[Free]

The auction went (opps silent):
2♣ - 2♠ (art strong ; 8-10 balanced)
6NT - pass

LHO leads ♠9 and you get the following:

Scoring: IMP

---

What's the best line?

Spoilers:

Spoiler

If you finesse ♦ it will lose to West's Jack
♣ don't break 3-3

[rbforster]

I blame my partner's archaic systems preferences for keeping us from 6♠

[billw55]

Well a simple double finesse in diamonds is 75% by itself. So one diamond finesse, if it loses test clubs, if they don't break then cash everything ending in dummy for another diamond finesse. Should be over 80% altogether.

edit: I suppose I should cash the spades before testing clubs. They are well hidden, maybe someone will toss their 4th.

[rhm]

billw55, on Nov 16 2009, 02:52 PM, said:

Well a simple double finesse in diamonds is 75% by itself.  So one diamond finesse, if it loses test clubs, if they don't break then cash everything ending in dummy for another diamond finesse.  Should be over 80% altogether.

edit: I suppose I should cash the spades before testing clubs.  They are well hidden, maybe someone will toss their 4th.

So what are you going to discard from hand on the 4th♠ if you cash them first?

Rainer Herrmann

[maggieb]

Win in dummy, hook the diamond, reach this endposition

♠J ♥xx ♦x ♣void
♠void ♥void ♦AKT ♣x

If RHO has the club guard, play for the showup/double squeeze.
If LHO has the club guard, play for the diamond hook.

[rhm]

Win the ♠ in dummy and take a diamond finesse.
Whatever is returned win in hand and cash your ♣ tops.
Assuming ♣ do not break cash the king of ♥
Finally run spades discarding your low ♥

Cash the ♥ ace discarding your ♣ if not good
Assuming that ♥ are not good:

If LHO has shown out on the ♣ or ♥, play ♦ from the top.
If RHO has the remaining ♦ honor it will drop.

If LHO followed to both hearts and clubs take a second finesse in ♦.

This wins whenever any one of the following conditions are present:

The double finesse in ♦ wins
♣ are 3-3
RHO is at least 4-4 in the minors
RHO has at least 5♥ and 4♦

Chances are around 90% for this play to succeed

Rainer Herrmann

[awm]

Here's a slightly better line.

Win the spade in dummy, take a diamond hook. Say this loses to an honor and a spade comes back. Now we cash three clubs. If they're 3-3 we're home. If not, we know who has the long clubs.

(1) RHO has the long clubs. Cash two hearts and the rest of the spades. If RHO holds onto the club, pitch our club on the last spade. Now run diamonds from the top. If RHO was guarding diamonds, he's squeezed.

(2) LHO has the long clubs. Cash the diamonds. Assuming both follow and the last honor does not fall, run the spades. If RHO doesn't pitch the last diamond honor, we pitch our small diamond. Assuming that RHO had the outstanding diamond honor, this creates a double squeeze where RHO must keep a diamond (so unguard hearts) and LHO must keep a club (so unguard hearts).

This combination makes whenever billw55's line makes, plus picking up ♦QJx or ♦QJ tight offside when clubs don't break.

[Jlall]

Yeah good line by awm

[maggieb]

awm, on Nov 16 2009, 03:43 PM, said:

plus picking up ♦QJx or ♦QJ tight offside when clubs don't break.

Good spot, missed this.

[billw55]

rhm, on Nov 16 2009, 03:12 PM, said:

So what are you going to discard from hand on the 4th♠ if you cash them first?

tough question that maybe I should think more carefully.

[billw55]

awm, on Nov 16 2009, 03:43 PM, said:

(1) RHO has the long clubs. Cash two hearts and the rest of the spades. If RHO holds onto the club, pitch our club on the last spade. Now run diamonds from the top. If RHO was guarding diamonds, he's squeezed.

I'm not following this, I must be missing something.

After cashing the spades and hearts, 10 tricks have been played: ♠, ♦, ♠, 3♣, 2♥, 2♠. So with 3 cards left, what is stopping RHO from retaining ♦Qx and ♣J? In which case how is he squeezed?

