[JLOGIC]

Imps r/r.

You open 1N, your partner transfers to hearts and bid 3N. They lead the D6 and you see:

xx
AKT7x
K9
T87x

AKxx
9x
Qx
AK9xx

Trick 1 is 9 J Q. You play AK of clubs, LHO pitching a discouraging S2. You play the H9 and LHO plays low. You are almost 100 % sure the auction will be the same at the other table (Marc Jacobus who loves opening 1N more than anyone is in your seat, they don't play strong club, do play 15-17 NT). You are playing a regional knockout and your team is good and their team is good. You are playing as a bridge professional, but your sponsor has been your main one for the last 4 years so you feel as good as you can about your job security.

[FrancesHinden]

JLOGIC, on 2012-January-03, 15:27, said:

Imps r/r.

You open 1N, your partner transfers to hearts and bid 3N. They lead the D6 and you see:

xx
AKT7x
K9
T87x

AKxx
9x
Qx
AK9xx

Trick 1 is 9 J Q. You play AK of clubs, LHO pitching a discouraging S2. You play the H9 and LHO plays low. You are almost 100 % sure the auction will be the same at the other table (Marc Jacobus who loves opening 1N more than anyone is in your seat, they don't play strong club, do play 15-17 NT). You are playing a regional knockout and your team is good and their team is good. You are playing as a bridge professional, but your sponsor has been your main one for the last 4 years so you feel as good as you can about your job security.

I reckon there's about an 8% chance that hearts are coming in (QJx) plus another 7% that he has QJxx/QJ8x. Depends a bit on the diamond break, assume it was a 4th highest lead so they are probably 6-3 or 5-4 (you don't give us our x, I assume LHO would have bid with 7 of them?). LHO won't cover with QJx, it's obviously insane, but will probably cover with QJ8x. I don't think he's got QJxxx.

The IMPs calculation is too difficult for me, but it seems that

If I play a third round of clubs now I go 1 or 2 off depending on the diamond break
If I run the heart I lose an extra 100 points 85% of the time and gain 700 (sometimes 800) points 9% of the time, and gain 100 points when I have 3 heart tricks and diamonds are 6-3 (call that 4% of the time).

Looks like on a straight total points calculation I should cash out.

On an IMPs basis... if I play to make and he cashes out I probably gain 12 9% of the time, lose 3 85% of the time. I should definitely cash out.
But if I think there's a good chance the other table will be in 5C there's only 1 imp at stake and I should play to make.

[mikeh]

deleted nonsense...shouldn't do arithmetic while also on the phone:)

[FrancesHinden]

mikeh, on 2012-January-03, 16:12, said:

deleted nonsense...shouldn't do arithmetic while also on the phone:)

Ha! I read your original post and then when I went to reply this edited post appeared!

[FrancesHinden]

p.s. if my sums are correct (not 100% likely) it's quite close, so potentially it's right to try and make it.

We did have an alternative line of rising king at trick 1 and then running the 10 of clubs to West, by the way. Looking like we've got KQxx Jx Qxx AKxx or similar, I bet there are some opponents you've have tried that against.
pps that would have made the contract, as well.

[bluecalm]

Quote

so you feel as good as you can about your job security.

You could try to insert K♦ and run T♣, W won't be too eager to give you additional trick on your supposed Qxx
The chances are he will read you for AKxx xx Qxx AQ9x (or AKx xx Qxxx AQ9x) once taking his J so it's 2+2+1+3 tricks and diamond play will give you the ninth so he switches to hearts and waits for partner to get in with a ♥.
Or am I dreaming ?

[gszes]

I admit I would have risen with the K at trick one followed by club to A
(and if no honor from lho) the K. If an honor fell at trick 2 from lho I would go to dummy via heart and take the club finesse (even if it lost lho
may not be certain the q of dia was not guarded).

Once all of this fails we need to decide is it worth taking 4 clubs
and down a probable 1 trick (losing 4d and 1c) or going for the very unlikely
chance the hearts are coming in and risking a probable extra undertrick.

