[hatchett]

Scoring: IMP

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You are playing against top class opposition

1NT (12/14) 2♦ 3♦ 4♦
P P 4♠ All Pass

LHO leads ♦3 (4th highest) to the A. After some thought RHO switches to ♣7
Play on

[FrancesHinden]

Here are the ways in which I can go off:
- conceding a club ruff
- getting forced off
- conceding a heart ruff

The slow switch to the C7 from good players with that dummy doesn't tell me which way clubs or spades are 4-1, so I just have to go with what I think is the best line.

It doesn't look right to play on hearts, because that is just asking to concede a rounded suit ruff unnecessarily. So I have three simple lines

i) Win the club in dummy and take the spade finesse
ii) Ace and another spade
iii) Heart

i) Gains when RHO has Kxxx spades, or has Kxx, a singleton club and not the HA.
ii) Gains when LHO has Kx spade, a club singleton and not the HA; or LHO has Kxx spade and four clubs
iii) Gains when spades are 4-1 foul, but loses when clubs are 4-1 and we should have drawn trumps, or when clubs are 3-2 and they get a club ruff (and we should have drawn trumps).

My instinct on these hands is to take the spade finesse, but I admit to not having worked it out completely.

[Free]

small ♣, ♠A, ♠... I'm afraid of a ♣ ruff.

note: i have ♦2, so lho can't lead that

[Codo]

Maybe rho thought about the two twos of Diamond?

Okay, besides thid, you reached the right game and it is imps.
You have no problem at all besides a possible club ruff.
So, besides winnig in all hands, where the clubs behave, you have to look for teh 4-1 club breaks:

The easiest way to draw trump is play low to the ace and back.
This will win, wheenver the one with the stiff Club has the Ace of Heart or at most two spades, or when the King of Spade is singelton.
I think, this is better then the 50 % chance of a finesse in Spade.

[Limey_p]

In general I agree with Frances.

It is worth considering how you would play on "normal" defense, two rounds of diamonds. You'd ruff the diamond and then? would you lead a low spade? I think that's the superior line. This gives you the timing to use the board's trump if necessary while you knock out the ace of hearts.

The opponents given you options beyond what you would have had. Does this have any implication to how you should play the hand? I cannot see any on this deal.

AP

[FrancesHinden]

Let's suppose clubs are 4-1. RHO could easily have switched to a club from a 4-card suit looking at dummy, so we don't know which way clubs break.

We need to worry about who has the SK, who has the HA, who has the 4 clubs. That gives an awful lot of cases. RHO's holding is given below:

i) HA, 4 clubs, SKx
ii) HA, 4 clubs, SKxx
iii) HA, 4 clubs, Sxx
iv) HA, 4 clubs, Sxxx
v) -viii) as above without the HA
9-12) as above with HA, with singleton club
13-16) as above without HA, with singleton club

Ignoring the overtrick, or the second undertrick, taking the spade finesse works in cases
1,2, 5,6,7,8,9,10,13,14

Playing ace and another works in cases
2,4,6,8,9,10,11,13,15

Unless I've miscounted (quite likely), the spade finesse is better by one case.
Except that if you think RHO has 6 diamonds from the auction and opening lead, then cases 9-16 are more likely than 1-8.

So even ignoring the probability of getting forced off, it's not at all obvious whether it's right to take the spade finesse to avoid a club ruff.

Now factor in the possibility that RHO is 4-6 in the pointy suits (when you have to finesse) and it must be extremely close.

Oh, and you might like to think about what RHO needed for a 2D overcall in HCP, and what, if anything, you can read into the fact that he didn't force you at trick 2. Or that if RHO has Kxx xx AJ10xxx xx a heart return (ducked) at trick two would have given you the same problem (on that hand you finesse, I leave it as an exercise to construct hands where Ace and another would be better).

[Codo]

Of course, you know, that these 16 possibilities are not equal.
In general, you can trust the opening lead, so leftly has 4 Diamonds in more then 90 %.
This gives rho 6 Diamonds.
The theory of empty spaces gives lho much more place for a 4 card club suit.

[FrancesHinden]

Codo, on Mar 9 2006, 03:16 PM, said:

Of course, you know, that these 16 possibilities are not equal.

Yes, that would be the bit when I said "cases 9-16 are more likely than 1-8"

Sorry for the long post.