[kgr]

teams; IMP's

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LHO leads a small ♠ and RHO takes the ♠A and returns a small spade.
From the play in ♠ you 'know' that LHO had 5c♠ and RHO had 4c♠.

It is better to?:
1) play ♣A, return to hand and finesse ♣
2) play ♣A and K and ♥

My initial estimate: This is 50% + 2% (finesse correct or Q single) versus 40% + 16% (♣Q double or 4 tricks ♥)?

...verifying with suitplay:
1) 40.0%+9%*51%=44.6% (making 5 tricks in ♣ + 4 tricks ♣ and 3 tricks ♥)
2) 33%+21%=54% (making 5 tricks ♣ when Qx + making 4 tricks ♥)
=> Does this look correct?

Remark: It seems that:
1a) I overestimated the prob to make 5 ♣ tricks
1b) but when LHO has ♣Q 4th/5th then I still have some chances in ♥
2a) I overestimated prob that ♣Q is double or single
2b) I underestimated the prob to make 4 ♥ tricks

[nige1]

Kgr asks "teams; IMP's LHO leads a small ♠ and RHO takes the ♠A and returns a small spade.From the play in ♠ you 'know' that LHO had 5c♠ and RHO had 4c♠.

You have seven top tricks so need only two more for the contract. These could be ♦T9 diamonds or ♥JT or ♣. .
- you may guess to win ♠K discarding a club..
- Cash ♣A hoping for a singleton ♣Q.
- Cash ♦A. If an honour falls then continue with ♦K in case ♦QJ are doubleton
- If no luck so far, then cash ♥ AK. in case ♥Q is doubleton.
- If all this fails then take the ♣ finesse (hoping for a 3-2 break with the queen right).

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[nige1]

Or perhaps kgr's idea is better: ♦AK ♣AK and if no luck finesse ♥T hoping that RHO holds ♥Q singleton, doubleton or trebleton.

[kgr]

Is cashing ♦AK giving a net gain? Maybe the probability of ♦QJ falling is so low that you will loose on average more then you win by doing that?

[nige1]

kgr, on 2011-October-03, 01:11, said:

Is cashing ♦AK giving a net gain? Maybe the probability of ♦QJ falling is so low that you will loose on average more then you win by doing that?

If no quack drops when you cash the ace. you can keep the king for later. If you intend to take an early heart finesse, kgr is probably right. If you intend to take a late club finesse, however, then you may well decide to cash as many winners as possible

• to take advantage of extra chances but also
• to alter your plan in the light of what you can discover about the distribution and
• to profit from obscure squeeze positions where the player with long spades has lots of guards (or thinks he has).
• to avoid going down extra tricks, if the finesse fails