[MarkDean]

Scoring: XIMP

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1♦ - 1♥
3♦ - 3♠
3NT.

3♦ denies 3 hearts in your system.

Opening lead is the two of clubs, RHO plays the king. What is your plan?
(They play fourth best leads)

[orlam]

I would try spade to the J, diamond to the 9.

[kenrexford]

I'll win the club Ace and exit a club.

[Phil]

kenrexford, on Apr 4 2009, 12:06 PM, said:

I'll win the club Ace and exit a club.

Don't care for this line because:

- It's doubtful one opponent guards diamonds (alone) and hearts.
- Once the opponents cash their clubs, they can shift to a heart which you are forced to hook.

Playing on spades and diamond seems to require a lot less. I'll win the club, hook the spade (which we probably need to win for the 2nd entry) and play a diamond to the 9.

[gnasher]

Phil, on Apr 4 2009, 06:25 PM, said:

kenrexford, on Apr 4 2009, 12:06 PM, said:

I'll win the club Ace and exit a club.

Don't care for this line because:

- It's doubtful one opponent guards diamonds (alone) and hearts.
- Once the opponents cash their clubs, they can shift to a heart which you are forced to hook.

If you're going to play for a red-suit squeeze, you'll need the spades coming in, the heart finesse and a diamond entry. To break it up, they should therefore switch to diamonds, or simply refuse to cash the last club.

[kenrexford]

gnasher, on Apr 4 2009, 12:29 PM, said:

Phil, on Apr 4 2009, 06:25 PM, said:

kenrexford, on Apr 4 2009, 12:06 PM, said:

I'll win the club Ace and exit a club.

Don't care for this line because:

- It's doubtful one opponent guards diamonds (alone) and hearts.
- Once the opponents cash their clubs, they can shift to a heart which you are forced to hook.

If you're going to play for a red-suit squeeze, you'll need the spades coming in, the heart finesse and a diamond entry. To break it up, they should therefore switch to diamonds, or simply refuse to cash the last club.

I don't lose timing if I play a club. I can always return to the straightforward play-it-myself line after they cash a few clubs.

But, why not let them feel a little pressure? Should I be the only one under the gun here?

Plus, what the heck are they supposed to return?

Sure, playing a club might not technically help against good defense, but I cannot see how it hurts much. Sure looks like a lot of opportunity for the opponents to do something nice for me.

[Phil]

kenrexford, on Apr 4 2009, 06:50 PM, said:

I don't lose timing if I play a club. I can always return to the straightforward play-it-myself line after they cash a few clubs.

No, if RHO returns a heart you are forced to take a hook you really don't need.

Maybe you should be more specific about what you hope to accomplish by exiting a club. Who is getting squoze? Any most importantly, why is this better than taking the straightforward line of spade hook, diamond hook?

[cherdanno]

kenrexford, on Apr 4 2009, 06:50 PM, said:

I don't lose timing if I play a club.  I can always return to the straightforward play-it-myself line after they cash a few clubs.

That is not true.

Edit: Sorry I see Phil pointed that out already.

[whereagles]

Seems like a deal for the book play of ♦ to the 9.

[se12sam]

Phil, on Apr 5 2009, 01:13 AM, said:

kenrexford, on Apr 4 2009, 06:50 PM, said:

I don't lose timing if I play a club.  I can always return to the straightforward play-it-myself line after they cash a few clubs.

No, if RHO returns a heart you are forced to take a hook you really don't need.

Maybe you should be more specific about what you hope to accomplish by exiting a club. Who is getting squoze? Any most importantly, why is this better than taking the straightforward line of spade hook, diamond hook?

To have any hope, the ♠Q has to be with West. If I hook a spade and it loses, I will always be down.

And if we start with that assumption, then there is no harm in Ken's line of play.

If RHO wins the final club and leads a heart, you take the finesse! Even if it loses, you can make if the ♥10 falls on the third round.

[kenrexford]

cherdanno, on Apr 4 2009, 09:36 PM, said:

kenrexford, on Apr 4 2009, 06:50 PM, said:

I don't lose timing if I play a club.  I can always return to the straightforward play-it-myself line after they cash a few clubs.

That is not true.

Edit: Sorry I see Phil pointed that out already.

That doesn't cost me, as the heart finesse was my play anyway. If the spade Queen is placed with LHO, I will win four spades, two minor Aces, two hearts, and hopefully my heart 9 grows up, losing three clubs and a heart in the process.

If the heart hook fails, I need the 9 to grow up. If it works, RHO may have K10x or Kx or something making hearts easy, or LHO may have 10x.

[suokko]

playing ♦ directly is 50 % for them to work.

31 % for ♥ to bring 9th trick. I give generous 50 % chance for error not to break squeeze. So additional 20 % for squeeze to function and 50 % not to break it means you get around 40 % for playing club back in trick 2.

both odds are subtracted by 50% because of spades.

[kenrexford]

suokko, on Apr 5 2009, 02:29 PM, said:

playing ♦ directly is 50 % for them to work.

31 % for ♥ to bring 9th trick. I give generous 50 % chance for error not to break squeeze. So additional 20 % for squeeze to function and 50 % not to break it means you get around 40 % for playing club back in trick 2.

both odds are subtracted by 50% because of spades.

I'm not sure where you get that.

I just looked this up on an odds table. To take 5 tricks from this diamond combo (meaning, to not lose two tricks), is a 27% chance, but that chart did not include the possession of the solid intermediates, which probably increases the odds somewhat. Another source where this was included got me to 34%.

