[MrAce]

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Cross IMPs

Lead ♦2, 7-9-A

If you cash trumps East has 3 of them.

[ldrews]

Draw 2 more rounds of trump ending up in dummy, being careful to preserve 6♦ in declarers hand for later entry to dummy. Lead J[clubs from dummy and finess for Q. If it fails rest of clubs are good and lead is through the dummy protecting the K♠. If finesse is successful, lead small to K♣, return to dummy with 6♦, run rest of clubs sluffing ♥. Lead small ♠ from dummy to J♠.

This fails if E has 4♣ to Q.

[MrAce]

ldrews, on 2016-September-20, 19:12, said:

This fails if E has 4♣ to Q.

Yes it does, so better find a better line.

[Kaitlyn S]

MrAce, on 2016-September-20, 19:54, said:

Yes it does, so better find a better line.

Draw 3 trump, CK, CA, run CJ pitching a heart. Works if East has the CQ or if I get spades right.

[Stephen Tu]

Pitch spade not heart on the third club if not covered. Then don't need get spades right, assuming clubs 4-2.

[alok c]

Stephen Tu, on 2016-September-20, 23:17, said:

Pitch spade not heart on the third club if not covered. Then don't need get spades right, assuming clubs 4-2.

If East covers on 4th ♣,how do you proceed?Better to discard ♥ & guess ♠.If East shows out on clubJ discard a spade,if East follows ClubJ low discard a Heart.

[Stephen Tu]

If east covers 4th club, you just ruff, cross ha, discard another spade on the 5th club, and end up losing a spade and a heart.

Discarding spade avoids having to guess spades when West has cqxx.

[MrAce]

Stephen got it right.

You should cash 3 rounds of ♦.
Cash ♣ AK and play ♣J
The trick is to discard a ♠, not ♥. That is important.

If this loses to Q in West, ( I won't bother explaining Alok how to make when Q is with east)

A -West has to play a spade or they have to say bye bye to any spade trick since remaining 2 spades goes on remaining 2 clubs. We will be losing the ♣Q we finessed and a ♥ trick.
B-West cashes ♠A, or plays a spade to his pd's A. Then we discard 2 hearts on remaining clubs. Losing ♣Q and ♠A only.

This was a hand from GIB insta IMP that I played today. There was no spade guess. AQTx was off side. I could not believe people went down by discarding ♥ when I looked the scores.

{comments}

---

[bravejason]

Was the bidding actual or contrived? If it was actual, why are you playing 5 diamonds instead of 3NT?

[Kaitlyn S]

bravejason, on 2016-September-24, 07:37, said:

Was the bidding actual or contrived? If it was actual, why are you playing 5 diamonds instead of 3NT?

That is a very good question in light of the fact that bridge teachers all over the country are telling students that you virtually shouldn't ever play 5C or 5D when 3NT is a viable option. I have been guilty of that myself, and with good reason. For most of the players that I teach, it is good advice; because it is rare that one of them will have the judgment to tell them that 5 of a minor is better than 3NT.

The smartaleck will tell you that they're playing 5D because it's a better contract. If they lead a heart (not unlikely), you have 8 top tricks and if you misguess the CQ, you will lose at least three hearts, the SA, and the CQ and go down. [More advanced: In matchpoints, you want to play 3NT which will make overtricks on a spade lead or if you get the CQ right. You can increase your chances by playing 2 diamonds, keeping diamond entries everywhere, and playing the person who has a singleton diamond, if either, for the CQ.] 5D is theoretically cold, and even when misplayed by someone like me (those who can't teach), still has a 75% chance of making.

Now let's look at the auction. South bids 1NT and North is apparently bidding minor suit Stayman. Why didn't North just raise to 3NT? I admit that I may have done that (I'd rather play 3NT without giving East the opportunity to double for a spade lead, if that's possible, and I'm a firm believer that one shouldn't use a convention if one doesn't need it), but here North clairvoyantly determined that 5 of a minor might be better than 3NT - either major could present a problem in 3NT. This turns out to have been spot on, as we will see. South admits to having four diamonds, and North bids 3NT, saying "I was going to bid 3NT all along, but I wanted to show you that I have an issue with the majors; if you do too, we should probably not play 3NT." North might also have mild slam aspirations.

