[jillybean]

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Lead ♦9, RHO pitches 3♥ (UDA)

[hrothgar]

UGH.

Whole lotta ways to go wrong here

So, I'm going to assume that you won the Diamond in hand with the Ace.
I'm going to lead the Jack of Diamonds to the King.

Next, I'm leading a small spade to the Queen.

I can then decide if I want to maneuver against the Jack of Spades or run the 10 of Clubs

[Winstonm]

I need to keep as much flexibility as possible so trick 1 is won with diamond ace, If clubs come in, I am home but that is unlikely given the 6-0 diamond break. My only other sources of tricks are highly unlikely - 3-3 spades with AJ onside or doubleton heart queen. The question is how to maximize the chances. As the a priori expectation is 4-2 clubs, and rho has 12 unknown cards to lho’s 7, the club jack is more likely with rho.

My basic plan is this : cash AK hearts to see if a miracle occurs. If not run the club 10 and cross my fingers.

[LBengtsson]

 Winstonm, on 2021-June-16, 08:51, said:

I need to keep as much flexibility as possible so trick 1 is won with diamond ace, If clubs come in, I am home but that is unlikely given the 6-0 diamond break. My only other sources of tricks are highly unlikely - 3-3 spades with AJ onside or doubleton heart queen. The question is how to maximize the chances. As the a priori expectation is 4-2 clubs, and rho has 12 unknown cards to lho’s 7, the club jack is more likely with rho.

My basic plan is this : cash AK hearts to see if a miracle occurs. If not run the club 10 and cross my fingers.

that is how I would play this. going down -2 opposed to -1 is not much difference at teams. have to try to make the contract. if not in 6nt then other opps will be in 6♣-1 on ♦ lead (maybe 6♣X-1 if lightner double used).

adding to winstonm comment: if rho has 12 unknown cards after opening lead, it possibly tells us that ♠ and ♥ suit will not break favorably also. playing east for (4504 distribution) seems best plan except if there is something better...

[mikeh]

Win in hand and lead a spade up.

I’m basically planning to run the club 10, and probably only after cashing the top hearts, catering to the miracle of the Queen dropping.

However, it can’t hurt to test the spades early. We need a spade trick if the hearts come in, and a miracle spade holding of AJ tight on my left provides an extra chance, where we don’t need the heart miracle.

Now, if LHO is good enough to falsecard with the Jack from, say, J9, and RHO good enough to duck smoothly from Axxx, I’d have to rethink, but few opps are that good in real life.

[jillybean]

I am out of my league here.

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I thought my only hope was clubs 3-3, I didn't even consider letting the 10 run. -11

[hrothgar]

 mikeh, on 2021-June-16, 10:31, said:

Win in hand and lead a spade up.

I’m basically planning to run the club 10, and probably only after cashing the top hearts, catering to the miracle of the Queen dropping.

However, it can’t hurt to test the spades early. We need a spade trick if the hearts come in, and a miracle spade holding of AJ tight on my left provides an extra chance, where we don’t need the heart miracle.

Now, if LHO is good enough to falsecard with the Jack from, say, J9, and RHO good enough to duck smoothly from Axxx, I’d have to rethink, but few opps are that good in real life.

Hey there Mike.

I also thought that testing spades early made sense, but it felt better to lead towards the queen rather than towards the King
If I lead towards the Queen I have the ten-Ace in dummy.

Curious why you lead towards the King instead

[Winstonm]

 mikeh, on 2021-June-16, 10:31, said:

Win in hand and lead a spade up.

I’m basically planning to run the club 10, and probably only after cashing the top hearts, catering to the miracle of the Queen dropping.

However, it can’t hurt to test the spades early. We need a spade trick if the hearts come in, and a miracle spade holding of AJ tight on my left provides an extra chance, where we don’t need the heart miracle.

Now, if LHO is good enough to falsecard with the Jack from, say, J9, and RHO good enough to duck smoothly from Axxx, I’d have to rethink, but few opps are that good in real life.

On second thought, the spade queen from hand at trick 2 ?

[Stephen Tu]

Are we sure running the T is right? Given 6-0 diamonds, Jxxx onside is 25.83%. But Jxx/Jx/J offside is 29.7. Maybe it's right to test clubs then play for S Aj/Ajx onside if it doesn't work.

Then again if it's CJxxxx(x) onside you only need 2 spade tricks not 3 if you hook, so could say just play for SJ on the left. The lines could end up being very close to even.