[gnasher]

Suppose it goes: spade, losing diamond finesse, spade return, three top clubs finding someone with four. I could play for this ending, with the lead in dummy:

Scoring: IMP

---

If the minor-suit guards are divided, each opponent is squeezed on the last spade.

If LHO has the club guard, that's better than the two-finesses line, because it gains against ♦QJx on the left and never loses.

If RHO has the club guard, LHO could have broken up the the double squeeze by playing a heart back. When he doesn't do that, should I assume that the finesse is working and the squeeze isn't? I don't know anyone who is good enough to play back a heart from 98x Qxxx QJxx xx but a spade from 98x Qxxxx Qxx xx, so I'll play the double squeeze anyway.

[Free]

maggieb, on Nov 16 2009, 09:39 PM, said:

Win in dummy, hook the diamond, reach this endposition

♠J ♥xx ♦x ♣void
♠void ♥void ♦AKT ♣x

If RHO has the club guard, play for the showup/double squeeze.
If LHO has the club guard, play for the diamond hook.

I think you're missing something: RHO can guard ♣+♥ while LHO only guards the ♦. So you're not picking up ♦QJxx.

There is a better line because you can pick this up as well

[Free]

2 more spoilers:

Spoiler

- LHO returns a ♠ after winning ♦J. RHO shows out!
- RHO appears to have 4 ♣s

[pooltuna]

Free, on Nov 16 2009, 02:27 PM, said:

The auction went (opps silent):
2♣ - 2♠ (art strong ; 8-10 balanced)
6NT - pass

LHO leads ♠9 and you get the following:

Scoring: IMP

---

What's the best line?

Spoilers:

Spoiler

If you finesse ♦ it will lose to West's Jack
♣ don't break 3-3

my gut reaction is to set a squeeze by winning the lead in dummy and finessing the 9 of ♦

[gnasher]

If RHO has the club guard, it feels like there ought to be a compound squeeze (or a double played as compound), but I can't see how to make it work.

After three rounds of spades, RHO can guard only one of the red suits. If he doesn't have a heart guard at that point, we can cash the two top hearts and then the last spade, executing a double squeeze.

If, however, he has kept a heart guard, leaving the diamonds guarded by West, our entries are messed up. We need to cash the top diamonds before playing the last spade, but there's no way back to dummy without destroying the heart communication.

[mikeh]

I like adam's line but would add a wrinkle.

If LHO shows out on the second club, cash the top diamonds now, rather than the 3rd club winner. Pitch a heart from dummy, then cross in spades, and cash the last spade winner, reducing, before that card is played, to A Axx void x opposite void Kx 10 Qx.

Now, if we guess that rho guards both minors, we cash the heart K/A before the spade A, squeezing rho.

If we guess that LHO holds the diamond guard, then we cash the spade A, forcing rho to unguard hearts, as we pitch our now useless club threat, and then cross in clubs, catching West in a diamond-heart position.

This line works on 4-2 club splits as well, but might end up looking extremely silly when clubs were 3-3 all along (unless we drop the QJx of diamonds), hence not adopting it unless we know clubs are 1=5. And, of course, we need to read the end position.

cautionary note: I shouldn't be spending time doing this right now, so haven't checked my position: my apologies if i have screwed it up.

[Free]

Do we have some percentage freaks who can calculate the various lines proposed? I just wonder if the various squeeze lines are better than just combining the double ♦ finesse (or finesse and cash later on) with the 3-3 ♣ split.

[gnasher]

Comparing (1) the double diamond finesse (combined with a showup squeeze against East in the minors) and (2) the double squeeze with hearts as pivot:

Both lines work if clubs are 3-3, both diamonds are onside, or there's ♦H/Hx/Hxx onside.

If LHO has four clubs, (2) sometimes gains and never loses, so is obviously better.

If RHO has four clubs, (1) gains when LHO has ♦Hxx, but loses when he has ♦QJxx/QJxxx.

Using Pavlicek's calculator, with vacant spaces of 11:9, I get
  ♦Hxx: 15%
  ♦QJxx/QJxxx: 20%
so (2) is better than (1), which is what I'd expect.

[Edited to include the showup squeeze in Line (1).]

Further edit: I realise that I haven't yet provided any figures for RHM's line. That's because it's complicated.

This post has been edited by gnasher: 2009-November-18, 08:43