pretty interesting that even given both hands there is such an even division on which contract is best! No wonder there are so few push boards at bridge.

When this hand came up at the table, I held the south cards. Our auction was 1♦-1♠-2♠, at which point I decided to try 3NT. This was somewhat influenced by my own tendency to raise often on three card support -- I didn't want any part of 6nt with a 4333 18 opposite 12-14 flat. If partner corrected to spades I planned to take at least a try for slam.

Partner passed 3NT and this was the end of the auction. After the hand I was of course blamed for this: "how could I pass with a prime 18 like this? 6nt is excellent!" I'm glad that at least people agree with me that 6nt is not a good spot to be.

My analysis is that 6♠ will be fairly substantially less than 50% provided that the spade position is a blind 50-50 guess proposition. However, that may not be the case, especially if your opponents tend to make bad leads. So it's hard to say. I didn't have a problem missing slam on these cards, but my partner obviously felt different.

[han]

It seems that your partner has not been very forgiving lately.

[awm]

Hannie, on Dec 22 2005, 10:42 AM, said:

It seems that your partner has not been very forgiving lately.

Yup, this was from a team game with a pickup partner. This fellow so annoyed and frustrated me that I felt the need to quit the teamgame partway through (a very rare course of action for me). I wanted to run a sanity check here to make sure I'm not totally off-base.

It seems like on this board the field agrees with me that it is reasonable to not reach slam, and that in particular 6nt is a silly spot. On the other board from the same set, it seems like most people agree with my partner that I was crazy to not double the cold 2♠ partial into game.

Oh well, I guess one for two is not bad. This is not a partner I'll play with again regardless.

[Winstonm]

Quote

When this hand came up at the table, I held the south cards. Our auction was 1♦-1♠-2♠, at which point I decided to try 3NT. This was somewhat influenced by my own tendency to raise often on three card support -- I didn't want any part of 6nt with a 4333 18 opposite 12-14 flat. If partner corrected to spades I planned to take at least a try for slam.

I think this is a good analysis and points out a common bidding problem - when the auction starts 1m-1M-2M and you hold a slammish hand. Bidding is different depending on the target; game try responses often get game bids which not only chews up a lot of room but may not have much to do with cards needed for slam.

My feeling on this type of hand is that this one particular auction:

1m-1M-2M-3M is wasted as a game try so is better utilized as a serious slam try. This treatment would certainly help differentiate the types of hands and leave 3N as somewhat less than what you actually held.

Winston

[han]

awm, on Dec 22 2005, 11:50 AM, said:

Hannie, on Dec 22 2005, 10:42 AM, said:

It seems that your partner has not been very forgiving lately.

Yup, this was from a team game with a pickup partner. This fellow so annoyed and frustrated me that I felt the need to quit the teamgame partway through (a very rare course of action for me). I wanted to run a sanity check here to make sure I'm not totally off-base.

It seems like on this board the field agrees with me that it is reasonable to not reach slam, and that in particular 6nt is a silly spot. On the other board from the same set, it seems like most people agree with my partner that I was crazy to not double the cold 2♠ partial into game.

Oh well, I guess one for two is not bad. This is not a partner I'll play with again regardless.

Glad to hear that it was a pick-up partner, I couldn't imagine Elianna giving you a hard time .

[Free]

Slam! 6NT might work on a ♦-♣ squeeze if you find ♠Q. I'd like to be in 6NT and pull this off, but 6♠ is clearly a lot safer