[Trumpace]

This hand occured on BBO.

Scoring: IMP

Lead ♥K

---

You reach 6NT (don't ask how) after west preempts with a 4H bid in the opening seat. Both sides are vul and scoring is IMP.

What is your plan?

[xx1943]

Assuming diamonds are not 5/0 you have two possible plans:

1) Take the first heart, cash 7♦s and 2♣s before you exit to LHO for an endplay
2) Finesse in ♠

Decision depends on how likely Lho has the K of ♠.

I would adopt the endplay. But I admit I'm often wrong in such situations.

[Walddk]

It very much depends on how good my left hand opponent is. He is a strong favourite to have ♠K, but if I play against an expert LHO, he will know what this is all about and bare his king at the earliest opportunity.

So my conclusion is:

1. Against a good LHO I will go for the drop in spades.
2. Against a lesser player I will adopt the endplay.

In either case I am not going to finesse in spades.

Roland

[Walddk]

xx1943, on Jan 30 2007, 08:36 AM, said:

Assuming diamonds are not 5/0 ...

Unless you block the suit by playing a low diamond to dummy, I think you can cope with a 5-0 diamond break

Roland

[FrancesHinden]

I am confused. Why is LHO likely to have the SK - isn't x KQJ109xxx xx xx a 4H opening nowadays?

[Walddk]

FrancesHinden, on Jan 30 2007, 01:03 PM, said:

I am confused.  Why is LHO likely to have the SK - isn't x KQJ109xxx xx xx a 4H opening nowadays?

Sure, but 7-card suits are obviously more frequent than 8-card suits. If LHO only has seven, he must surely have ♠K after his 4♥ vulnerable. Even 7330 (the less likely pattern with a 7-card suit) is more frequent than any pattern with an 8-card suit.

Finally, it's much more fun to make your contract on an endplay (possible drop of ♠K) than a boring finesse.

Roland

[FrancesHinden]

Walddk, on Jan 30 2007, 11:07 AM, said:

Finally, it's much more fun to make your contract on an endplay (possible drop of ♠K) than a boring finesse.

That's true.

But perhaps we need to ask them about their pre-empting style. Certainly with a 7222 I agree that the SK is likely, but I think many people would open 4H with, say,

x
KQJ10xxx
x
10xxx

Anyway, there's no point ducking the HK and hoping for a black suit (show-up) squeeze against RHO because nasy LHO can switch to a club at trick 2 which ruins any possible squeeze plans.

There's no point winning the heart and ducking a club to East (playing for East to be 1-3 or 1-2 in the rounded suits) because East can return a spade and ruin our entries.

So we are certainly going to win the opening lead and cash 7 rounds of diamonds discarding 4 clubs and the QJ of spades, followed by the AK of clubs. We only have to decide on finesse vs endplay at the very last minute.

[Walddk]

If I go for the endplay, it will only be because I don't think that my LHO is good enough to bare his/her ♠K smoothly. In my view it's actually an insult to think that he has Kx left.

So against Frances and other good players I will be hoping to drop her king.

Roland

[pclayton]

There's really no point to ducking, which only caters to a show-up squeeze.

Win the 1st trick, and rattle off the diamonds. I need 6 pitches off dummy, so I'll pitch (in order), 4♣'s and the ♠QJ. Now a club up and cash the ♣AK.

I win with Roland's squeeze / endplay, but I also make 13 if LHO has something like: Kx, KQJTxxx, x, QTx.

Of course I can always fall back on the finesse, depending on how much stress RHO appears to be under.

[cherdano]

I take the finesse. Endplay needs West both to have ♠K and either ♥KQJT or an 8-card heart suit (assuming no misdefense). However, when he has such good hearts, most opponents don't need the ♠K to preempt, and the a-priori odds favor East to have the king.

(Assuming hearts break 7-2, East is a 11:6 favorite to hold the ♠K a priori, so you should only play West for the king if you think it makes him roughly twice as likely to preempt.)

[Trumpace]

Walddk, on Jan 30 2007, 04:55 AM, said:

It very much depends on how good my left hand opponent is. He is a strong favourite to have ♠K, but if I play against an expert LHO, he will know what this is all about and bare his king at the earliest opportunity.

So my conclusion is:

1. Against a good LHO I will go for the drop in spades.
2. Against a lesser player I will adopt the endplay.

In either case I am not going to finesse in spades.

Roland

If you do decide LHO holds the K and if it is hard for declarer to read the end position (bare K vs Kx) shouldn't an expert LHO be using a mixed strategy? The question then becomes, what % of the time should declarer play for bare K vs endplay.

[han]

I agree with Phil, it seems better to play the diamonds and clubs before deciding on how to play the spades. My experience is that even against worldclass players it is possible to get a clue from their tempo and order of discards. Besides that I'm very interested to see how many diamonds and clubs LHO has.

[FrancesHinden]

Trumpace, on Jan 30 2007, 06:36 PM, said:

If you do decide LHO holds the K and if it is hard for declarer to read the end position (bare K vs Kx) shouldn't an expert LHO be using a mixed strategy? The question then becomes, what % of the time should declarer play for bare K vs endplay.

An expert defender will always bare the King.

If you hold on to 1 heart and Kx of spades declarer cannot go wrong _if_ he has a count on the heart suit - he throws you in with a heart and makes whoever has the SK.

If you hold on to 2 hearts and one spade declarer is left guessing whether you started with the SK and bared it, or the king was right all along.

[Trumpace]

FrancesHinden, on Jan 30 2007, 01:48 PM, said:

Trumpace, on Jan 30 2007, 06:36 PM, said:

If you do decide LHO holds the K and if it is hard for declarer to read the end position (bare K vs Kx) shouldn't an expert LHO be using a mixed strategy? The question then becomes, what % of the time should declarer play for bare K vs endplay.

An expert defender will always bare the King.

If you hold on to 1 heart and Kx of spades declarer cannot go wrong _if_ he has a count on the heart suit - he throws you in with a heart and makes whoever has the SK.

If you hold on to 2 hearts and one spade declarer is left guessing whether you started with the SK and bared it, or the king was right all along.

_If_ declarer gets a count, which he won't if his RHO does not discard a heart. no?

In fact an interesting aspect seems to be that RHO needs to hold onto his second heart (if he has it ), which puts pressure on him too... and probably makes it right to play for the drop.

Anyway, I am no expert, so please free to be pedantic.

[pclayton]

Trumpace, on Jan 30 2007, 11:14 AM, said:

FrancesHinden, on Jan 30 2007, 01:48 PM, said:

Trumpace, on Jan 30 2007, 06:36 PM, said:

If you do decide LHO holds the K and if it is hard for declarer to read the end position (bare K vs Kx) shouldn't an expert LHO be using a mixed strategy? The question then becomes, what % of the time should declarer play for bare K vs endplay.

An expert defender will always bare the King.

If you hold on to 1 heart and Kx of spades declarer cannot go wrong _if_ he has a count on the heart suit - he throws you in with a heart and makes whoever has the SK.

If you hold on to 2 hearts and one spade declarer is left guessing whether you started with the SK and bared it, or the king was right all along.

_If_ declarer gets a count, which he won't if his RHO does not discard a heart. no?

In fact an interesting aspect seems to be that RHO needs to hold onto his second heart (if he has it ), which puts pressure on him too... and probably makes it right to play for the drop.

Anyway, I am no expert, so please free to be pedantic.

RHO can hold whatever he wants, but presumably a winning club. If LHO holds the club length, LHO can bare down to the ♠/♥/♣.