[FrancesHinden]

Can you see any reason to get this right? I couldn't...
(I'm only giving the auction because you'll complain if I don't, please don't moan about it)

Scoring: IMP

1♣ 1♥ 1♠ 2♥
2♠ P 3NT P
4♣ P 4♦ P
4♠ P 5♣ P
P P

---

1♣ = 5=5=4=2 style, strong NT
1♠ = denies 4 spades, a hand strong enough to bid 2D or raise to 3C, and denies good enough hearts to bid NT (he felt he was too strong for 1NT and insufficiently hearty for 2NT)
2♠ = natural reverse, implies 4=6
3NT = natural, at most one heart stop (because of the 1S bid)
4♦/4♠ cue bids

RHO is a known cautious bidder
LHO leads the queen of spades

Can you see any reason to play one line or the other?
I thought of one reason to take the diamond finesse, and one reason not to, which wasn't very helpful.

[Walddk]

I can see a strong reason to take the diamond finesse at trick 2. ♠Q is definitely a singleton, so my problem is that I can't afford to let East in to give partner a ruff. Can I be certain that East has one of the aces? No, but it's very likely.

The reason is that West, if a competent player, would not lead his singleton if he had both aces. It would then be unlikely that he can get his partner on lead in time for the ruff. A better chance would then be to hope for a scoring trick with ♠Q via an unsuccessful finesse by declarer.

So, rightly or wrongly, I would finesse diamonds to get rid of my heart loser, and perhaps go one more down.

Roland

[655321]

I would be inclined to take the diamond finesse, making if the ♦K is right, and going off otherwise.

The alternative needs LHO to hold both Aces, so my only reasoning is the chance of one card being right is better than the chance of 2 cards being right.

[Codo]

I disagree with this line.


I play a Diamond to the ace and play the queen. If he does not cover, I discard the heart.
This line succeeds wheenver LHO has the Ace of club and the King of Diamond or the ace of Heart.

There are some interference that RHO has the ace of club: He did bid stronger, so he obviously owes more HCPs. And the even better reason: He had not lead a singleton which will help you to set up your side suit if he has no stop in Clubs. (Of course this is not written in stone, but still....

So I think that the club of ace and one of the high honours with West is a much better chance then a simple diamond finesse. But maybe just success will explain this line to my team mates.

Besides I don't buy that the lead of the queen denies the possession of two aces:

What will you lead from Q, Axxxx,xxxx,Axx?
After this bidding, the chance that declarer has a heart void is high, so what else?
A simple diamond can work, but how likely is that? I guess more then one player will try the queen of spades and hope that partner has one ace somewhere or the King of hearts and declarer a heart singleton.

But will you lead the queen of spade from:

Q, AJxxx,Kxxx,xxx? Looks very dangerous to me.

[FrancesHinden]

Codo, on Nov 11 2008, 11:09 AM, said:

I play a Diamond to the ace and play the queen. If he does not cover, I discard the heart.
This line succeeds wheenver LHO has the Ace of club and the King of Diamond or the ace of Heart.

Does it?
Let's say LHO wins the king of diamonds and plays ace and another club. Nominate your 11 tricks.

[Walddk]

Codo, on Nov 11 2008, 01:09 PM, said:

What will you lead from Q, Axxxx,xxxx,Axx?

♣x

[655321]

FrancesHinden, on Nov 11 2008, 06:27 AM, said:

Codo, on Nov 11 2008, 11:09 AM, said:

I play a Diamond to the ace and play the queen. If he does not cover, I discard the heart.
This line succeeds wheenver LHO has the Ace of club and the King of Diamond or the ace of Heart.

Does it?
Let's say LHO wins the king of diamonds and plays ace and another club. Nominate your 11 tricks.

6 club tricks, the ♦A, and 4 spade tricks, when East is squeezed in the majors.

But I admit the scissors line did not occur to me. I am not convinced it is better (or worse) than a simple diamond finesse, though. With only the heart Ace, West might very well lead a singleton spade, playing partner for either black Ace.

[Codo]

[quote name='655321' date='Nov 11 2008, 08:35 PM'] Let's say LHO wins the king of diamonds and plays ace and another club. Nominate your 11 tricks.[/QUOTE]
6 club tricks, the [di]A, and 4 spade tricks, when East is squeezed in the majors. [/quote]


With furious team mates I would finesse in Diamond too.
This won't lose the post mortem. But still....

[mikeh]

If we place LHO with the trump Ace, and a stiff spade, both of which are suggested by the lead, we can look to the bidding for a clue as to which of the top red cards we need to play him for.

