[pclayton]

Scoring: IMP

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You play in 6♦ after 1♦ - 1♠ - 2♦ - 2♥ - 2N - 6♦

The opponents are a first time partnership but both reasonable. LHO is more imaginative than RHO (read: crazy / erratic). The opps are playing UDCA.

T1. ♦3, 4, 2, 5
T2. ♦6, J, A, ♥4
T3. ♦8, ♣4, K, 10

You decide to run a few more diamonds:

T4. ♦Q, ♣3, ♥2, ♠6
T5. ♦9, ♥7, ♣2, ♠2

The position is now:

Scoring: IMP

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What is going at this point and how do you continue?

Note: if you don't understand the problems / issues here, please don't bother to answer.

Thank you

[Echognome]

Jlall, on Sep 21 2007, 09:56 AM, said:

Seems obvious that LHO has spades guarded and RHO has hearts guarded. If we think LHO has the club ace we can cash the hearts, cash the trump, play a spade to dummy and lead a club planning to duck into LHOs now stiff ace. From the way you have described the play it looks like they both pitched a small club.

All in all my only clues about where the club ace are come from the lead and the discards. The discards, given your description of the opponents, slightly indicate RHO having the ace but no amazing clue there (just because you seem to think LHO is more likely to find a falsecard). The lead doesn't really indicate much, LHO probably thought dummy was going to hit with some 3 suiter on this auction not 4333 and led a trump just to stop ruffs. The chances of him leading from the ace or the queen or from nothing seem about equal. So basically I have no clues lol.

Given that there is some non zero chance that my read on the layout of the majors is wrong and that I will go down 2 if I take the fancy line and I'm wrong it seems percentage to just take the finesse.

My perspective of the clues is that RHO is 3=5=1=4 and LHO is 4=2=3=4. It's possible that I'm off by a card. If LHO has the ♣A, I'm not sure I can do anything about it. What I wasn't clear about on Justin's first line was how we are going to get back to hand to collect our ♣K after we've ducked to LHO's now stiff A? I can't see anything better at this point than playing RHO for the ♣A, but I'm still thinking about it.

[FrancesHinden]

pclayton, on Sep 21 2007, 05:43 PM, said:

Note: if you don't understand the problems / issues here, please don't bother to answer.

But how are we supposed to know if we understand the problems / issues without participating in the discussion?

I would have cashed one top spade earlier, before getting to this point.

I don't understand why the discards put the CA on my right. RHO has discarded a low heart (first), a low club and two spades. LHO discarded a low club and a high heart. If they are being honest, the CA is on my left (though obviously they might not be honest).

Anyway, I don't entirely agree with Justin, I think the opening lead is weird. I would have expected an aggressive lead, with leader expecting dummy to hit with spades and diamonds. I think LHO has the ace of clubs and I go for the clever line.

[sathyab]

Echognome, on Sep 21 2007, 02:13 PM, said:

Jlall, on Sep 21 2007, 09:56 AM, said:

Seems obvious that LHO has spades guarded and RHO has hearts guarded. If we think LHO has the club ace we can cash the hearts, cash the trump, play a spade to dummy and lead a club planning to duck into LHOs now stiff ace. From the way you have described the play it looks like they both pitched a small club.

All in all my only clues about where the club ace are come from the lead and the discards. The discards, given your description of the opponents, slightly indicate RHO having the ace but no amazing clue there (just because you seem to think LHO is more likely to find a falsecard). The lead doesn't really indicate much, LHO probably thought dummy was going to hit with some 3 suiter on this auction not 4333 and led a trump just to stop ruffs. The chances of him leading from the ace or the queen or from nothing seem about equal. So basically I have no clues lol.

Given that there is some non zero chance that my read on the layout of the majors is wrong and that I will go down 2 if I take the fancy line and I'm wrong it seems percentage to just take the finesse.

My perspective of the clues is that RHO is 3=5=1=4 and LHO is 4=2=3=4. It's possible that I'm off by a card. If LHO has the ♣A, I'm not sure I can do anything about it. What I wasn't clear about on Justin's first line was how we are going to get back to hand to collect our ♣K after we've ducked to LHO's now stiff A? I can't see anything better at this point than playing RHO for the ♣A, but I'm still thinking about it.

You discard a spade fom dummy retaining AKQ of spades and two clubs in dummy and play a low club to LHO's Ace. LHO has been strip squeezed in the balck suits if he did have four spades and the Ace of clubs.

[pclayton]

Quote

QUOTE (pclayton @ Sep 21 2007, 05:43 PM)
Note: if you don't understand the problems / issues here, please don't bother to answer. 

Quote

But how are we supposed to know if we understand the problems / issues without participating in the discussion?