First of all, even if hearts don't break 33 there is a 25% chance the
QJ will be onside and we will be no worse off than if we had just
given up a club. But the real deal changer is while 3n is the probable
contract at the other table 4h and 5c are both possible and the 4h
players are going for the double finesse. If it works and we just gave
up on it we are looking at a large loss since the 4h/5c players wont care about how dia break.


Since we are not looking at alternative ways to make our contract risk vs
reward generally dictates looking for even tiny margins of success when only 1 extra undertrick is involved, especially when other contracts may have been
bid and made. Given those circumstances maybe even a 99-1 shot is preferable
to giving up.

Few teams will gloat or teammates get upset over 3 imps but both might if
there was a legitimate chance to avoid a game swing.

[JLOGIC]

bluecalm, on 2012-January-03, 19:56, said:

You could try to insert K♦ and run T♣, W won't be too eager to give you additional trick on your supposed Qxx
The chances are he will read you for AKxx xx Qxx AQ9x (or AKx xx Qxxx AQ9x) once taking his J so it's 2+2+1+3 tricks and diamond play will give you the ninth so he switches to hearts and waits for partner to get in with a ♥.
Or am I dreaming ?

RHO will give count at trick 1. This might be a good line vs very bad opps.

[dake50]

Did this auction H-xfer then 3NT warn you
not 3NT if any dangerous stop? Like D:Kx?
Try 4H with an unsure stop.

[quiddity]

JLOGIC, on 2012-January-03, 22:04, said:

RHO will give count at trick 1. This might be a good line vs very bad opps.

Why will RHO give count instead of attitude? I was taught to give count against 3NT when dummy wins with a queen or lower - is there a better rule? Or is there something about this specific hand which suggests that count is right?

[bluecalm]

Quote

Doubling instead with a strong notrump when you might hold a doubleton in an unbid major is asking for trouble.

It seems that "expert standard" these days is to give count if you can't cover/play usefl card and then smith echo.
There should be some exceptions like stiff A/K (or maybe even Q) but maybe someone who analyzed those things could comment better than me.
In actual hand there is still hope we could be read for 4 diamonds instead of two even with count but I admit this is a chance not worth taking, just first thing to pop up in my mind when I saw that hand.

[rhm]

One should not overlook the chance that ♦s are blocked, e.g. opening leader has led from AT86 and in my experience even good defenders sometimes fail to unblock. This is a non trivial subject.
This chance may be lower than playing for both ♥ honors being onside, but I am not sure and if it is, it is not by much.
So rise with the ♥ A and give up a ♣.

Rainer Herrmann

[phil_20686]

I would have guessed that rising and running the club J was the best line. It can win in lots of ways.

The defender might thing you have four diamonds instead of two, he might wonder where the spades are, and think you are "sure" to have to play on hearts if your hand is something like AKx xx Qxxx AKxx, so he might want to wait for a diamond through.

The diamonds might be blocked.

It might not be obvious to lho that the diamonds are runing if he has found a master lead from xxx or Jxxx or similar

[gnasher]

phil_20686, on 2012-January-04, 09:10, said:

I would have guessed that rising and running the club J was the best line. It can win in lots of ways.

The defender might thing you have four diamonds instead of two, he might wonder where the spades are, and think you are "sure" to have to play on hearts if your hand is something like AKx xx Qxxx AKxx, so he might want to wait for a diamond through.

That would be a strange play from that hand - after winning ♦K, wouldn't you duck a heart?

Quote

The diamonds might be blocked.

If so, they'll still be blocked if we play clubs from the top.

Quote

It might not be obvious to lho that the diamonds are runing if he has found a master lead from xxx or Jxxx or similar

A lead from xxx is probably impossible given RHO's pass over 2♦. If it's from Jxxx, presumably RHO will take dummy's king with his ace and play one back.

[JLOGIC]

rhm, on 2012-January-04, 03:39, said:

One should not overlook the chance that ♦s are blocked, e.g. opening leader has led from AT86 and in my experience even good defenders sometimes fail to unblock. This is a non trivial subject.
This chance may be lower than playing for both ♥ honors being onside, but I am not sure and if it is, it is not by much.
So rise with the ♥ A and give up a ♣.