[mikeh]

 hrothgar, on 2021-June-16, 11:27, said:

Hey there Mike.

I also thought that testing spades early made sense, but it felt better to lead towards the queen rather than towards the King
If I lead towards the Queen I have the ten-Ace in dummy.

Curious why you lead towards the King instead

Because I will likely discover early if LHO, known to have 6 diamonds and suspected of short clubs, has AJ tight or stiff Ace. A holding I did not mention before but that isn’t impossible. Plus I don’t expect any good news in spades and I want to preserve entries

[nige1]

JillyBean 'I am out of my league here. I thought my only hope was clubs 3-3, I didn't even consider letting the 10 run. -11 ++++++++++++++++++++++
I like JillyBean's line. After considering crossing to dummy to finesse ♣s, I quickly decided to cash ♣s from the top -- going down as the cards lie. But delivering easy success if ♣J appears in 3. A possible problem with testing other suits, first, is that defenders can put you to hard choices before you're ready for them.

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[Cyberyeti]

 jillybean, on 2021-June-16, 11:16, said:

I am out of my league here.

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I thought my only hope was clubs 3-3, I didn't even consider letting the 10 run. -11

If you're going to play for clubs 3-3, just do that from the start and when that fails play a spade to the 10, recovering when W has AJ/AJx doing other stuff first may compromise your ability to take advantage of this.

[pescetom]

 Cyberyeti, on 2021-June-17, 03:39, said:

If you're going to play for clubs 3-3, just do that from the start and when that fails play a spade to the 10, recovering when W has AJ/AJx doing other stuff first may compromise your ability to take advantage of this.

It looks to me that without knowing the diamonds split, running the ♣T would be just 50%, whereas the line you refer to would be 54% for the ♣J dropping plus some more (10%?) for the spades behaving. But knowing the diamonds split, running the ♣T would be 65% and dropping the ♣J significantly less than 54%, so I suspect winstonm has the better line, although both will work here.

[Cyberyeti]

 pescetom, on 2021-June-17, 06:52, said:

It looks to me that without knowing the diamonds split, running the ♣T would be just 50%, whereas your line would be 54% for the ♣J dropping plus some more (10%?) for the spades behaving. But knowing the diamonds split, running the ♣T would be 65% and superior to your line I would guess.

That was said as a response to Jillybean saying she never considered going for the club finesse. The point I was making was that if you're going to go for the clubs 3-3 it's an idea to do it from the start rather than expending entries first.

[Stephen Tu]

 pescetom, on 2021-June-17, 06:52, said:

running the ♣T would be 65% and dropping the ♣J significantly less than 54%, so I suspect winstonm has the better line, although both will work here.

No, because that 65% includes Jxxxx(x) onside (24%) where the clubs won't run and you need 2 spade tricks, so which cards did you play before, what's the entry situation?

[hrothgar]

 Cyberyeti, on 2021-June-17, 06:56, said:

That was said as a response to Jillybean saying she never considered going for the club finesse. The point I was making was that if you're going to go for the clubs 3-3 it's an idea to do it from the start rather than expending entries first.

For me, at least, the problem with this is that you're missing the spade Ace.
And if that person also has the Jack of clubs....

[hrothgar]

 Cyberyeti, on 2021-June-17, 06:56, said:

That was said as a response to Jillybean saying she never considered going for the club finesse. The point I was making was that if you're going to go for the clubs 3-3 it's an idea to do it from the start rather than expending entries first.

For me, at least, the problem with this is that you're missing the spade Ace.
And if that person also has the Jack of clubs....

[pescetom]

 Stephen Tu, on 2021-June-17, 07:41, said:

No, because that 65% includes Jxxxx(x) onside (24%) where the clubs won't run and you need 2 spade tricks, so which cards did you play before, what's the entry situation?

You're right, I forgot it won't run with 5+. I would take with ♦A and play Q to K before running clubs.

[Cyberyeti]

 hrothgar, on 2021-June-17, 08:14, said:

For me, at least, the problem with this is that you're missing the spade Ace.
And if that person also has the Jack of clubs....

You can't do everything, you only lose to ♠Jxx/Axx where you should have made.

[Winstonm]

If clubs are 5-1 or 6-0, you will need to find J(xxx) of spades onside or a heart miracle but entries won’t allow both that I can see

If you lead the spade Q from hand and rho has the ace you preserve that chance. If not you are no worse off.