South now knows that North doesn't have many cards in the majors, and this concerns South who has three small hearts. South can easily see losing five hearts or four hearts and an ace. South does have an excellent hand for diamond play - an extra trump, an awesome fitting CK, and probably the SK isn't worthless. It's pretty nice to have 14 working HCP out of 15 opposite partner's distribution So nice, in fact, that in case partner did have slam aspirations, South made a control bid in clubs - apparently this N-S pair shows second round controls right away. Make no mistake, this pair is forced to game once North bids 3NT, so if North bid 4D, that would be stronger than 5D, and North has no slam aspirations whatsoever, so North signs off in 5D.

Given that they had methods that worked very well for this deal, I thought the N-S bidding was quite good.

It could have backfired in two ways I can think of - if South had a hand such that 3NT was the only option, East might double 2S and get the only lead to scuttle 3NT when 1NT-3NT would have made on a heart lead, and the other is this:

You are on lead against 1NT P 2S* P 2NT P 3NT with:

S - 9 4 3
H - 9 4 3
D - K 8 5
C - 10 9 8 7

* 2S by this pair = minor suit Stayman

You have heard dummy look for a minor suit so probably dummy has both minors and you are leading a major hoping to hit partner's suit.

Is it spades or hearts? Think about it before making your lead.

Spoiler

If partner had strong spades, he would have doubled 2S. Lead a heart. Partner has:
S - Q J 2 H - Q J 10 8 5 D - A 6 2 C - 3 2
Declarer likely has 2 spade tricks, 2 heart tricks, and 4 club tricks. Of course, you will plan to take your DK early while you have another heart to lead, so that partner will have the DA to run the hearts even after declarer holds up in hearts.

[Cyberyeti]

People are completely missing that 5♦ is not much better if at all than 3N on a heart lead, the only edge is that you may be less likely to get that lead.

[Kaitlyn S]

Cyberyeti, on 2016-September-24, 09:28, said:

People are completely missing that 5♦ is not much better if at all than 3N on a heart lead, the only edge is that you may be less likely to get that lead.

It isn't? Which of my following calculations is wrong?

3NT: Slightly better than 50% because I have to find the CQ and can find out a little bit about the opponents' hands before doing that.

5D: Win the HA, draw 2 trump, play CK, CA, C ruff. If the queen falls, draw the third trump in dummy, cash two clubs discarding hearts, take the spade finesse for an overtrick. If I lose the spade finesse, I take 5D, 4C, the HA, one spade ruff.

If the CQ hasn't dropped, give up a heart. Assume they lead a third heart to take away a dummy entry. Ruff a club (making dummy's 5th club good), draw trump ending in dummy, cash the fifth club, lead a spade.

So a close approximation is that you need either 3-1 or better diamonds, plus either 3-3 clubs or 4-2 clubs and a spade finesse. If diamonds are 4-0 you find out early enough to trump two cards in dummy and still need the spade finesse (you can probably play around in clubs but the risk of an early ruff might outweigh the advantage to doing that.)

D 4-0 10% I make with a spade finesse - 5% make 5% down

D 3-1 or 2-2 90% (I make with: 3-3 clubs (36%) or 4-2 clubs with the queen doubleton (16%) or other 4-2 clubs with a winning spade finesse (16%) = 68%)
90% * 68% = ~61%

total odds of making 5D on a heart lead: about 66%

[Cyberyeti]

Kaitlyn S, on 2016-September-24, 09:58, said:

It isn't? Which of my following calculations is wrong?

3NT: Slightly better than 50% because I have to find the CQ and can find out a little bit about the opponents' hands before doing that.

5D: Win the HA, draw 2 trump, play CK, CA, C ruff. If the queen falls, draw the third trump in dummy, cash two clubs discarding hearts, take the spade finesse for an overtrick. If I lose the spade finesse, I take 5D, 4C, the HA, one spade ruff.

If the CQ hasn't dropped, give up a heart. Assume they lead a third heart to take away a dummy entry. Ruff a club (making dummy's 5th club good), draw trump ending in dummy, cash the fifth club, lead a spade.

So a close approximation is that you need either 3-1 or better diamonds, plus either 3-3 clubs or 4-2 clubs and a spade finesse. If diamonds are 4-0 you find out early enough to trump two cards in dummy and still need the spade finesse (you can probably play around in clubs but the risk of an early ruff might outweigh the advantage to doing that.)

