[han]

This problem occured at the club, playing against two intermediate opponents. I wonder what you would have done.

---

West led the king of hearts. I ducked twice, and he continued with two high hearts without much thought. On the third heart east pitched a low spade (standard signals).

I now cashed 4 rounds of clubs, west smoothly pitching the 10 and 8 of spades, and east pitching the diamond 3 after some thought.

When I led a diamond to the king, west played the 6 and east the 4. On the ten of diamonds east played the 5.

Who would you play for the diamond queen?

[the_clown]

looks like W has Axx KQJxxx ?x xx

I think W will discard 2♠ regardless whether he has the ♦Q or not.

I would finess, since I am pretty sure that ♦s are 4-2. Furthermore I would expect E to pitch a ♦ in tempo with xxxx and ♠Qxxx. I cant find a reason why I should play W for the Qx doubleton.

[gnasher]

East has either Qxxx xx Qxxx xxx or Qxxx xx xxxx xxx, or possibly Qxx xx Qxxxx xxx. I'd play him for the queen, for two reasons:
- It's with the odds.
- With Qxxx xx xxxx xxx he couldn't afford to throw a diamond, because that would save me a guess if I had ♦AQ8x.

[Phil]

gnasher, on 2012-August-09, 07:38, said:

East has either Qxxx xx Qxxx xxx or Qxxx xx xxxx xxx, or possibly Qxx xx Qxxxx xxx. I'd play him for the queen, for two reasons:
- It's with the odds.
- With Qxxx xx xxxx xxx he couldn't afford to throw a diamond, because that would save me a guess if I had ♦AQ8x.

With AQ8x Han might have checked for ♦Jx before killing his entries.

Judging from the thread title I think finessing is still with the odds (3:1). The diamond that RHO has shown us should not enter into our number crunching.

[gnasher]

Phil, on 2012-August-09, 09:26, said:

With AQ8x Han might have checked for ♦Jx before killing his entries.

He might have. Or he might have been planning to play them from the top unless something on the fourth round of clubs caused him to change his mind.

It's just normal for East to keep all four of his diamonds with xxxx. That means that he should also keep all four diamonds with Qxxx, but it doesn't sound as though this defender is up to such deep analysis.

[semeai]

The odds are not as people have been suggesting.

Let's suppose, as seems likely, that these opponents always play up-the-line in side suits unless they are signalling attitude.

1. West is A108 KQJxxx ?6 xx. He isn't A108x KQJxxx 6 xx because he would've played ♠10 then ♠x.

Hence East is Q742 xx ?543 xxx. The two ?'s are the Q and 7 of diamonds.

2. Since the opponents play up-the-line, there's a difference in which spot West shows us (i.e. West's lowest diamond). As the simplest example of this, if West's lowest spot were the 7 (and you agree with part 1), we would be certain he held the ♦Q.

In fact, in this situation, the odds are even.

Note that in many cases, you'd know West's last card. For example, if West played the 3 and East played 5-6-7, then you'd know that East held the Q765 and West 43.

Monty-Hall-type problem to illustrate this: Monty has a car, a goat, and a chicken behind three doors. You choose one, and he controls the other two. Then he says "I'm going to show you the door I control with the smaller thing behind it," and he opens one of his doors and it has the chicken behind it. What are your odds now?

[Suppose you believe him, and you believe he was always going to do this same thing of revealing the smaller object. You also believe cars are bigger than goats, which are bigger than chickens.]

[gnasher]

semeai, on 2012-August-09, 10:49, said:

Let's suppose, as seems likely, that these opponents always play up-the-line in side suits unless they are signalling attitude.
...
In fact, in this situation, the odds are even.

But if West ever plays his small cards out of sequence, the odds are in favour of finessing. If there is a finite chance that West would have played ♦7 from 7xxx, the fact that he hasn't done so makes Qxxx more likely.

Very few opponents are perfectly bad, so the odds favour finessing.

This post has been edited by gnasher: 2012-August-09, 11:09

[semeai]

gnasher, on 2012-August-09, 11:07, said:

Very few opponents are perfectly bad. If there is any possibility that West would play his cards out of sequence, the odds are in favour of finessing. If there is any chance that West would have played ♦7 from 7xxx, the fact that he hasn't done so makes Qxxx more likely.

Indeed, though I suggest these are small corrections. Playing your cards up the line really is quite natural.

More significant: I also did not take into account the fact that East thought for a bit about the ♦3 discard (I suppose this argues in favor of the finesse), or whether there's any chance this West would feel 12 HCP makes for a more comfortable overcall (quite unlikely, as these are really clear overcalls, but there may be some intermediates who would pass with "only 10 HCP"). I suggest that what you think of these determine your choice on this hand.

[phil_20686]

han, on 2012-August-09, 06:56, said:

This problem occured at the club, playing against two intermediate opponents. I wonder what you would have done.
Who would you play for the diamond queen?

So I run the J of diamonds, and if west doesn't flicker I overtake and run the ten on the way back. Best done at trick two so they don't have time to think about it. This is a 99% line for intermediate players

[phil_20686]

han, on 2012-August-09, 06:56, said:

This problem occured at the club, playing against two intermediate opponents. I wonder what you would have done.

When I led a diamond to the king, west played the 6 and east the 4. On the ten of diamonds east played the 5.

Who would you play for the diamond queen?

