[Hanoi5]

Scoring: IMP

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You reach 6♠ and the opponents passed throughout. ♦J was the lead which you took in hand and immediately you played a small club towards the table, West rising up with the ♣A to play a small heart which you win in hand with the Ace over East's 9. How do you tackle trumps if:

a. West tanked over 6♠ before passing.
b. Nothing unusual happened during the bidding (West didn't tank).
c. You bid 5♦ asking for the trump queen and North bid 5♠, West asking if it denied the Queen (and you answered you didn't know but you expected North to have it)
d. Are the situations mentioned above important? Do you take this kind of things into account? How or why not?

[hanp]

d) yes but i would have to be there.

[Hanoi5]

Why? Is my description that bad?

[hanp]

Because your question is about reading the opponents.

[Simplicity]

In all these situations being there would defo make a difference for me, along with my knowledge of the opponents and the auction.

I mean in the first case is it conceivable that West is in the tank over 6♠ because he's looking a heart void and no ace? In that case playing a club back wasn't the best idea.

[FrancesHinden]

In general, I would just get on with taking the spade finesse.

Asking about the spade queen rarely says anything about the asker's hand. Often he's just generally asking about the auction, or he's deciding if he fancies a trump lead or not, or all sorts of things. Sometimes they just like to show off that they know what a trump queen ask is. Or perhaps they want to know because if you've bid a slam knowing you are missing the queen, that implies you might have been interested in a grand which may change their defence.

Very very few players who are on lead against a slam tank and pass. I would normally assume he's just thinking about what's for dinner tonight, or wondering what to lead. A long tank in the pass-out seat can be more informative.

There's another thing you haven't mentioned: defenders who think they are likely to have a trump trick tend to lead an ace. West didn't lead his ace, so he doesn't think a trump trick is likely. That just makes me think West is less likely to have Q10xx. The other thing defenders do who think they may have a trump trick is to try and make a lead that looks like a singleton, in the hope that will stop you safety playing trumps. He hasn't done that either.

But as han says, you have to be there. If you are playing someone who would seriously think about doubling just because he has Q10xx and an ace, then perhaps you would do things differently.

[Hanoi5]

I was wondering 'cause the 'experts' agreed that ♠A and ♠ to the J was the right way to play the trump suit, however after West asked if 5♠ denied the Queen I toyed with the idea of playing the ♠J from the table which was the winning play (spades were 10x - Qxx). I didn't play like that (unfortunately) I just 'toyed' with the idea but I see all of you think it wrong, right?

[ArtK78]

It is a deep position - definitely inferior to the normal play of the suit.

[FrancesHinden]

Hanoi5, on Mar 10 2009, 03:44 PM, said:

I just 'toyed' with the idea but I see all of you think it wrong, right?

"all" of us?

Three people have replied, and only one of them (me) has actually given an answer (which is to agree that it would probably be wrong).

[Hanoi5]

You're a legion Frances.

[hanp]

Of course it is the technically wrong play, so it all depends on how confident you are about your "read". If you are sure that LHO does not have the queen then go for it. Depending on your degree of confidence you could cash the ace-king of trump or lead the jack of spades on your first trump trick. What certainly seems wrong is to cash the king and then lead the jack.

[FrancesHinden]

As a slightly more general point, I've found that one of the things that makes partner/team-mates cross is when you do something strange, or anti-percentage purely due to "table feel" and you are wrong.

I don't mean doing something because you think there are implications from the opening lead, or the play to date - these are always debatable - I mean purely acting on e.g. a feeling that LHO looks very tense so probably has the queen of trumps (say).

Some people - particularly expert poker players - are really good at reading the table. I'm dreadful, I've learnt that I should virtually always just go with the percentage line. What you should do, if you care enough, is keep track of every occasion where you have a 'feeling' that the hand lies a particular way, and see how often you are right. If you don't do it systematically, you only remember the times you thought something, did the normal thing, and discovered your thoughts were right. You forget all the other times.