D 4-0 10% I make with a spade finesse - 5% make 5% down

D 3-1 or 2-2 90% (I make with: 3-3 clubs (36%) or 4-2 clubs with the queen doubleton (16%) or other 4-2 clubs with a winning spade finesse (16%) = 68%)
90% * 68% = ~61%

total odds of making 5D on a heart lead: about 66%

But remember you'll be losing 1-2 IMPs a fair bit of the time even when 5♦ makes so it needs to be substantially better than 3N (and also that the defence is not double dummy so W can easily get the discards wrong on the diamonds granting you overtrick(s) you don't deserve or you could get a spade lead from a holding including the A that you won't get in 5♦). 3N is maybe 10% worse than 5♦, but a lot of that comes back from other factors.

[Kaitlyn S]

Cyberyeti, on 2016-September-24, 09:28, said:

People are completely missing that 5♦ is not much better if at all than 3N on a heart lead

This is the statement I was responding to. I don't doubt that it's just as good that it's just as good to bid 3NT over 1NT; in fact, I said I would probably do that myself, given that sometimes East has a double of 2S which will make any game unmakeable.

However, if these two hands are in a bidding challenge which is scored by IMPs, I would have to think that 5D would get the higher score. I'm not going to argue that 3NT doesn't get as many IMPs on average in practice; given that the defense has to defend against 1NT-3NT or against 5D in an informative (to the defense) auction.

But I will argue against the prospects of 3NT on a heart lead versus 5D on a heart lead in IMPs. But essentially we mostly agree.

[MrAce]

Kaitlyn S, on 2016-September-24, 09:58, said:

5D: Win the HA, draw 2 trump, play CK, CA, C ruff. If the queen falls, draw the third trump in dummy, cash two clubs discarding hearts, take the spade finesse for an overtrick. If I lose the spade finesse, I take 5D, 4C, the HA, one spade ruff.

If the CQ hasn't dropped, give up a heart. Assume they lead a third heart to take away a dummy entry. Ruff a club (making dummy's 5th club good), draw trump ending in dummy, cash the fifth club, lead a spade.

Cyber did not catch you on it but If the ♣Q did not drop, you can not make even if you guessed spades 100% of the time. So you are wrong about it.


Assume you took the ♥ lead, cashed 2 rounds of trumps.
Then you played AK ♣ and ruffed one, Q did not drop. Leaving 2-2 trumps in dummy and hand and 1 outside.
Then you gave a ♥ (everything until here is what you said you would do)

Now they played 3rd ♥ as you also said. You ruffed in dummy. Dummy now has 1 trump left.
You then ruffed 4th ♣. You have 1-1 trumps left and 1 outside still. Your 5th club is good.

How will you go back to dummy to play a spade? You have to draw the last trump as you said you will. Which leaves you without any trump in dummy and hand.
When you play spade they simply jump the A and cash ♥ to defeat. (You are assuming, wrongly, that they will discard ♥ and hold spades for you on 5th♣)

@Cyber: I do not see how one can make extra tricks in 3 NT on a non ♥ lead unless Q of ♣ drops. I will even give you a free trick when LHO leads a ♠ from AQTxx and let you make a trick in spades which is your 9th trick. But I can definitely see the more under tricks in 3 NT that you conveniently skipped in your argument, on a ♥ lead. 3 NT will likely make more tricks on a ♥ lead because ♣ finesse will be needed. But for the same reason it will also go down more on ♥ lead.

[Cyberyeti]

MrAce, on 2016-September-24, 13:24, said:

@Cyber: I do not see how one can make extra tricks in 3 NT on a non ♥ lead unless Q of ♣ drops. I will even give you a free trick when LHO leads a ♠ from AQTxx and let you make a trick in spades which is your 9th trick. But I can definitely see the more under tricks in 3 NT that you conveniently skipped in your argument, on a ♥ lead. 3 NT will likely make more tricks on a ♥ lead because ♣ finesse will be needed. But for the same reason it will also go down more on ♥ lead.

I win the spade lead away from the A, top diamond, J to Q and run the J♣ into the safe hand.

[Kaitlyn S]

MrAce, on 2016-September-24, 13:24, said:

Cyber did not catch you on it but If the ♣Q did not drop, you can not make even if you guessed spades 100% of the time. So you are wrong about it.