LOL, as I checked this thread for the first hour, I regretted saying this. This thread had 50 some odd looks but only Justin's reply.

What I really meant to say is that this hand is deeper than "is the club Ace onside"?.

[pclayton]

Jlall, on Sep 21 2007, 11:28 AM, said:

FrancesHinden, on Sep 21 2007, 02:14 PM, said:

Anyway, I don't entirely agree with Justin, I think the opening lead is weird. I would have expected an aggressive lead, with leader expecting dummy to hit with spades and diamonds.

A club from the ace is aggressive too right?

How can LHO ever expect this dummy? It sounds FOR SURE like dummy has shortness in clubs so a club lead is not aggressive at all. It's not like with Qxxx you expect to set up your queen and then cash it.

It seems more likely to me that LHO with a spade stopper decided to try and cut down on dummys ruffs. If he wanted to make an aggressive lead he could lead a heart. I think a club would be his last choice from anything.

Dummy's bidding is rather strange. Why not just bid 3♦ or 4♦ over 2N? Maybe the dummy doesn't think that a grand is possible, but I wouldn't think dummy is a lock to hold short clubs.

If anything, I would put dummy on a little club length. Once declarer has admitted holding a club card, dummy zooms into 6. If dummy had club shortness, opener holding a club stopper would seem less relevant.

[mikeh]

I'm not worried about undertricks. If they stay low at the other table, it's an imp if I fail by 2 compared to 1, but it is a huge pickup if I make. If they take the opposite line from mine, they make when I fail by 2 and we lose 17 while if I make, they fail by one and it is win 16. This is not insignificant, but I'd have to be very finely balanced in my read on the hand to allow this kind of differential to affect my line.

And I feel comfortable that LHO has 4 spades.... So I am going for the strip endplay described (but not chosen) by Justin.

By the way, I think that there is in fact a slight inference that LHO holds the ♣A. This is not an auction on which I'd expect the A to be led if he holds J10xx in spades. S is known to have some length in clubs, N is probably marked with a stiff club... after all, committed to slam opposite no assured club control.. would the bidding have been different with opener being xx AQ KQJxxx Q10x ?

Finally, and I realize that this is an improper consideration, anyone can take a finesse, but not just anyone can picture the strip endplay... and when everything is truly balanced (here, the lead inference offsets the imp differential for me.. both are weak), I like the artistic play

[awm]

How clever is RHO?

It seems like there's an additional possibility where RHO is looking at the ♣A (and maybe ♣Q too). He pretty much knows the contract is cold since he can count 3♠+2♥+1♣+6♦. Since it's cold anyway RHO pitches spades from a four-card holding (either because he doesn't think it can possibly matter, or because he wants to trick you into playing for the squeeze). Oops.

How sure are you that the spade position is what it appears?

[pclayton]

Jlall, on Sep 21 2007, 12:21 PM, said:

awm, on Sep 21 2007, 03:18 PM, said:

How sure are you that the spade position is what it appears?

Yeah exactly. People underestimate the fact that there is a non zero chance the layout is not exactly as they appear. I mean you never know. I really think people are making way too much out of the lead, and don't take things like "my read of the layout might be wrong" into consideration enough.

I think I would pay off to this kind of brilliancy, wouldn't you? It would be a very nice play, but I think there's a lot going on in this hand. Maybe its a 'factor' on this hand, and if it weighs into your decision, fine. I think its very difficult to quantify RHO's propensity to make this type of play, especially in tempo (I don't think I mentioned that all of RHO's discards have been in tempo).

[pclayton]

Jlall, on Sep 21 2007, 12:21 PM, said:

awm, on Sep 21 2007, 03:18 PM, said:

How sure are you that the spade position is what it appears?

Yeah exactly. People underestimate the fact that there is a non zero chance the layout is not exactly as they appear. I mean you never know. I really think people are making way too much out of the lead, and don't take things like "my read of the layout might be wrong" into consideration enough.

Here's another aspect. Give me a hand like: ♠x, ♥AJx, ♦KQ9xxx, ♣Qxx. Wouldn't the bidding be the same?

Granted, the endgame becomes very interesting with this hand if the ♣A is on my right, but I'm not going to bother to analyze it.

My point is, its not an easy play at all to pitch away from spade length. It may be very difficult to analyze at the table, much less in the post mortem.

If RHO had ♣A-Q, then I would tend to agree more that a spade pitch from length is more sensible and can be found under the gun.

[kenrexford]

If you go with the straight finesse, it seems best to first play the last diamond and pitch a club (if the number of tricks set is immaterial). You don't need a second club in dummy for the finesse. This gains when LHO has four spades, both top club honors, and two of the three intermediate hearts, as he may twitch violently about and expose the guard squeeze.

