[sceptic]

We bid to Club slam here, so comments on bidding welcomed, I opened pick up pard

my main question was we were playing MPS, so I wanted to make 13 trx

opp lead Q hearts ( someone explained it is called Journalistic lead or Roman lead)from KQxx hearts (I was not aware of this at the time) I had AJ10 hearts (so I assumed Q lead could be singleton also)

1/. Was I naive not to expect him or her to have the K hearts as this made me go for a ruff finese (discarding a spade that could not be lost a good diamond) against the other opp for 13 trx

2/. should I have taken the Spade finese in preference to the ruffing finese anyway despite the lead (this does not work, but I only knew that seeing all 4 hands)

3/. why did 12 trx make so few MPS were they all in 6NT or did they play it far better than me (hehe no savage attacks here please)

here is the hand

Scoring: IMP

---

West North East South

 -     Pass  1♣    Pass
 1♦    Pass  2♣    Pass
 4NT   Pass  5♦    Pass
 5NT   Pass  6♣    Pass
 Pass  Pass  

[JohnnyH7]

Hi,

I believe even if NS played standard leads you could figure out that south was very likely to hold the HK. A stiff queen is not possible as it would give north 8 hearts and he passed throughout. Qx is also unlikely as it's not a very attractive lead, and north would have passed throughout with 7 hearts given the chance to preempt twice. Much more likely is that south would be making a "tricky" lead because you are in a slam. Of course, in retrospect you realize you should have asked what their leads were. It's always a good policy to ask what kind of leads and carding the opponents play.

The only way to make 13 tricks is on a major suit squeeze against south. If you think south has the KQ of hearts, you can get him as long as he has the SK, but if north has it you need to finesse. After ruffing a heart (just in case of KQ tight) and running all of your clubs except one, the discards may give you some insight. If you think south has it, cash another club and run diamonds. If you think north has it just run diamonds and finesse in spades without cashing the last club (as you may go down if you are wrong).

You probably got a poor MP score because the field found 6N.

[inquiry]

Making 13 tricks will not help you if the field is in 6NT. You still lose the board. Making 13 tricks will not help you if anyone bids grand slam, they will do better or worse than you with no help from you thank you very much.

You got a bad board simply because 6NT with 12 top tricks scores better than 6C and no matter of playing magic by you will help. That is, you can't control the outcome with respect to tables in 6NT. Your only two options are to try to do better than other people in 6C or 7C. So your judgement comes into play here. If you think most people will be in 6C (forget about people not in slam or in 6NT), then you want to play as soundly for the overtricks as possible. IF you think a lot of people will bid seven, YOU DON"T want the spade finessee to win.

One way to make seven is to take the spade finessee and have it win. I think it is safe to say the odds or that is roughly 50%. Another way is to try for a squeeze (assuming the opening leader has Heart KQ). This is slightly less than 50% because the opening leader has two known cards (KQ) to none in north's hands (yes, yes I saw the small heart). So when clubs split 2-2, you know, in theory 4 cards in south hand and 2 in norths. So South is less likely to hold the spade king, by how much is open to discussion and math tricks. But if everyone was in 6C, I would recommend taking the spade hook as the odds slightly favor it.

On this hand, however, some people will be 7C or 7NT. Now it turns out you can "safely" take the hook and if it wins, tie all the 6C bidders and lose to all the 7NT and 7C bidders, and if it is off, beat all the grand slam bidders and tie all the 6C bidders. But you have another weapon you might choose. You could play for the SPADE-HEART squeeze on the opening leader. Win heart ace, and run all your clubs (keep just one spade in dummy, 4D and the HJ). Next, cash 4D, throwing away two spades. If the heart king hasn't shown up lead a spade to the ACE. Making 13 tricks when spade King is with south, and 12 when spade king is with north (unless he covers the queen for some odd reason, which is insane).

The odds favor the straight spade finessee -- if only slighlty, so you had best give a lot of thought to the squeeze line and what your goals are before choosing it. But again, the field will be in 6NT and nothing helps you against those guys..except the bidding lesson you might get and the concept of the value of NT contracts at Matchpoints.