Assume you took the ♥ lead, cashed 2 rounds of trumps.
Then you played AK ♣ and ruffed one, Q did not drop. Leaving 2-2 trumps in dummy and hand and 1 outside.
Then you gave a ♥ (everything until here is what you said you would do)

Now they played 3rd ♥ as you also said. You ruffed in dummy. Dummy now has 1 trump left.
You then ruffed 4th ♣. You have 1-1 trumps left and 1 outside still. Your 5th club is good.

How will you go back to dummy to play a spade? You have to draw the last trump as you said you will. Which leaves you without any trump in dummy and hand.
When you play spade they simply jump the A and cash ♥ to defeat. (You are assuming, wrongly, that they will discard ♥ and hold spades for you on 5th♣)

@Cyber: I do not see how one can make extra tricks in 3 NT on a non ♥ lead unless Q of ♣ drops. I will even give you a free trick when LHO leads a ♠ from AQTxx and let you make a trick in spades which is your 9th trick. But I can definitely see the more under tricks in 3 NT that you conveniently skipped in your argument, on a ♥ lead. 3 NT will likely make more tricks on a ♥ lead because ♣ finesse will be needed. But for the same reason it will also go down more on ♥ lead.

Good catch! That shows the problem with analyzing a hand too quickly. In fact I have to be far more careful that I was.

First, I need to draw only one trump.

Second, when ruffing the third club, I must ruff high. You'll see why in a minute.

Third, when they make me ruff the heart, I must lead a spade now. This will allow me to trump the third spade.

However, they might not make me ruff a heart; they might lead a trump. Now if trumps are 3-1, they can get in with their spade and lead the last trump, which will prevent me from trumping the last spade. However, if I still have the D6 in hand, I can win the first trump with the D8! That will give me an the extra trump entry to enjoy the last club.

T1: heart lead. Win the ace.
T2: High trump.
T3: CK.
T4: C to CA.
T5. C ruff WITH D10. Dang it, they don't split!
T6. Heart.
T7. The opponents return a trump. I cleverly win on the board; if I don't, trumps split 2-2 and I'll be able to trump the heart and the spade, and make 5 by getting the spade finesse right.
T8. Finesse the spade. Say I play the SJ and lose to the ace.
T9. Back comes another diamond. Bye bye two ruffs! But I can win this one on the board too.
T10. Ruff the club good with my last trump.
T11. Cash the good spade; and board is high with a trump to get there!

Let's try this again with them tapping dummy.

T1: heart lead. Win the ace.
T2: High trump.
T3: CK.
T4: C to CA.
T5. C ruff WITH D10. Dang it, they don't split!
T6. Heart.
T7. The opponents return a HEART to tap dummy.
T8. I must lead a spade now to finesse. Note that I am threatening to trump a spade for trick 11.
A trump lead can be won cheaply in dummy (else trumps are 2-2 and I simply ruff my spade) and I can set up a club trick, using a high trump to get there to enjoy it. Alternatively, depending on overruff scenarios, I might just be able to trump the spade (I think setting up the club is surer.)

I think my roughly 66% figure is still good though, I just need to play it less like a mouse in a maze and more like a bridge player.

[MrAce]

Cyberyeti, on 2016-September-24, 13:29, said:

I win the spade lead away from the A, top diamond, J to Q and run the J♣ into the safe hand.

Even if your finesse worked, you still need 3-3 ♣ or Qx or 2-2 ♦

But you are skipping my point. Which was, in your argument, you mentioned the factors that returns the imps back due to over tricks when both make. But you ignored the factors which takes back those imps due to more under tricks when both fails.

Over tricks = 30 = 1 imp
Over tricks =60 = 2 imps
Over tricks =90 = 3 imps

Under tricks =50=2 imps
Under tricks =100=3 imps
Under tricks = 150=4 imps

Vulnerable, it is much worse to take more under tricks. And I am not even getting into the doubled territory.

But I admit in our example hand it was non vulnerable and I admit -3 and +3 are extremely unlikely scores. Still under tricks dominate the over tricks.
I am not saying 5♦ is better. All I am saying is if you want to mention the 'other factors' as you did, to do it correctly.

