[gszes]

Heart Q

Even as you say it, it seems wrong to purposely risk our 100% shot at 50% but flying with the ace is short sighted for several reasons.

1. KJT is a very reasonable attacking lead given the bidding.
2. If 1 has indeed happened we have 2 quick club pitches and no longer need the spade finesse (I would not take it anyway).
3. If the heart loses things are not as grim as we make them seem. We are pretty sure rho has at least 1 top club honor and the heart K and we sort of need them to hold the spade king. That means lho has to hold the dia A and I think it would be nearly impossible for lho to rise with the ace if we can play the 10 toward the J. That means there is a really good chance the dia J will serve as the entry we need to get to dummy to take the spade finesse. That means the heart Q serves its best purpose by trying to secure our contract at trick 1. This can be ruined of course if rho wins the heart K and returns a dia and lho has the intestinal fortitude to duck our dia K (not an easy thing to do).
4. We may still be able to reach dummy via the club ruff route which is how the other declarer will have to go w/o the benefit of a heart lead.
5. Taking the successful heart finesse means we no longer have to depend on the spade finesse so treating it as a lower priority is generally wrong but more specifically wrong in this case with the fog of war so much on our side.
6. Who knows but by starting with the heart Q we may find out rho started with both club honors (along with the heart K) and thus it would be impossible for rho to also hold the spade K indicating we need to play for the drop vs finesse:)))))))))

[goingoren]

we hold the space ace and we are void in hearts so if RHO rises with the king of heats we should then rerise with the 5 of spades

[KurtGodel]

WesleyC, on 2015-May-19, 12:44, said:

Finally even if RHO does work out to win the club and switches to a diamond, after ♦K, ♦A the ♦J might turn into an entry.

The person with ♦Axx will duck one round after seeing their partner's count signal. The person with ♦Ax, will win and play another diamond, they might need to be careful about keeping an entry to their partner's hand in clubs though, this requires the defense to be wide awake.

Either way, there is no hope of getting to dummy by playing diamonds, or by ruffing clubs. So the problem is actually simple:
Which is the better shot 1) Opening leader has K♥ or the K♠ is single. 2) The spade finesse.
Call the probability of the king being onside p. Then line one succeeds: p + (1-p)0.26 = 0.74p + 0.26, whereas the finesse works 0.5.

So if you think the heart finesse works 32% of the time (or better) you should take it.

[WesleyC]

KurtGodel, on 2015-May-20, 08:38, said:

The person with ♦Axx will duck one round after seeing their partner's count signal. The person with ♦Ax, will win and play another diamond, they might need to be careful about keeping an entry to their partner's hand in clubs though, this requires the defense to be wide awake.

Either way, there is no hope of getting to dummy by playing diamonds, or by ruffing clubs.

I agree with your maths regarding the ♥ finesse vs spade finesse. Versus a perfect opponent I agree that ♥K onside plus singleton King is probably the percentage line.

However I strongly disagree with your assumption that this hand is trivially easy to defend. My only evidence is the fact that I've failed to defend accurately on hundreds of similar hands.

Even playing against an expert defender, being a declarer that is occasionally prepared to take a sub-optimal line in the hope of creating an error if a great reputation to have. Kranyak's declarer play in the team trials is an excellent example of this.

[zillahandp]

By the time you get to dummy with club ruff you have three losers and depend on spade finesse. If qh wins you dont need spade finesse so this is extra chance so qh correct