[Walddk]

Scoring: IMP

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Team game on BBO against good opponents. Your LHO opens 3♣ at favourable, passed to you. 3NT seems fair so that is what you bid. 4♣ from partner (both majors) and 4♥ by you.

4NT (0314) now, 5♣, and partner has the final say with 6♥.

West leads ♣A and East follows with the 10 (whatever that means). Switch to ♦J which you win in hand. You now play a heart to dummy's king, West and East following with the 7 and 3. When you next lead a heart off dummy, East contributes the 4.

The spotlight is on you. Finesse or go for the drop? Only 17 IMPs at stake, no need to panic

Roland

[Gerben42]

Assuming a 7-2 break in ♣ we find the following percentages:

3-2 break: 17.8%
2-3 break: 40.0%
1-4 break: 32.0%
Other breaks (irrelevant): 10.2%

So playing from top succeeds in 57.8% of the ♥ distributions.

Finessing percentages:
32.0% for 1-4 break
24.0% for 2-3 break
7.1% for 3-2 break

Total: 63.1%

So do what already "feels right", finesse.

However, what does ♦J mean? If that is from a singleton or doubleton you should play from the top!

Final conclusion: I play from the top.

[whereagles]

I finesse. LHO can hardly be playing for a ruff.

[cherdano]

Gerben, you forgot to eliminate the 1-4 break with ♥J singleton. Since that is 5.6%, the percentages are actually really close, making it pretty much a pure guess.

So what about psychology? Would LHO always correctly play randomly from ♥J73? Probably yes.

Of course we cannot trust the ♦J to be singleton or doubleton against good defenders (in fact if you force me to guess I would think it is from ♦QJx). However, there are two hints from the diamond shift: LHO could not know that ♣ 10 is not a singleton, but he didn't try for a trump promotion. That argues against him having a singleton heart.

Hah, there is one more technical point in favor of the finesse: If hearts break, spades will often not break, and I will still go down. Whereas if I pickup a 4-1 break, then spades are likely breaking, and I have made. I finesse (and expect to go down).

Arend

[Gerben42]

Singleton Jack is not important, my "finesse" plan would be to cash ♥K then play ♥ to 10. If that works you can just cash ♥A, cross in ♠ and draw the last trump.

Also if ♠ are 4 - 1 I have AKQJ!

[joker_gib]

One day I will drop and one day I will finesse !

I'm not intelligent enough to compute those percentages at the table

I would ask myself what this jack is but I'm afraid I still could not decide what to do.

Alain

[cherdano]

Gerben42, on Mar 7 2006, 03:42 PM, said:

Singleton Jack is not important, my "finesse" plan would be to cash ♥K then play ♥ to 10. If that works you can just cash ♥A, cross in ♠ and draw the last trump.

Also if ♠ are 4 - 1 I have AKQJ!

Oops, sorry about spades

Gerben, you misunderstood me: Yes, you always make with singleton ♥J. But you did not include that in your success rate for playing for the drop.

Arend

[FrancesHinden]

On the percentage calculation: no reason to think clubs are 7-2, they could be 6-3.
So it is mildly interesting to know what the C10 means.

Now for the heart pips:

We are missing J7643
People usually play upwards. I know they shouldn't, but they do.
However the cards played are consistent with both J7 on our left and singleton 7.

I would tend to finesse, but I wish I were playing in 6S instead.

[Gerben42]

Sorry you're right - maybe I should pay more attention

I'll finesse then.

[cherdano]

FrancesHinden, on Mar 7 2006, 04:11 PM, said:

On the percentage calculation: no reason to think clubs are 7-2, they could be 6-3.
So it is mildly interesting to know what the C10 means.

I thought that unlikely. Not because LHO wouldn't preempt with 6, but because usually RHO would raise with 3. But maybe you play more often against opponents who know exactly what their partner's preempting style looks like, and allow for that in their raises. (This isn't meant ironically.)

Arend

[Free]

I play for the drop.

- At this vulnerability, preempts don't mean 7 card. I even play them 0-7HCP with 5+ card suit, so basicly they mean nothing. But that depends on partnership agreements.
- LHO started with ♣A, probably to give p a ruff if possible. It would be nice to know what carding opps play, but I guess it shows 2 or 3 ♣s.
- Why is LHO so desperatly trying to make a trick in ♦? Because he doesn't see a trick in ♥ imo. But that might be a deceptive manouvre as well

[mikeh]

I echo Justin's comments: play for the drop. The lack of further ♣ preemption is meaningless: why alert the opps to the ♣ situation while risking 1100 when partner holds AQJxxx and out (or worse).

I admit that I am a bit suspicious of the ♦J, but not sufficiently suspicious to finesse.

Any time I try to work out what meta-mind-game my opps are playing, I usually find out that they were not playing any at all. However, on this hand, it must be apparent to both opps that the hand is cold unless I have a ♥ loser. The ♦J is almost certainly futile, in terms of the suit itself. It might be an effort to persuade me that he is short in ♦ so that I will reject the trump finesse. But I do not want to take the trump finesse and lose based on my thinking this way. If LHO is good enough to make this play for that reason, good on him (or her). I wasn't taking the finesse if he switched to a ♠, for example.

I don't feel strongly about this. It really is a guess. I'd like to say that I'd need to be at the table, but I'd be kidding myself if I claimed it would make a difference.

[Walddk]

Here is the full deal:

Scoring: IMP

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At the table declarer finessed the 10 and lost 17 IMPs when the same contract made in the other room.

I agree with those of you who went for the drop. The pre-empt hasn't changed the percentages enough to go for the more spectacular play of finessing. The reason is that we don't know anything about spades and diamonds, and we can't be sure that we can afford to test them.

Additionally, as some pointed out, clubs could easily have been divided 6-3 at these colours.

Roland

[awm]

I'd play for the drop. An inference people may have missed:

Why did west not continue another high club? Certainly he cannot know that partner doesn't have a stiff. It would be perhaps even more normal to bid 3NT with Qxxx of club rather than Qxx. If west held a singleton trump and east a singleton club, then continuing clubs is likely to promote a trump in east's hand, or at least force declarer to guess the suit (say east has Txxx for example). I think good opponents will realize this, and that a club continuation would be likely if west had short trumps.

[Fluffy]

I would comment as kibitzer that playing for the drop is obviously the % play (specially because I can see all cards)