That same chart did not have the heart layout. The other chart gave me a clear success playing on hearts about 23% of the time. I then had a 50-50 guess as to another roughly 35% of the time, which means that a no-info-no-gut-instinct-total-guess raises my winning percentage on hearts to roughly 40%, which is beter than my odds on diamonds. Plus, I have another roughly 25% of the time, or almost half of the time when playing on hearts does not create the 9th trick immediately, where I am not down yet and still have control, plus every time I guess wrong on the could-of's, where I do not grab the 9th trick but I'm not down yet, because the opponents have no ability to cash their 5th trick yet, if club communication has been severed.

So, if I had to come up with a line myself, I'd rather work on hearts than on diamonds. That said, my gut tells me that the slight percentage loss from the opponents having the ability to determine my fate by forcing me into a bad decision to work on diamonds rather than on hearts is outweighed by the chance that they screw up somehow or are squeezed in the end position or that I gain information.

I find it strange to fear a heart switch, though. I think the numbers slightly favor playing on hearts.

[suokko]

yes. Sorry for mistake in ♦ finesse odds. I was lazy thinking 2 out of 3 finesse when it is finesse+double finesse which means 37.5% (3/8) so a lot worse. So you should play ♣ back if yo uthink your opponents don't know about defending against squeezes and play in ♦ when you have top level players defending.

[gnasher]

After my recent misanalyses, no one's going to believe these numbers, but I think Ken is partly correct.

Playing on diamonds needs the spade finesse (which everyone needs), ♦10 onside (or KQ doubleton onside), at least one diamond honour onside, and diamonds 3-2. A priori that's roughly
  0.5 x 0.5 x 0.75 x .68 = 13%
(Finding ♦10 onside reduces the chance of a diamond honour onside, but I've assumed that the extra chance of KQ doubleton onside roughly compensates for that.)

Leading hearts from the top needs the spade finesse and ♥10 falling in three rounds. A priori that's:
  0.5 x (3/7 x .62 + 2/7 x .31 + 1/7 x .7) = 23%
It would be nice to add ♥Kx with RHO to that, but you can't afford to cross with a spade finesse in order to take a heart finesse, because that may leave you with insufficient entries to dummy for setting up and cashing the hearts. LHO can limit you to two entries by playing ♠Q on the second round of the suit.

I haven't taken account of the effect of the lead, but it seems clear that hearts offer a better chance than diamonds. I can't, however, see what Ken hopes to gain from playing clubs first. Two bad things that can happen to him are:
- RHO wins and plays a diamond, forcing him to revert to the inferior line of playing diamonds.
- They play a spade, taking away one of the entries he needs for the hearts.

[whereagles]

Well, he may be correct but I'd rather spend my stamina somewhere else

[kenrexford]

gnasher, on Apr 6 2009, 02:50 AM, said:

I haven't taken account of the effect of the lead, but it seems clear that hearts offer a better chance than diamonds. I can't, however, see what Ken hopes to gain from playing clubs first. Two bad things that can happen to him are:
- RHO wins and plays a diamond, forcing him to revert to the inferior line of playing diamonds.
- They play a spade, taking away one of the entries he needs for the hearts.

Well, I think the crowd answered that question for me.

My gut told me that leading a club will create something good. In response to that, people jumped on the lead-a-heart idea. That defense gives me the extra entry, in a sense. If I take the hook, losing, and then win a spade back, I have plenty of time to work on hearts the most effective way, without risk.

A spade back cannot hurt, nor help. I win the spade King, presumably, because I would have done that first anyway.

A diamond from LHO is very welcome, as that has to change the odds in my favor. A diamond from RHO does seem to force me into the alternative line of working on diamonds.

But, as I noted, I think the gain from a potential mistake by the opponents, plus the pressure at the end for a possible real squeeze or more likely pseudo, outweigh the risk that throwing them in will lead to superior defense, at least in the real world.

If the opp's are great, then maybe just working on hearts is the key.

[gnasher]

kenrexford, on Apr 6 2009, 12:36 PM, said:

My gut told me that leading a club will create something good.  In response to that, people jumped on the lead-a-heart idea.  That defense gives me the extra entry, in a sense.  If I take the hook, losing, and then win a spade back, I have  plenty of time to work on hearts the most effective way, without risk.

How can you have a gut feeling about a hand posted on an internet forum? And which player do you think is going to switch to a heart from K10x, 10xx, Kxxx or xxxx, with Q9xx in dummy?

Quote

A spade back cannot hurt, nor help.  I win the spade King, presumably, because I would have done that first anyway.

True, or at least it only hurts slightly. You have to lead ♥J next, retaining the ace as an entry to pick up ♠Qxxx on your left. That means you lose the small chance of singleton ♥K, but otherwise you're OK.

Quote

A diamond from LHO is very welcome, as that has to change the odds in my favor.

It would do if LHO were randomly choosing to play a diamond. If he switched to a diamond because he thought it was right, do you still think it would help you?

[MarkDean]

To me, these were the competing lines.

Line 1: hook the spade, then hook the diamond 9.
Line 2: spade to the king, diamond to the jack.

In both cases, if an honor appears on your right, you have some guessing to do. I spent a long time picking, and as one might expect from it ending up on here, I chose the wrong line. I chose 1, and 2 was the successful line. RHO had KQx of diamonds and the queen of spades, and stated that he was playing low on a diamond from the board, so I would not have even had further guessing.

I think 2 is probably correct: does having two entries to the board really allow us to pick up the suit for one loser twice as often?

[gnasher]

Playing a spade to the ace and a diamond up needs RHO to have ♦KQx. If he plays a high one and you decide to play him for H10x, you're playing for him to have misdefended - he can see that you don't have a fast entry back to dummy.

The odds of ♦KQx or ♦KQ10 onside are about half those of ♦H10x, ♦KQ10 or ♦KQ onside. Hence this line is comparable to taking a spade finesse and then playing for ♦H10 onside. Neither is as good as playing for ♥10 to come down.