[AceOfHeart]

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South deals and bid 1D ,north respond 1S and south bided 1nt , north jumped to 3nt.

lead 4 heart to the 2,5 and Q. how do you play this hand? basically 2 ways i think play club 33 or hope to establish a 4th dia. Which is better?

[Fluffy]

Hey Ace of ♥!

You´ve duplicated the ♥5, it may be important a couple of tricks after

[Flame]

You dont have to choose , you can try both, play the diamond first. if you dont lose 4 diamonds then you still have time to check the clubs, so you problem is how to play the diamond iffectively but minimizing the risk of losing 4 of them.

[AceOfHeart]

the actual hand

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ya sorry for the typo the defender followed with the 6 heart not the 5.

On the play, the declarer after winning the heart played small dia to the Q losing to the ace. The defense return a heart.declarer tried another dia out losing to the jack. and defense return another heart. Declarer then tried another dia losing to the king and the defense cashed 2 more hearts to down the contract.

I was wondering whether there is a better line of play?

[myfish]

maybe i am wrong :
just play C 3-3 after losing to D ace
1 stopper in H only but you have to led D twice

[cnszsun]

Playing ♦ can still work if 5 ♥s holder has only two ♦s, so i think it depends on which distribution has better odds between ♣3-3 and 5 ♥s + 2 ♦s at the same hand.

[Flame]

myfish, on May 13 2004, 12:33 AM, said:

maybe i am wrong :
just play C 3-3 after losing to D ace
1 stopper in H only but you have to led D twice

not only you are wrong but also you are influenced by seeing the full hand which is something you should work on, giving up the diamond suit is wrong and im more then guessing you would not do that without seeing the hand (and you would be right).
playing diamonds works whever hearts are 4-4 or hearts are 5-3 and the one with the long heart has only 2 diamonds, this is better then 3-3 club break.

[Free]

It's actually a simple counting problem, tempo is the most important! Because of the ♥ switch, you are a tempo short for the ♦ suit, unless it has a winning card right away. The biggest problem with the ♦s is how to play them. I wouldn't play to the Q, but small to small, hoping West has AK. If that doesn't work, I don't think you have to hope for only a doubleton ♥ in West, but for 3-3 distribution in ♣.

Since you have 1 more control in ♥ and 2 losing tricks in ♦ (either way you play them in this game) it's OBLIGATED to switch to ♣, and that's not because I see the complete hand, but because I count my controls and I'm a tempo short... You'll never be able to make a 4th ♦, but I agree you should try this suit first, because it has the most chance for succes. However, after the first trick in ♦ you'll know weither this suit has any future or not, and in this case it hadn't.

Count your controls and you'll know if you can get extra tricks from a certain suit or not. Myfish is right, Flame, YOU are wrong!

[Fluffy]

They key here is to see if any of the opponents shows ♥3 or not on first 2 rounds.

To maximice your ♦ chances you play ♦ to the 7 hoping to find a bare ♦A or ♦K on West (short ♥ guy), or to cover a bare ♦9 or ♦J on East (long ♥).

When it loses and the ♥3 doesn´t appear in west (so ♥ are 5-3) you have a decision to make: chances of third ♦ being win by the short ♥ are better than 50%, wich is much better than ♣ chances. But that is only when there is only a third ♦ stopper!, maybe ♦ are AKJ9-2 so you can´t win playing ♦.

So if your ♦7 losed to the 9 I think its better to switch to ♣, otherwise continue ♦.

[Flame]

Free, on May 13 2004, 03:56 AM, said:

Myfish is right, Flame, YOU are wrong!

Why am i wrong ? did i suggest not playing the line you suggested ?actually if you read my first post here you will see that i was refering to the same exact play as you suggested.
I dont know which line is the best, what is better 3-3 club or a combination of 4-4 heart + if 5-3 then the 5 is with the 2 diamond ?
I only said that if someone look at this problem and say, i dont see the problem, you make it because clubs are 3-3 then he isnt being honest with himself and he is influenced by seeing the hands and he should work on it.

[mpefritz]

I haven't worked it out, but if one player has 5♥ and 3♦, his partner started with 3♥ and 2♦, it affects the black suit distribution likelihoods.

So one player has 5 black cards, and the other has 8 black cards. You are missing 6 clubs and 7 spades. I suspect the odds of 3-3 clubs are slightly reduced in this case, compared other relevant red suit cases.

Therefore, if you are concerned about the red suit distributions, the one that you are concerned about likely makes the club split less likely also, whereas if the hearts were 4-4 and diamonds 3-2, the club split would increase. These calculations should really be part of an odds analysis.

So you also need to inlcude 4-1 diamond with the 1 diamond with 5 hearts, which would likely make 3-3 clubs better, etc...

I can try to calculate these later, but it would include some assumptions about the bidding and leads, and i do not have time right now for it.

I think the bottom line is it is not a simple one suit split analysis, as the splits in one are certainly dependent on the splits in the others.

My gut feeling is to try the diamonds by leading low to the Q (caters to for AK, AKx AKxx in front of Q).

fritz

[myfish]

i do affect by seeing the whole hand
feel sorry about it
maybe next time use a card to hind the opps hand

but in this question...
i would ask the defender 2 things...
1. do they lead from 4th best or anything else?
2. what is their signal in defence?

and the small card in H is important too
though smoke signal in H is possible
but not many player like it and try it.............

if H is likely to be 4-4....i will try D...