Rainer Herrmann

RHO is ron smith. Playing the DJ would be quite awful. You really think the odds that they led from AT86 combined with the odds that a really good RHO played the jack is significant?

[jallerton]

quiddity, on 2012-January-04, 01:33, said:

Why will RHO give count instead of attitude?

It depends on what they have agreed to do in this situation. Both count and attitude are potentially useful here.

Quote

I was taught to give count against 3NT when dummy wins with a queen or lower - is there a better rule? Or is there something about this specific hand which suggests that count is right?

I can't think of anything specific about this hand to suggest that count is right. If the opening leader has AJxxx or similar and declarer rises with the king, he wants to know:

(i) has partner got the queen? (Attitude signals will help to answer this).

(ii) is the suit cashing from the top? (A count signal might help to answer this, but there again it might not: if partner plays a highish spot card, we might not be able to distinguish between 2 and 4.)

By the way, if a queen wins in dummy, the location of the jack will often be known by inference or may not be of much interest to the opening leader, so count is usually going to be relatively more useful.

bluecalm, on 2012-January-04, 02:25, said:

It seems that "expert standard" these days is to give count if you can't cover/play usefl card and then smith echo.
There should be some exceptions like stiff A/K (or maybe even Q) but maybe someone who analyzed those things could comment better than me.
In actual hand there is still hope we could be read for 4 diamonds instead of two even with count but I admit this is a chance not worth taking, just first thing to pop up in my mind when I saw that hand.

I like Smith Peters but it might not be possible to rely on such a signal here: partner may have a singleton (or an ambiguous doubleton) in the suit led.

[xcurt]

FrancesHinden, on 2012-January-03, 16:18, said:

p.s. if my sums are correct (not 100% likely) it's quite close, so potentially it's right to try and make it.

We did have an alternative line of rising king at trick 1 and then running the 10 of clubs to West, by the way. Looking like we've got KQxx Jx Qxx AKxx or similar, I bet there are some opponents you've have tried that against.
pps that would have made the contract, as well.

I agree it's close and exactly where it is might depend a little on the inferences you get from the table action and the play to date.

One thing that argues for cashing out if it's close is that (assuming we know nothing about the state of the match) IMPs gained and lost have diminishing marginal utility. So (from the perspective of cashing out) our 85% chance of gain 3 vs 15% chance of lose 12 is worth more from the perspective of winning the match than the straight IMP equity of 0.75 IMPs. And even 0.75 IMPs in equity is quite significant, make this kind of play on every board and you gain 24 IMPs over the course of a KO match. I cash.

[JLOGIC]

I played for down 1. It was QJx onside. I promise I did not just post this because it was QJx onside...I thought it was a really unusual situation because I do not recall ever in my life playing to save 1 extra undoubled undertrick in a vulnerable game when I had a legit chance to make. Sure it happens in partscores all the time, but not in vulnerable games! Luckily, we won the match, so everyone had a good laugh about it afterwards.

[JLOGIC]

FrancesHinden, on 2012-January-03, 16:11, said:

But if I think there's a good chance the other table will be in 5C there's only 1 imp at stake and I should play to make.

Yes. This is what I spent most of my time thinking about. Any chance they will play 5C? Well, I know Jacobus enough that he will 100 % open 1N. Any chance the other hand will transfer and bid clubs? It is 5422...but still seems like a strange choice. They were in fact in 3N on an identical auction in the other room.

Once I realized the imp math was very bad for playing to make I was very confused. I was trying to talk myself into playing to make with.

1) MAYBE they will get to 5C, you never know! (This did not stand up to analysis).
2) A big loss on a board is more likely to swing the match, 3 imps is not! (This did not stand up to analysis obv. If we were significantly better than them then avoiding a big loss as a form of insurance might be reasonable, but with 2 good teams playing against each other it is not).
3) Maybe a big loss will bother my partner and I so much psychologically that I should avoid it. (Nah, we play bridge all the time, this should not be a factor).
4) Maybe nobody will agree with my play since I have never seen this before, and I will get fired and people will think I'm dumb. (Well, whatever).

Eventually I decided to just go with what I thought was the right play, unusual as it may be.