[Stephen Tu]

Scoring: MP

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2nt-6nt, diamond J lead. What's the optimal MP line?

There seem to be a lot of options, including risking going down in some cases, and the calculations get complicated.

[snillrik13]

No problem. Take a spade finesse and 12 tricks are guaranteed and 13 poossible, if it does not fakil.

[JLOL]

I am terrible at this type of problem so this is probably not right but this is how I would play it at the table (ie the intuitive line to me):

My general plan would be to cash 2 diamonds, test clubs, if it's not Txxxx then I would cash the SA and DK, HA, HK and run clubs. If clubs were Txxxx then I would finesse spades and if that lived cash SA, DK, HA, HK, run winners etc.

Obviously my last discard from dummy would be a diamond. If there is a guess in the endgame about whether to finesse a heart or not I assume I will guess it right.

Interested to see how bad this is compared to whatever the right line is

[rogerclee]

Did some math, seems like the squeeze line is the best no matter what happens on two rounds of hearts. So I have time to test clubs, and if they work, just leave:

♥A9 ♦x

♠Q ♥x ♣x

and read them, usually cashing my last club and playing to dummy's ♥A.

[Fluffy]

nobody leading ♠Q to overtake with the ace?

[JLOL]

Fluffy, on Jan 29 2009, 04:30 AM, said:

nobody leading ♠Q to overtake with the ace?

You lose the spade threat in your hand for a spade/heart squeeze so thats a pretty high cost.