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Declarer counts his losers in a sit contract Why just examine the top three cards in each suit?

#1 User is offline   Liversidge 

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Posted 2019-February-25, 10:20

This is probably a silly question, but if you are playing in a suit contract and have AK96 opposite dummy's 8754, then should you not count two potential losers in case LHO has J10xx?
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#2 User is online   Cyberyeti 

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Posted 2019-February-25, 10:34

View PostLiversidge, on 2019-February-25, 10:20, said:

This is probably a silly question, but if you are playing in a suit contract and have AK96 opposite dummy's 8754, then should you not count two potential losers in case LHO has J10xx?


It's 2 potential losers, but the vast majority of the time (any 3-2 break, singleton honour offside), it's only one.
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#3 User is offline   Stephen Tu 

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Posted 2019-February-25, 10:45

Hell you might have 3 losers if LHO has all of them.
But generally you cater your play for the more common cases, and expect 1 loser from this suit. Then you start thinking about bad breaks and if there are free ways you can cater to them. Obv here you can deal with LHO having stiff honor but not RHO, for taking 3 tricks. And you observe it's better to cater to LHO having stiff honor (3 cases) vs LHO having small stiff (2 cases).

But it always depends on the whole hand, whether you have timing and transport for safety plays, whether it's MP or IMPs and safety play is free or not. It sucks to lose 2 tricks to RHO's HHxx, but it would also suck to duck a trick to LHO's HH followed by a ruff by RHO; you have to judge which is the greater risk.
If the contract is thin you think optimistically and hope things break. If you have tricks to burn and it's IMPs you think about if things break badly and if you can do anything to cater to those. And take advantage of safety plays when they are either free, or if it's IMPs and the odds support giving up a trick to play safe.

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#4 User is online   Cyberyeti 

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Posted 2019-February-25, 11:07

View PostStephen Tu, on 2019-February-25, 10:45, said:

And take advantage of safety plays when they are either free, or if it's IMPs and the odds support giving up a trick to play safe.


Or when you're in a really good MP contract you think nobody else has bid. I well recall bidding a VERY thin 6 at MPs with Q9872 opposite A10654 in the trump suit and trumps as the only potential losers.

2-3-4-discard was a pleasing safety play.

Another case is where the field is in 5m=, you're in 4M on a 4-3 fit, you can make 11 if trumps are 3-3 but go off if they're 4-2 or you can let them score the 2 trumps separately and make 10. Since you're winning the board anyway, just take the 10.
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#5 User is online   mikeh 

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Posted 2019-February-25, 11:21

It helps to know some basic distributional odds. Note that the a priori odds are very much subject to learning real things from the bidding and the play, as the hand progresses, but until you have real life data to modify one's thinking, the odds of a 3-2 break are 68.5%. Hardly a 'vast majority' of the time.

However, ignoring other potential issues, such as touched on by Stephen, the chances of bringing this suit home for 3 winners is better than that.

One cashes a top card. If LHO plays an honour, and assuming you have no other relevant information and are not running any risk of a ruff, exit a low one. If LHO had a stiff, rho can win this trick, and next time you can lead from dummy through his Hx into your K9. So you pick up all 3-2 breaks, and 3 of the 4-1 breaks (H - HHxx)

Counting winners and losers, which is an important thing to do at trick one when declarer, requires flexible thinking. Exactly what one would think would be very situation-dependent, but you'd start by assuming that you probably have 3 winners. Then, unless you cannot make it without 3 winners, you ask 'what can I do if the suit breaks badly? Then you ask whether you can lay the foundation for a backup plan without jeopardizing the contract when the suit is in fact 3-2.

If you play against a really good player, you will sometimes see that player take a long time at trick one on a hand that in fact is extremely easy to play. What's going on is that the player, having seen that the hand is easy (say, easy if a suit breaks normally), is now taking the time to imagine what could go wrong and, once having identified possible problems, has spent time thinking the hand through on those assumptions, and seeing whether there is a safe way to test the situation.

One common one is when one has, say, KQ10xxx in hand and Ax in dummy, with this being trump. Say one cannot afford a loser. Well, the odds are pretty good: any 3-2 split or the stiff Jack. One can do nothing about Jxxx offside, but maybe one can pick up Jxxx onside...if one can arrange the end-position of having the lead anywhere but in one's hand at trick 12 with Q10 in hand....and rho with Jx.

One does this by ruffing with the long hand, so say the hand is


On a heart lead, one may think that we are in a great spot. Win the heart Ace and pull trump...A and low. Oops...RHO has Jxxx and we can no longer make it.

An expert will look at this hand and think: I have 12 tricks if spades behave. I can't pick up Jxxx offside so I won't worry about it. What if RHO has Jxxx?

Ok, I need to end up with the lead being anywhere but in my hand with 2 cards to go: me with Q10 and RHO with Jx. So I need to shorten my trump.

The play is: heart A and ruff a heart.... the key play. Now one can play trump Ace and low to the K, RHO showing out. Cash the minor suit winners, ending in dummy (you do need rho not to ruff, of course) and ruff another heart. You are down to Q10 of spades and a club....exit the club. You don't care who wins this: you are holding the Q10 of trump over RHO's Jx and one of the opponents is on lead.

This example is not quite perfect, since one can survive the failure to ruff a heart at trick 2 by playing spade K and then to the A, and then ruff a heart, but most players instinctively play Ax opposite KQ10xxx by cashing the Ace first. Had the suit been xx opposite AKQ10xx, then the heart ruff at trick 2 would have been essential.

I apologize for the thread hijack, but I hope the example is of help in understanding the assumptions one makes about how many losers one has, and how one can plan for bad breaks that might otherwise threaten one's initial thinking.
'one of the great markers of the advance of human kindness is the howls you will hear from the Men of God' Johann Hari
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#6 User is online   Cyberyeti 

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Posted 2019-February-25, 11:39

Also note you don't need more than one entry to dummy to handle this suit if there's no risk of a ruff.

Cash the ace and lead a small one from hand if an honour drops on your left, you know now whether they were 3-2 all the time or you need to finesse on the third round and any of your pips will force an honour.

The advantage of playing from dummy first time is that RHO may wrongly split his honours from QJ10x(x)
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#7 User is offline   nige1 

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Posted 2019-February-25, 18:29


When you can't finesse or coup a defender's trumps,
you can sometimes recover by eloping with your small trumps.
You keep ruffing losers, hoping that the defender with trumps must follow suit.

Please press Next for an elopement example..

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#8 User is offline   blackshoe 

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Posted 2019-February-26, 09:40

Count your losers. When you get to thirteen, stop.
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#9 User is online   Cyberyeti 

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Posted 2019-February-26, 09:59

View Postblackshoe, on 2019-February-26, 09:40, said:

Count your losers. When you get to thirteen, stop.


This sounds similar to Burn's law of total trumps, "Don't play in suits where the opps have more trumps than you do".
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