[FrancesHinden]

Scoring: hybrid

P P 1♣ 1♦
1♥ P 1♠ P
1NT 2♦ 3♦ P
3♠ P 4♠ P
P P

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love all, hybrid scoring (partly imps, partly point-a-board (BAM))

Ace of diamonds lead, 2, 7, Jack
King of diamonds, 3, 8, and you discard the 10 of hearts
7 of hearts switch, low, 2, Ace
You draw three rounds of trumps. On the last trump RHO discards a low heart.
Club to the king, on which all follow.
Club from dummy, low, ?

some background info:

1. Opponents are very experienced and successful players, but generally in a 'rubber bridge' style, they are conservative bidders and they are certainly not into any sort of helpful signalling such as suit preference inferences and they are unlikely to bother giving count very often.

2. I don't believe there is one definitely right answer to this problem, but I would like to know how you would play it, for reasons which I will make clear in due course.

[gwnn]

deleted random silliness, as I misread the auction

[brianshark]

RHO has 2♠s and 3♦s, leaving 8 cards in the rounded suits. For ducking the ♥7, he's known to have J and 8 as well as the 2 and whatever low heart he discarded on the last trump (lets assume it's the 4). This gives RHO ♠xx♥J842♦x87♣xx and 2 more cards and LHO ♠xxxx♥7♦AKxxx♣x and 2 more cards.

This means LHO's switch was from either K75, K7, 75 or 7. If K75 then RHO has 4 ♣s and we must finesse. Any other holding and the ♣s drop. Either few pts or the possesion of the the ♥K would explain righty's reluctance to raise 1st time round. And while I think I'd rule out K7 doubleton, we don't know where the ♦Q is either.

It's very tight. I'm going to guess to play the drop relying that lefty wouldn't lead middle from K third believing, from his perspective, that his partner has more of a need to know the layout of the suit/possession of the ♥K than declarer would.

[Fluffy]

RHO has 2 spades, 3 diamonds, KJ8xx of hearts at least, so at most 3 clubs.

[Halo]

This is very difficult because we have a strong player on our left who was probably able to visualise our hand exactly after trick two (except maybe the club ten).

So I don't think I can read much into anything, and I'll just play for the drop.

[Edmunte1]

1. I would have played 2 rounds od clubs before trumps
2. In this situation i'll play for the most probable shape with East 4252 (so i'll play for the drop). Why? Maybe with only 4 hearts East would have bid a direct 2♦. Also with clubs 4-1 probably 5♣ and 3nt will probably go down, so i'll don't risk a big loss.

[bid_em_up]

Edmunte1, on Oct 25 2007, 11:22 AM, said:

(so i'll play for the drop) Also with clubs 4-1 probably 5♣ and 3nt will probably go down, so i'll don't risk a big loss.

Isn't this backwards? If the clubs are breaking, 3N is a lock with a likely 10 or 11 tricks.

Given that the form of scoring is partly BAM, you will be losing the board even if the club J drops.

I would take the club hook at this point as it is unlikely to matter (in terms of winning the board) if I go down.

[Edmunte1]

Quote

Isn't this backwards? If the clubs are breaking, 3N is a lock with a likely 10 or 11 tricks.
Given that the form of scoring is partly BAM, you will be losing the board even if the club J drops.

If 3NT makes (10 or 11 tricks) i've already lost BAM points, but i still defend our IMP points

[FrancesHinden]

Thank you for all your votes, I am now reassured.

This hand was actually the subject of an Appeal from the event, and I was on the appeals committee. We had to decide how the play would have gone had this been the auction and initial defence. We gave declarer 100% of the benefit of making 4S by playing for the drop (the Jack is offside), although afterwards it occurred to us that a pure vacant spaces argument suggests the finesse is better.

[gnasher]

From the play at trick two, you know that West has DAKQ - otherwise he would have arranged to force you without setting up a diamond winner in dummy. With HK in a 4351 shape he would have had an obvious takeout double of 1C; I think the same applies to HJ. With a 4252 shape he would never have made a takeout double.

If you accept the above, you are actually comparing the likelihoods of Jxxx xxx AKQxx x and Jxxx [xx/Kx/Jx] AKQxx Jx. I haven't done any arithmetic, but that sounds like enough to turn the finesse into a poor bargain.

As I understand it, East had six hearts but hesitated at trick three, even though he should have known that declarer was down to a blank ace. Declarer later took a losing finesse against CJ, partly because he "knew" that East had at most five hearts. Are you sure that the damage was consequent rather than subsequent?

Andy Bowles