[MrAce]

Kaitlyn S, on 2016-September-24, 14:37, said:

Good catch! That shows the problem with analyzing a hand too quickly. In fact I have to be far more careful that I was.

First, I need to draw only one trump.

Second, when ruffing the third club, I must ruff high. You'll see why in a minute.

Third, when they make me ruff the heart, I must lead a spade now. This will allow me to trump the third spade.

However, they might not make me ruff a heart; they might lead a trump. Now if trumps are 3-1, they can get in with their spade and lead the last trump, which will prevent me from trumping the last spade. However, if I still have the D6 in hand, I can win the first trump with the D8! That will give me an the extra trump entry to enjoy the last club.

T1: heart lead. Win the ace.
T2: High trump.
T3: CK.
T4: C to CA.
T5. C ruff WITH D10. Dang it, they don't split!
T6. Heart.
T7. The opponents return a trump. I cleverly win on the board; if I don't, trumps split 2-2 and I'll be able to trump the heart and the spade, and make 5 by getting the spade finesse right.
T8. Finesse the spade. Say I play the SJ and lose to the ace.
T9. Back comes another diamond. Bye bye two ruffs! But I can win this one on the board too.
T10. Ruff the club good with my last trump.
T11. Cash the good spade; and board is high with a trump to get there!

Let's try this again with them tapping dummy.

T1: heart lead. Win the ace.
T2: High trump.
T3: CK.
T4: C to CA.
T5. C ruff WITH D10. Dang it, they don't split!
T6. Heart.
T7. The opponents return a HEART to tap dummy.
T8. I must lead a spade now to finesse. Note that I am threatening to trump a spade for trick 11.
A trump lead can be won cheaply in dummy (else trumps are 2-2 and I simply ruff my spade) and I can set up a club trick, using a high trump to get there to enjoy it. Alternatively, depending on overruff scenarios, I might just be able to trump the spade (I think setting up the club is surer.)

I think my roughly 66% figure is still good though, I just need to play it less like a mouse in a maze and more like a bridge player.

None of these are bullet proof lines even if you have a ♠ honor with East. You need to know which one much before you play it. Assume W holds 5 spades. Something like

Axxxx
QJx
x
Qxxx

In your written line, on 3rd ♣ East pitches a ♠.
You ruff 3rd♣ and played a ♥, West wins and plays 4th ♣, which East pitches another ♠.
You ruff that 4th♣ and you ruff a ♥ to dummy as you said, and play a ♠ from dummy. Now they defeat you with ♠ ruff.

You may try to go around it by clearing trumps in order to avoid ♠ ruff, but then you go down when W holds Qxxxx ♠ instead of Axxxx♠ (then East will win the A and cash a ♥ due to no trumps left)

EDIT: I am not trying to be hard on you. I say these because you may consider the spade combinations in your calculation when deciding the success rate of 5♦.

[Cyberyeti]

MrAce, on 2016-September-24, 14:51, said:

Even if your finesse worked, you still need 3-3 ♣ or Qx or 2-2 ♦

But you are skipping my point. Which was, in your argument, you mentioned the factors that returns the imps back due to over tricks when both make. But you ignored the factors which takes back those imps due to more under tricks when both fails.

Over tricks = 30 = 1 imp
Over tricks =60 = 2 imps
Over tricks =90 = 3 imps

Under tricks =50=2 imps
Under tricks =100=3 imps
Under tricks = 150=4 imps

Vulnerable, it is much worse to take more under tricks. And I am not even getting into the doubled territory.

But I admit in our example hand it was non vulnerable and I admit -3 and +3 are extremely unlikely scores. Still under tricks dominate the over tricks.
I am not saying 5♦ is better. All I am saying is if you want to mention the 'other factors' as you did, to do it correctly.

No I don't, I have 10 tricks for potentially +1 IMP if J♣ holds, if W wins I have at least 10 if clubs are no worse than 4-2, I may have to give up a diamond trick if W switches to hearts and the 9♦ hasn't dropped but if it has I have 11 (and W may win with Qxxx when it's better to duck particularly at IMPs, possibly thinking I might have Kxx). +3 is perfectly feasible, just needs ♣Qxx on the right on a spade lead.

On a heart lead I'm almost never going more than -2, I'll be taking the first 6 tricks then playing ♣Kx unless RHO blows on the first diamond I suspect.