[kfay]

Scoring: IMP

1♥-(4♠)-5♥

---

W leads the ♠A, E dropping the K, and continues with the 6.

[cherdano]

I ruff with the king.

I disagree with 5♥, just for the record. Double seems better.

[kfay]

sorry. forgot to add 'you ruff with the king, RHO pitches a ♣'. now what?

[han]

I see two spade 6's. I'm not nitpicking, I'd like to know what suit preference signal LHO gave.

Taking into account that LHO has 8 spades and RHO 1 it is still about 46% chance that hearts split 3-2, a larger chance than that they split 4-1 onside. Two of the five 4-1 splits is with a singleton 9 or 10 on my left so the odds by far favor cashing a top heart.

If the 9 or 10 appears on my left I will enter dummy and take the hook. The chance that LHO has stiff 10 or 9 is about 16% while the chance that lefty has 109 doubleton or 109x is about 7.5%. The difference seems large enough to risk a club ruff.

[kfay]

Sorry, LHO continued the 7. Doesn't like either minor, presumably.

[whereagles]

Glad that Han bothered to calculate the odds... with those I'd finesse the ♥8 on the way back... lol.

[han]

I didn't, I just plunked them into Pavlicek's calculator.

[Echognome]

Hannie, on Oct 16 2007, 02:27 PM, said:

I didn't, I just plunked them into Pavlicek's calculator.

You're such a plunker!

[Walddk]

If you took a first round finesse with the 8 and it worked because LHO had a small singleton, congratulations. Hard to argue with success, but if you played like that, you played against the odds. The 8 wins when West has the remaining small heart singleton but loses when he has stiff 9, 10, and 9x, 10x. Even against 9xx and 10xx; not likely, I agree, but still.

I agree with Han's line.

Roland

[whereagles]

correction: "withOUT those, I'd finesse"

[kfay]

whereagles, on Oct 17 2007, 03:41 AM, said:

correction: "withOUT those, I'd finesse"

This is exactly how I felt, and so I finessed the 8. I was so certain that hearts were breaking 4-1 that I didn't even consider the added percentage of the 3-2 split. When confronted with the numbers, though, it's blatant that mine was the wrong line . I was just figuring it was 3:2 against the stiff 9/10.

Anyways, it worked out for me this time:

Scoring: IMP

---

[whereagles]

Just goes to show that excessive thinking can be harmful... LOLOLOL

[kfay]

Let's pretend that your RHO 'flashes' you 4 hearts, though. Do you finesse now?

I played this hand in the Tuesday BBO Juniors tournament and Rich Reisig played the same way that you did, Han. Yet when I asked him about it he didn't quote any percentages, just the 'humiliation factor' if you lose to the stiff 9 or 10 or doubleton or whatever. Seeing that I'm surrounded by numbers men I ask:

you'd take the finesse if you knew hearts were 4-1, right?

[gwnn]

kfay, on Oct 17 2007, 03:25 PM, said:

you'd take the finesse if you knew hearts were 4-1, right?

There are 3 4-1 breaks when the double finesse is right (stiff 2, 5 and 7 at LHO) and only 2 (stiff 9/T) where the high heart is right. So yes, it needs to be taken.