[dburn]

Just dealt in the £15 game at TGRs:

---

South opens 2NT, raised to three by North. West leads a spade to the ace and a spade is returned, West carding as though he started with five (he did). Plan the play.

[billw55]

♣A.

If LHO drops an honor, cash ♦AK. If Q does not drop, take club hook.

If ♣A gets only spots, then ♦K and hook on the way back.

[rbforster]

Bonus points for East popping H from Hxx♣ on the first round of clubs to get us to take the ill-fated double hook later.

[FrancesHinden]

Whenever you see this sort of problem in books, it's always right to play for the suicide squeeze. If RHO has at least 4 hearts and at least 3 diamonds then we can play

ace of hearts
heart to the king
spade discarding a club

if LHO cashes the spades we make by squeezing RHO in the reds (suppose RHO is 3433. On this spade he discards a club, we discard a club from dummy & a diamond from hand. On the next spade he discards another club, we discard a diamond from dummy and a club from hand; we win the return in hand and cash the AK of clubs squeezing him).

This line also works if RHO has the any other two of the suits solely guarded, as long as we are prepared to play double dummy.

The problem is if LHO doesn't cash the spades our life is a lot harder as now we probably need to avoidance the diamond suit to RHO. This isn't obviously better than just taking the diamond finesse.

[FrancesHinden]

billw55, on 2012-April-24, 12:03, said:

♣A.

If LHO drops an honor, cash ♦AK. If Q does not drop, take club hook.

If ♣A gets only spots, then ♦K and hook on the way back.

If you want to play approximately this line, isn't it better odds to cash the AK of diamonds and if the queen doesn't drop, take the double club finesse? You are gaining against specifically singleton Q or J of clubs offside, but losing to QJx and QJxx.

[billw55]

FrancesHinden, on 2012-April-24, 13:21, said:

If you want to play approximately this line, isn't it better odds to cash the AK of diamonds and if the queen doesn't drop, take the double club finesse? You are gaining against specifically singleton Q or J of clubs offside, but losing to QJx and QJxx.

Perhaps. I demoted that line because it gives up the option of the diamond hook. It may still be better though, figuring odds like this isn't my strong suit.

Probably your suicide squeeze line is better than either.

[AlexJonson]

I would play AK diamonds and exit with the spade if the queen does not drop.

[phil_20686]

I would just play heart K spade.

I mean the other line is A diamond K diamond and a spade if it doesnt drop. This is pretty good as if east has the diamond Q he will get suicide squeezed on any layout where he holds 4 clubs or 4 hearts, although its a bit tricky if west returns a heart. I think this makes this line worse. If north had a slightly different set of entries say the club K moved to the north hand, this would be best, but the Kx heart is a big liability in the suicide squeeze as you cannot always cash your winners in the order you need to even when the squeeze is working.

If instead you play a spade first, then you have a slightly different difficulty, in that now you cannot know if you can afford a diamond discard from hand. If you do pitch one, you are basically giving up on Qx diamonds with west. OTOH, you are cold on this layout anyway as now west has 7 pointy cards and can only hold one club guard, so the squeeze always functions against east. So saying I will watch easts discards like a hawk, pitching from the south hand one diamond and one club and then guessing what east has unguarded. The extended menance means that on most layouts i can pitch two clubs and a diamond from hand, win wests red suit return in dummy, cash two clubs and come down to

-
x
x
x

-
AQx
-
-

which works 100% of the time east has four hearts. If west was 54?? I might have been able to read it anyway, and cash the hearts pitching a club from dummy to come down to:

-
-
Kx
x

-
-
x
KT

I mean I just feel like I have huge odds by playing a spade at once. Anytime east has 34 in the majors I will make, and a lot of the rest of the time I will be able to read the position in a helpful way early enough to matter. If west doesn't cash his spades then that will tell you useful things too, I mean he would always cash if he had a heart guard for example. If he does cash he may will signal his guard to his partner.

[phil_20686]

FrancesHinden, on 2012-April-24, 13:18, said:

The problem is if LHO doesn't cash the spades our life is a lot harder as now we probably need to avoidance the diamond suit to RHO. This isn't obviously better than just taking the diamond finesse.

If they don't cash the spades I can always fall back on the diamond hook, I only need 3 tricks from diamonds to have nine, so it obviously isnt worse than the diamond finesse (at imps)?

[gnasher]

I'm going to do the easy bit first, by comparing the two non-squeeze lines
(1) Diamond finesse
(2) Cash the AK of diamonds and if the queen doesn't drop, take the double club finesse

If we ignore vacant-place considersations:

(1) gains against
  ♦Q trebleton or quadrupleton onside = 0.68 * 0.3 + 0.28 * 0.4 = 0.316

(2) gains against:
  ♦Q doubleton offside = 0.68 * 0.2 = 0.136
  ♦Q trebleton or quadrupleton offside, with both clubs onside = (0.68 * 0.3 + 0.28 * 0.4) * 0.24 = 0.076

Whatever effect the vacant-place considerations have, they're not going to add 10% to (2), so the finesse is clearly the better of these two lines.

[rhm]

gnasher, on 2012-April-25, 04:23, said:

I'm going to do the easy bit first, by comparing the two non-squeeze lines
(1) Diamond finesse
(2) Cash the AK of diamonds and if the queen doesn't drop, take the double club finesse

If we ignore vacant-place considersations:

(1) gains against
  ♦Q trebleton or quadrupleton onside = 0.68 * 0.3 + 0.28 * 0.4 = 0.316

(2) gains against:
  ♦Q doubleton offside = 0.68 * 0.2 = 0.136
  ♦Q trebleton or quadrupleton offside, with both clubs onside = (0.68 * 0.3 + 0.28 * 0.4) * 0.24 = 0.076

Whatever effect the vacant-place considerations have, they're not going to add 10% to (2), so the finesse is clearly the better of these two lines.

I also think that the ♦ finesse is in principle your best shot here. Squeeze chances are probably not that good either and you may misread the position.
However, if you are sure the spades are 5-3, the diamond finesse can wait.
Play ♣A,♥AK and a spade from dummy, intending to discard 2 diamonds from dummy and from hand 2 clubs and finally the fourth heart (unless of course something surprising happens like East discarding 2 hearts).
This can possibly gain, when West has the diamond queen and East, who has to find 2 discards, starts to throw away diamonds from three small.
If East has 3=4=3=3 with three small diamonds, it may be tough for him to keep his "worthless" diamonds.
West must also switch after the spades to something and that may well be diamonds.

Rainer Herrmann

[dburn]

Assuming that one can cash a top club without loss of generality (and I do not see how it would affect the squeeze lines, though I am open to correction) one might well do so. If you do so, West drops the jack.

Now, this does not necessarily mean that you should abandon everything else and play for the jack to be a singleton. For a start, a singleton jack is not very likely to have been dealt; moreover, this is the £15 game and West is a player capable of dropping an honour from such as ♣QJx. But it does open up various possibilities...