[Chamaco]

Scoring: MP

2♦:2NT
3♦:4♠

W leads ♥J to East's Ace and a heart ruff. W returns a diamond.

---

Pard opens 1st seat a 2D Multi, and after the 2NT inquiry, he shows a max with spades and S signs off in game.

W leads the ♥J to East's Ace and a heart ruff (with the 4 of spades). W returns a diamond.

HOW DO YOU PLAY TRUMPS ? FINESSE TO TRY 11 tricks BUT RISKING DOWN 1 (if East takes the king and returns another heart ruff) OR GO UP WITH THE ACE, POSSIBLY GIVING UP THE OVERTRICK ?

[toothbrush]

I guess some players will be in 3NT (a good contract imo). When ♠ finesse works, the 3NT-players will always get a better score i believe (at least 11 tricks with the ♥A good).
That's why I hope ♠K is at East.
Besides, in every game there are losers that stay in a part-score or go to a bad slam and go down so I'd play for the certain 40%.

[FrancesHinden]

Neither. I don't play trumps next at all. I cash the AK of diamonds discarding the last heart from dummy, then play a low spade to the Queen.

If East wins and plays another heart, I put in the 7 and can over-ruff in dummy, draw trumps and cash two more hearts ditching clubs. If East wins and returns a club, I shall have the S9 as a late entry to hand to cash hearts.

If West transpires to have started with Kxxx trumps I'm still OK: I cross to the CA and play winning hearts. If/when West ruffs in, I over-ruff, draw his last trump with the Ace and again have the 9 to cross back to hand.

The bad news is that many people will by playing in 4S by North. A better matchpoint player than I might decide that they are already a trick behind the field and try and drop the singleton King offside to catch up. That's too clever for me, I think, as the traveller never seems to reflect this sort of complex thinking. Let's hope instead East leads a club and West has the King.

[Chamaco]

FrancesHinden, on Jan 6 2006, 11:06 AM, said:

Neither. I don't play trumps next at all. I cash the AK of diamonds discarding the last heart from dummy, then play a low spade to the Queen.

I am sorry, I mis-wrote declarer's hand, the diamond holding was AJx (e.g. no discard of the heart was possible).

I corrected the hand also in the main header, sorry for that.

[joker_gib]

huh ??

If east plays back a diamond after the ruff I suppose he was on lead, wasn't he ?

If west gest the ruff then AQ is OK to discard the ♥ with the return in the fork !

[joker_gib]

Ah AJx then OK tx Mauro

[joker_gib]

I go for the finesse since a lot of pairs will play the contract from the other hand (weak 2 or 1♠ opening) and maybe not suffer the ♥ ruff.

Alain

[Chamaco]

After some thinking, I have come to some conclusion.

In the real hand, I went up with the Ace, and made the cointract just right, but LHO had started with Kxx in spades, so many tables had made 4S+1 by finessing.

The conclusion is the following:

it is true that if I finesse in trumps and lose, RHO might give a second ruff to West, but that will happen only if west has a third trump.
So we can rule out all the 2-2 breaks , in which the finesse cannot lose and can only win if K is onside.

So that means that I will lose only if West holds the stiff trump K, a low percentage (something like 6-7 %).

In all other case, the finesse is either irrelevant (K is offside so I'll lose a trump anyways, but West is out of trumps), or wins outright (K is onside and all is well).

So, I guess, my bad , but at least I learned something from this bad play

Maybe this hand belongs better in the Beginning/Intermediate Forum section

[inquiry]

Don't worry so much about making your contract at matchpoints. Instead try a little thoughtful analysis. To do this, evaluate the expected bidding and play at the other tables.

How common a contract is this, and did you get the normal defense so far.

For how common, you need to know if the field is likely to open multi 2D. If the answer is yes, then the contract is normal and the lead looks normal. So you are even with all the other pairs at the moment. If you are playing in an ACBL event or in the US for that matter, multi 2♦ is very rare, and the normal contract will be 4♠ by NORTH, and they will not find the heart ruff at trick two.

On the other hand, if EVERYONE plays multi-2♦ you are in exactly the same boat.