[mikeh]

Jlall, on Sep 21 2007, 04:10 PM, said:

Phil I think you are missing the point.

The point is you are making assumptions about the majors. People are assuming these are 100 % correct, and not acknowledging that they may be only 96 % correct.

You are then making assumptions from the lead, and assuming that LHO is more likely to have the ace than RHO. Of course that is what bridge is about, but I still see no basis for this.

You need to assign a weight to all clues, even if some are very strong clues but not 100 %, you cannot assign them a probability of 100 %. Your line can still be correct if you decide that the lead is a factor and assign a probability of say 60 % that LHO has the CA based on this clue, but I do not think that would be a good thing to do.

I basically think that

A ) There is a small chance that the majors are not how we think they are.
B ) There is a slightly greater chance LHO falsecarded than RHO (based on your descriptions, I don't know who the players are).
C ) There is a small chance that we will lose more imps because we go down an extra trick with the second line.
D ) There is no inference to be taken from the lead. If anything I would say LHO might have just banged down his ace of clubs in the face of short clubs in dummy and no useful pitches. I think the inference that LHO would NOT lead from the club ace and WOULD lead from a non club ace holding is bogus.

If you agree with my assumptions (which you obviously don't) then you should just take a club finesse. But no one is claiming it is at all likely that spades are already running, it's simply a (very) minor possibility that has to at least be taken into account.

A fine post. However:

1. In all the scenarios where LHO has the ♣A, almost half the time he will also hold the ♣Q, and he ain't leading that card when dummy promises stiff or void and declarer the King. When he holds the ♣AQ, which is approximately 25% of the time, he is odds on to lead a trump on this auction. After all, if dummy has to ruff a couple of clubs (with a stiff ♣ initially) he'd damn well better get the trump going now.

This possibility is a non-trivial issue when it comes to drawing inferences from the lead.

2. I appreciate that my earlier post reads as if I were assigning a 100% confidence level to my placing of the spade guard. I didn't: in fact I first wrote and then deleted a lengthy passage about the various spade possibilities, including a 1=6 split (now rho has 2 easy spade pitches) or a brilliantly deceptive RHO. However, even if RHO is capable of the deceptive defence without tempo issues (who is that masked man, Tonto?), if he has the club A, how does he know we hold the K? Doesn't the brilliant defence require, early on, an appreciation of the location of the King? Just how brilliant is he going to look when we started with Q10x of clubs, and he pitches from spade length?

No, in terms of reading the majors, and ignoring the 1=6 split, the odds must be in the high 90's that LHO holds 4 spades.

Add the mild inference, and it is mild, that the lead is consistent with and slightly suggests AQ of clubs on my left, and the artistic play seems as good as, if not a tiny bit better than, the straightforward finesse.

BTW, I don't think you can use the artistic line and check back to see, 1st, if rho has tricked you: you need the pitch the small spade on your last trump, as Justin pointed out earlier.

[jdonn]

I think the inference is actually pretty strong RHO has the ace of clubs. LHO could certainly expect that dummy won't get useful pitches if he would lead the ace, and for all he knows if this sort of dummy is possible they have the first two club tricks. On top of that LHO is longer in diamonds and (by inference) in spades. Add in the likelihood you go down (maybe even 2 or more) if you get too creative, and I think it's just percentage to take the finesse.

[pclayton]

FWIW, I played exactly as Mike did. The ♣A (and Q) were on my right. I played a club out of my hand after cashing the ♥AK and the last diamond. LHO won and I was down several.

There's really nothing to lose by playing a spade to the board and then the club. RHO may lose his poise and pop from A-Q. He'll cash a few heart tricks, but you'll make some black suit tricks later.

I felt very confident that the spade length was on my left and the heart length was on my right.

I felt less confident about the club situation, but if you make the very reasonable assumption RHO is 3=5=1=4 and LHO is 4=2=3=4 you are effectively at a 50-50 crossroads as to the location of the ♣A. Unfortunately, you have to commit yourself at this point, and can't discover if LHO what ♣ LHO will pitch on the last red suit trick, since you have unravel your heart tricks starting at T6. Could the distributions be a little different? Sure, but it doesn't affect things much.

There's another element to this hand. If I was playing this in a long match, I would be very aware of who was sitting at my seat at the other table. If I thought it was someone who wasn't capable of reading this position, I'm not sure I'd bother with the esoteric line, since the last thing I want happening is to go down doing something the declarer wouldn't even consider.

On the other hand, if the declarer at the other table, didn't have a high opinion of me, I also wouldn't worry about the tricky line, since they are probably leading toward the King as well for similar reasons.

I really don't have a strong feeling about this hand, but I was very curious about what others would read into the lead and the discards of the opponents.