[Cyberyeti]

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You play in 3N opps manage to block the spades but they do cash 4 of them leaving W on lead, what do you discard ? 8♣ and ?

[JLOGIC]

ten of clubs seems quite normal, it only costs on 4-1 hearts (not stiff J) and Qx of clubs compared to pitching a diamond, and it gives us the chance to cash AK of clubs and fall back on the diamond finesse among other things.

[Free]

Combine your chances and discard ♣T. You can try to drop ♣Q doubleton or fall back on the ♦ finesse. We need ♥T as an entry to either cash ♣J or finesse the ♦.

[Cyberyeti]

This was my first thought as well, team mate discarded the J♦ and went off when discarding the club was the winning action (♣ Qxx offside).

I thought the odds were quite close when I tried to do the calculation:

Pitch the club works when:

Hearts are 3-2 or stiff J, and (Q♣ drops singleton or doubleton or the diamond finesse works)

Pitching the diamond works when:

Hearts are 3-2 or stiff J and the Q♣ is onside or singleton offside, or Hearts misbehave and Q♣ drops doubleton (but not singleton in theory unless the man with 9xxx pitches one)

This appears to be (67.83 + 5.65)[(5.65+27.13) + 0.5(1-5.65-27.13)] = 48.78%

vs (67.83 + 5.65)(2.83 + 50) + (1-67.83-5.65)(27.13) = 46.01%

so slightly in favour of the club pitch, but not by much, and this narrows further if (as was the case) the field isn't great and the hand with ♣9xxx might pitch one.

[JLOGIC]

if LHO has Qxxx of clubs and the diamond hook is on a club pitch wins also.

[JLOGIC]

Cyberyeti, on 2013-November-16, 17:18, said:

]

Pitching the diamond works when:

Hearts are 3-2 or stiff J and the Q♣ is onside

Also I don't know MATH but it seems like you're counting Qx of clubs onside with hearts splitting as a win for pitching a diamond, but that is not true, a club pitch is fine in that case. Also if Qxx of clubs are on and the diamond hook is on, then pitching a club is fine. It seems like you count that also as a win for pitching a diamond.

If you did not count those scenarios as wins for pitching a diamond and just misworded it then apologies. If you did count those and still found a club pitch to be superior then hopefully it is obvious how superior a club pitch really is.

[Cyberyeti]

JLOGIC, on 2013-November-16, 23:37, said:

Also I don't know MATH but it seems like you're counting Qx of clubs onside with hearts splitting as a win for pitching a diamond, but that is not true, a club pitch is fine in that case. Also if Qxx of clubs are on and the diamond hook is on, then pitching a club is fine. It seems like you count that also as a win for pitching a diamond.

If you did not count those scenarios as wins for pitching a diamond and just misworded it then apologies. If you did count those and still found a club pitch to be superior then hopefully it is obvious how superior a club pitch really is.

I wasn't counting anything as a win by virtue of it working when the other scenario didn't, I was just trying to calculate the absolute chance of each line working.

I think I've accounted for the scenarios you listed