I think the key is the 4♦ cue bid. LHO should expect that he cannot win the first trump and cross to partner in diamonds... but we haven't cued hearts... so he can hope to get there in hearts... I assume that we denied a void in hearts when we bypassed the suit to bid spades... now, he may hope to get there if he holds the Ace, playing North for a slow/uncertain stopper such as Q10x, but he is going to be much more confident if he is missing the Ace.

If we place RHO with the heart Ace, then we have to take the diamond hook... I don't think any line works against both reds in east (or the club Ace over there).

So I finesse diamonds.

No doubt LHO will show up with Q9 Axxxx xxxx Ax The good news would be that I'd expect to win against against anyone who made that lead from that holding, if the match lasts long enough.

[Cascade]

Walddk, on Nov 11 2008, 11:38 PM, said:

The reason is that West, if a competent player, would not lead his singleton if he had both aces.

I am not sure about this.

I might consider leading my singleton with both aces hoping to judge later whether to underlead my heart ace to get partner in.

[gnasher]

I finesse in diamonds, because East didn't double 4♦.

[Impact]

What is East's hand :-
- he is presumed to hold 5S assuming SQ lead was singleton;
- I think we assume he holds 4H (possibly only 3H ie 5-3 in Majors with no minor shortage but then surely with a 6th H West would bid 3H at his 2nd turn given a virtual certainty of 1-6-4-2?) and then minors 2-2 as with 5S & 4H and a shortage ANYONE would bid more than 2H. However if that is the case West is 1-5-5-2 and eschewed Michaels. On balance I have been converted to East being 5-3-3-2 as otherwise West is VERY shapely (at least 55 in reds or 2 black singletons) and likely to have taken another bid over 2S having received H support.
- If East is 5-4-2-2 presumably he has few values but the assumption about not holding the DK is not strong given that he only holds 2D and would hate to see 4DXX as the contract...

Whatever the value of the foregoing, I am all the more inclined to take the D finesse as I place West with D length and it is a legitimate disposal of the problem although the scissors looks great (but then falls shy of the CA being with RHO).

regards

[paulg]

Cascade, on Nov 11 2008, 11:15 PM, said:

Walddk, on Nov 11 2008, 11:38 PM, said:

The reason is that West, if a competent player, would not lead his singleton if he had both aces.

I am not sure about this.

I might consider leading my singleton with both aces hoping to judge later whether to underlead my heart ace to get partner in.

This was my first reaction, but the 3NT bid suggests that this is less likely to be an option.

Paul

[nige1]

FrancesHinden, on Nov 11 2008, 05:25 AM, said:

Scoring: IMP

1♣ 1♥ 1♠ 2♥
2♠ P 3NT P
4♣ P 4♦ P
4♠ P 5♣ P
P P
1♣ = 5=5=4=2 style, strong NT
1♠ = denies 4 spades, a hand strong enough to bid 2D or raise to 3C, and denies good enough hearts to bid NT (he felt he was too strong for 1NT and insufficiently hearty for 2NT)
2♠ = natural reverse, implies 4=6
3NT = natural, at most one heart stop (because of the 1S bid)
4♦/4♠ cue bids
RHO is a known cautious bidder
LHO leads the queen of spades
Can you see any reason to play one line or the other?
I thought of one reason to take the diamond finesse, and one reason not to, which wasn't very helpful.Can you see any reason to get this right?  I couldn't...
(I'm only giving the auction because you'll complain if I don't, please don't moan about it)

---

You are more likely to lead a singleton ♠Q than a doubleton; and a singleton is a slightly more likely lead when you hold ♣A than ♥A; also, If RHO has ♦K then he is less llikely to hold ♥A.so Codo's line seems a candidate for the brilliancy prize:
♠A ♦A ♦Q discarding ♥ if RHO does not produce ♦K.

[FrancesHinden]

At the table, all the following lines work:

- Diamond finesse
- Scissors coup + squeeze
- Playing a trump towards the 10, because LHO ducks from Q Jxxxx Kxxxx Ax.

I know that LHO ducks, because that's the line I took at the table.
I don't think it's the right line. I think it's very close between the other two lines, and it depends a bit on how much you read into the lack of double of 4D.

So why did I take the wrong line? Because I was concerned that

"No doubt LHO will show up with Q9 Axxxx xxxx Ax The good news would be that I'd expect to win against against anyone who made that lead from that holding, if the match lasts long enough. "

and the fact that LHO ducked the first round of trumps and didn't switch to a diamond when winning the ace of clubs shows that I was 'right' in some sense. We were playing a very weak team in the first round of a KO.

(this last part is all pretty irrelevant to deciding what the best line is, which is an interesting academic exercise. But someone always wants to know what actually happened at the table)