Let's handl the everyone plays multi-2D first. Here, I would take the spade finesse at matchpoints. This is a no-brainer. First the odds still favor WEST having the spade king (he had one heart to EAST four, giving him more "slots" to hold the king). Maybe someone will go run some math on this, but after WEST didn't ruff with the singleton king, nor follow with doubleton king on the first round of spades, a number of holdings have been eliminated (WEST with K or Kx of spades for instance... so the possible holding are WEST with Kxx, Kxxx, xxx, or xx). If West had xx, either play is fine. If West had xxx, playing the ACE is so much better, and if West had Kxxx only hook is right. But West with three spades, Kxx is much more likely (three times) than xxx. Mathematically, there simply is no excuse not to take the hook.

Now, turn the tables, to where north plays 4♠, this is a much more difficult problem. They found their heart ruff, so you might think you are behind. But what if they had lead a club at trick one? Now you would be at risk of losing a club, a spade, the heart ace and a heart ruff, and could go down. But that would require both black kings to be "wrong" (25%). Otherwise 4♠ would make five or six (six if both kings are right or they fail to find their heart ruff).

So now you have the option of playing to make, which wins if both black kings are offside (club lead, heart ace, heart ruff and slow spade king) or play for the overtrick which wins if the spade King is onsides. In the final analysis, I would play for the overtrick anyway. Evaluate the possible endings after WEST follows low to the second spade...

WEST SPADE holding
32 === ACE or QUEEN same
432 === ACE works wonders
K432 === QUEEN wins
K32 === QUEEN Wins
K42 === QUEEN wins
K43 === QUEEN wins

As you can see, playing the ACE clearly wins in only one holding while the queen works best in four of the six holdings and ties in one of the cases. Those are just too good odds not to go for it at matchpoints.

[inquiry]

BTW, it might be interestng to think a bit about the odds here....After WEST ruffs low a heart and follows low with to the next spade, several of the distributions of trumps have been eliminated (west must have at least two, so EAST can not have three for instance). But you also know that WEST had one heart and EAST had four, which affects the frequency of the different spade splits. For instance, if you knew nothing about hearts, the chance of WEST having four spades would be only 4.8%, but when EAST shows up with four hearts to WEST's one, the odds of WEST having four trumps double to 8.2%. The chance of WEST having three spades was initially 24%, but with the heart split, it increased to 33%.

After WEST follows twice to spades (and the king has yet to show), does that affect the odds of west having three or four spades? The answer is yes. Some hands have been eliminated. West with singleton King or doubleton king for instance, but also west with void or any singleton too. In fact, the odds of WEST having three spades has increased to 40% after he followed low twice. and the odds he has all four spades is up from 8.2 to 10.2%.

[Free]

This is a difficult problem imo, since it depends on a lot of things which have nothing to do with the cards themselves.

- Depends on opps' carding. LHO must have a reason to play the 4, and not the 2 or 3. Do they show their trump length, and how? Or is he just fooling with you?
- Since it's MP and a very reasonable contract, it really depends on what other tables will do. First of all, are there a lot of players that play normal weak two's or light openings at 1-level. I suspect LHO has ♣K, so the natural bidders will go down. What do they respond to multi? Do they bid 3♠ with maximum hands or not?
- Depends on how good you're playing: if you need a little extra you just have to finesse since the odds are favorable. Perhaps it's the last chance to get a top...

Without answers to these questions, I'd just cash ♠A and blame it on 'playing too much at imps' when I give away the overtrick Btw, if the finesse loses to stiff ♠K, you get another ♥ ruff for -1 which is a complete disaster!

[pclayton]

I'm not at all convinced everyone in the room will find game on these cards. I can easily see a lot of players just raising 2♠ to 3 instead of dragging out Ogust or something else.

Another element is 5 of a minor looks like an appealing sac as the cards appear to lay; but only if the K♠ is off.

Over here, multi is seldom played, so its safe to say those tables aren't suffering a spade ruff at T2. Frankly, theres a good chance they are getting something really friendly like a club lead away from the K.

Nevertheless my gut tells me to hook in the given situation.