[paulg]

North: K1062
South: J83

You are playing in 1NT and wish to make at least two tricks in this suit. There is a single entry, outside this suit, to the South hand and the lead is currently in North.

How do you play it?

Paul

PS there really is little other significant information available on the hand other than West's opening lead appears defensive, a highish spot card into a suit where you are 3-3 with the top 3 honours.

[awm]

I think I would try going to the south hand and low to the ten. If this loses to the queen, then low to the jack next. This wins if any of:

(1) Queen with west.
(2) Ace with east.
(3) Suit is 3-3.
(4) 9 is doubleton in any hand.
(5) West plays A from Ax on the first trick.

[cherdano]

awm, on Sep 30 2008, 02:25 AM, said:

I think I would try going to the south hand and low to the ten. If this loses to the queen, then low to the jack next. This wins if any of:

(1) Queen with west.
(2) Ace with east.
(3) Suit is 3-3.
(4) 9 is doubleton in any hand.
(5) West plays A from Ax on the first trick.

Hmm. (1) is wrong, (2) is wrong, and (5) seems unlikely...

[Codo]

Low to the 8 wins whenenver East has the nine (50%) + when he has Qx and plays the queen now + Hx holdings, If I guess right which honour is doubleton. So maybe it is around 55%?

I think it is even better to play the King first. If they know, that we have limited entries to the south hand, they might duck this, which will improve my chances quite well.
But even if they don't, I can still play low to the 8 later.

[awm]

Now that I'm a bit more awake, my original line wins when:

(1) The suit is 3-3, roughly 20/64.
(2) The nine is doubleton, roughly 10/64
(3) The queen is doubleton onside, 4/64 (removing Q9 tight which is double-counted)
(4) Singleton ace or queen with east, 2/64
(5) Any singleton nine, 2/64.

Total is 38/64.

Slightly better appears to be to play low to the 8 first. If this forces an honor we should be cold now. Otherwise if it loses to the nine, go to dummy and play to the ten. This picks up:

(1) Nine onside, 32/64.
(2) Q9 doubleton with west, 1/64
(3) Q9x or AQ9 with west, 4/64
(4) AQ tight with east, 1/64
(5) Singleton ace or queen with east, 2/64.

Total 40/64.

You also get the chance of a misdefense if east holds Qx (might rise with queen) although this would be much more likely to work if south was dummy.