[FrancesHinden]

Scoring: Total Points

1♦ P 1♠ P
1NT P 2♥ x
xx P 3NT all pass

---

2♥ = forces opener to bid 2♠, promises at least 5 spades (this is how we raise to 3NT with a 5-card spade suit)
Early on in the match, partner decided not to risk playing 2Hxx in a known 4-2 fit.

9 of hearts lead ducked round to your 10.
Plan the play.

[Codo]

MY plan is to duck a spade to the 9 next round. Lets say, this looses and rho plays a high heart, ducked again and a low spade to my King.
I then try to run spades till I reach:
x
-
Axx
Tx

opps.
-
AJ
QTx
A

Maybe the discards will help me to find the winning line. If nothing spectacular happens, I throw the jack of Hearts on the last Spade and I try a diamond to the queen. If this looses
and rho plays a club, I win, take the ace and hope to squeeze him in the minors.
If he retruns a Diamond, I hope he has the jack and let it run.

[whereagles]

I'll start by leading a small spade to the 9 at trick 2. If LHO puts 10 or J, ace and a spade back will clear the suit.

After surrendering a spade, cash top clubs and check whether spades break. If not, lead a heart back and duck East's honor. Hopefully we'll only have red cards left and I'll guess the diamonds

[mikeh]

I am a simple soul: after the ♥10 wins, I have 8 aces and need only one more trick. This can come from literally any suit, altho I wouldn't count on ♣ too strongly

♠ is the logical place to look.. if the suit breaks no worse than 4-2, we simply concede a trick in the suit and claim.

The percentage play, by a wide margin, is low to the 9. It loses only to stiff 10 or J and wins against the remaining 4 singletons and the void.

If it loses, the analysis is complex... I had written a long answer, but if the ♠ are foul, it seems to me that all probable lines require, ultimately, a guess in ♦. There are some situations in which a red suit end game can develope against rho (we duck the ♥ return if RHO wins the 1st ♠), but my guess is that against opps who give nothing away in defence, I will eventually play ♦ A and a low.... whether I play the Q or the 10, I cannot and will not say without being at the table.

[hatchett]

I agree, I start with a ♠ to the 9.

[FrancesHinden]

Well, I'm obviously too clever for my own good. I know what the best line in spades is for 4 tricks, but I was worried about what would happen if I lost a spade trick to a singleton honour in East's hand: as mikeh says I will have to guess diamonds eventually. Whereas if I didn't lose an early spade trick, I have time to lose two diamond tricks and still come to 9 if either the K or J is onside, or they are 3-3. So I wasn't convinced this line was correct in the context of the whole hand.

I played the AK of spades at tricks 2 and 3, and of course RHO showed out, discarding a diamond on the second spade which didn't bode well. I continued with a diamond to the 10 and Jack, and won the heart return with the ace. But now I had 9 tricks certain by playing a diamond to the ace:
- if RHO discarded I could cash the AK of clubs and play a diamond to endplay West who was now marked with a 5242, losing 3 diamonds and a spade
- if RHO followed I can cash the SQ and play a third diamond, losing 2 diamonds and either 2 spades or a heart and a club (depending who started with 4 diamonds)

If I had lost at trick 3 to a singleton spade honour none of this would have worked.

(If East had played a heart honour at trick 1, this wouldn't have worked either as it's another quick loser.)

Everyone who played a spade to the 9 was in overtrick mode quite early on. Sigh.

[mikeh]

Frances, I think you are being unfair in your comment that those who played a ♠ to the 9 were in overtrick mode.

If we assume that East has at least 5♥, then the odds of ♠ being 5-1, either way, are 15.9 %, but the odds of east having 5 are less than 3%.

If East has 6 (vanishingly small odds) we find that out when we lead our ♠ towards the 9, and now revert to your line.

But if West shows in, the only times we have issues are when either W has a stiff small or when E has a stiff honour.

On all other holdings, we are COLD on the ♠ lead.

W having a stiff small is approximately 1.5%

E having a stiff honour is approximately(a little less than) 5.5%.

So our line of the ♠ to the 9 assures the contract approximately 93% of the time, and we add to this the approximately 50% chance that we will be guessing the ♦ successfully (when ♠ are foul), and we are up to about a 96.5% line.

Your line requires a ♦ honour onside, of a 3-3 break or a 3-3 ♠ break... I am not sure of the odds on all of this, but I would be surprised if they were greater than 96.5%.

So the ♠ to the 9 was not about overtricks, but about maximizing the odds of bringing in 9 tricks... any overtrick is strictly a bonus... altho if your line were 100%, the imp odds, in a long match, actually suggest the 96.5% play, risking 10 or 12 imps to win 1 makes sense when the odds of winning the overtrick are that high.

[FrancesHinden]

I didn't mean a spade to the 9 was played in an attempt to achieve overtricks.
I meant that on the actual layout, a spade to the 9 holds, and you can immediately start thinking about overtricks while at the table I was still trying to make the contract after starting with two top spades...

You are wrong about the chances of my line, however, and I do think it's interesting to compare them.

Assuming hearts are 5-2 I was definitely making on:

Spades 4-2 or better, or singleton spade honour, or 1 diamond honour onside (no guess required), or diamonds 3-3, or diamonds 4-2 with LHO having the length

which also looks way over 96.5% to me....

The difference between the two lines is that I _think_ that I have actually ensured the contract if East has at least 5 hearts. I'm not certain of this, which is why I posted the hand in the first place.

[on the subject of overtricks: it was total points scoring, not IMPs, at which overtricks are even less relevant and it's not clear which line has the best chance of overtricks anyway]

[bid_em_up]

Why is everyone playing a ♠ to the 9, instead of running the 8 first?

Just curious.

[hatchett]

Quote

Why is everyone playing a ♠ to the 9, instead of running the 8 first?

Just curious.

because it picks up the small chance of LHO having stiff J or T.

[HeartA]

Well, I will begin with top spades. If they split (4-2 or 3-3), I have 9 tricks. If (after 2nd spade) spades turned out to be 5-1 (or 6-0 after one spade), I will play a small D to my hand (if S6-0, I would play DA and Dx).