Also, if you dont think they are good enough to randomise from xx, then the six is a restricted choice position. as from 76 they always randomise, but from Q6 they cannot. Since their only other pip position is 64, and we have excluded it by assumption, it is favourite to play for the drop now

I never use these arguments in RL. They never work out for me.

[wyman]

phil_20686, on 2012-August-09, 11:44, said:

So I run the J of diamonds, and if west doesn't flicker I overtake and run the ten on the way back. Best done at trick two so they don't have time to think about it. This is a 99% line for intermediate players

You have to do this early if you're going to do it, since you've cut communication to the 4th diamond after you've cashed 4 clubs. I was just looking at this lamenting that I couldn't switch the ♦9 and 8.

I can't decide really. I think the field will hook, but it strikes me as really odd that after seeing the S10/8 from partner, RHO would pitch a diamond from Qxxx when he has a pretty safe spade pitch. Declarer has 6 in the bag, and partner has 3 heart tricks still. It can't be right to pitch a diamond. He must have looked at xxxx and been like "could it be wrong to shorten my diamonds here? No, my spots are repugnant anyway."

I'll go out on a small limb and drop here. Hopefully partner will understand if I'm wrong, and I think the odds are 50/50 or close enough that I don't feel bad trusting my instinct.

Hamman probably disagrees though (per Mike Giesler's comment in gumperz's thread re: table feel on BW):

Quote

Here is a quote made by Bob Hamman from a dinner conversation at the recent NABC in Philly. The discussion was about playing certain card combinations at the table: "You can say all you want about table feel, but in the end, mathematics is your friend."

[semeai]

wyman, on 2012-August-09, 12:15, said:

I can't decide really. I think the field will hook, but it strikes me as really odd that after seeing the S10/8 from partner, RHO would pitch a diamond from Qxxx when he has a pretty safe spade pitch.

Excellent point. I missed that the spade encouragement happened before the diamond pitch (they were in the same sentence and partially on the same trick --- they must've happened simultaneously and independently!).

Given that I think it's basically 50-50 without the info from East's pause, this should make the drop better.

[bluecalm]

Isn't it completely obvious to play E for Q♦?
I mean he has more diamonds on average and that should be the end of analysis.
Seems so basic that I am afraid I am missing something

Quote

RHO would pitch a diamond from Qxxx when he has a pretty safe spade pitch.

He may still be 3-2-5-3 I think.
Or maybe he realized that if partner had J♦ it doesn't matter what he pitch and if he doesn't then small diamond may well confuse declarer.

Quote

1. West is A108 KQJxxx ?6 xx. He isn't A108x KQJxxx 6 xx because he would've played ♠10 then ♠x.

Wouldn't he play an 8 from AT8 ?

[gnasher]

wyman, on 2012-August-09, 12:15, said:

it strikes me as really odd that after seeing the S10/8 from partner, RHO would pitch a diamond from Qxxx when he has a pretty safe spade pitch

Isn't it completely safe to pitch a diamond from Qxxx here, regardless of partner's diamond holding? I thought the pause might have been because he was working that out. But maybe I'm overestimating what an "intermediate" player is capable of.

Edit: Or maybe he has five diamonds, and the pause was to work out that declarer couldn't have five diamonds too.

This post has been edited by gnasher: 2012-August-09, 15:14

[Phil]

I would think with five diamonds, an average defender would pitch from ♦Qxxxx before ♠Qxxx, which is what happened at T3.

[wyman]

gnasher, on 2012-August-09, 15:12, said:

Isn't it completely safe to pitch a diamond from Qxxx here, regardless of partner's diamond holding? I thought the pause might have been because he was working that out. But maybe I'm overestimating what an "intermediate" player is capable of.

Edit: Or maybe he has five diamonds, and the pause was to work out that declarer couldn't have five diamonds too.

Yeah it is safe but I don't think an intermediate works that out quickly.

I think it's super weird that he didn't pitch a spade anyway, since if declarer has the A he has AJx and the spades are coming in regardless. So maybe I shouldn't give him credit for thinking at all. LHO's ♠108 suggest strongly that he's 3622, so restricted choice says I should drop anyway I think (not knowing anything about opps, I'd expect to see randomization from ♦76 before seeing LHO play the ♠108 from A108x or seeing RHO pitch from ♦Qxxx).

[wyman]

Phil, on 2012-August-09, 15:28, said:

I would think with five diamonds, an average defender would pitch from ♦Qxxxx before ♠Qxxx, which is what happened at T3.

"Idle Fifth," right?

[han]

East held the diamond queen.

[JLOGIC]

Phil, on 2012-August-09, 15:28, said:

I would think with five diamonds, an average defender would pitch from ♦Qxxxx before ♠Qxxx, which is what happened at T3.

LOL

[JLOGIC]

Quote

This problem occured at the club, playing against two intermediate opponents.

han, on 2012-August-09, 06:56, said:

east pitching the diamond 3 after some thought.

You answered your own question, though I'm sure you knew it. You're playing against some intermediates, and they hesitated before pitching a diamond. Do they have Qxxx xxxx, or Qxxx Qxxx? Lol c'mon han. You're out thinking yourself if you got this one wrong, the bad opps didn't know which Qxxx to pitch from. As opposed to, the bad opps were tanking before pitching from xxxx. Sometimes (usually) bridge is just that easy.