[lamford]

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Strong London league. IMPs. Strong and four auction.

South leads the six of hearts (second and fourth) and North wins with the king and cashes the ace of hearts and exits with the ♦T. You win in dummy and North plays the deuce when you lead a spade. Your go.

[manudude03]

Very blunt analysis, North has shown AK of hearts while South has the queen. With no intervention, it is likely the points are evenly split so I'll just lay down the ace of spades to avoid losing to KQ doubleton.

[PhantomSac]

 manudude03, on 2014-November-19, 18:48, said:

Very blunt analysis, North has shown AK of hearts while South has the queen. With no intervention, it is likely the points are evenly split so I'll just lay down the ace of spades to avoid losing to KQ doubleton.

And if north had played the ten?

This is a classic suit combo with a slight twist (diamond ruff possible).

Also, I think the premise of the points being split because of no bidding is flawed, if north had KQx of spades he would not bid after 1S p 2C most likely. He also would not bid with KQTx of spades.

[manudude03]

 PhantomSac, on 2014-November-19, 18:57, said:

And if north had played the ten?

This is a classic suit combo with a slight twist (diamond ruff possible).

Also, I think the premise of the points being split because of no bidding is flawed, if north had KQx of spades he would not bid after 1S p 2C most likely. He also would not bid with KQTx of spades.

I realise that the evidence is weak, but the percentage play a priori here just feels really wrong here. In a strong field, I am playing the ace even if the ten appears here.

[PhantomSac]

 manudude03, on 2014-November-19, 19:49, said:

I realise that the evidence is weak, but the percentage play a priori here just feels really wrong here. In a strong field, I am playing the ace even if the ten appears here.

I agree with playing the ace obv. For one thing they can't play the ten from QTx since you might have KJ9xxx. However if they play the ten I think the jack is right, most people probably have KQT or HT in which case the only cost of finessing is giving up a diamond ruff when they have HT and I think KQT is more likely.

[Aardv]

♥6 is a surprisingly high heart - I think someone is being slightly dishonest here. Which makes me more inclined to play the ace of spades.

[ahydra]

I'll go with Justin here, playing the Ace (for 2-2 split or singleton honour with South), and if North had put in the 10 playing the J (taking the risk of the diamond ruff in order to pay off to KQ10).

ahydra

[lamford]

The actual layout was KQTx opposite a void. South had 96xxx in hearts and North AKQT, so only running the eight works. I guess North is supposed to adopt a mixed strategy of playing the ten half the time, but Justin makes a good point that he cannot afford to play the T from HTx. Most suit combination analyses ignore the fact that the defenders do not know the layout.

[manudude03]

I'm a little surprised North isn't leading a 3rd heart if trumps are 4-0. He knows the ruff and discard can't help declarer, and if declarer makes the natural looking play of winning it in dummy, then trumps can no longer be picked up (possibly doable on a trump coup, but I think it requires North to be 4-3-3-4 -> 14 cards).

[PhantomSac]

I think playing a diamond is better than playing a third heart but depends on the level of declarer. Most good/experienced declarers will assume trumps are breaking badly if the defender gives you a ruff sluff in this spot and I don't think anyone will ruff in dummy with no side losers. If you shift to a diamond, they might worry about a stiff diamond and/or will just play a spade to the ace as most of this thread did.

Just my opinion but if someone played a third heart I would def cater to 4-0 trumps. I guess it would be a great play with Tx of spades!

[gnasher]

I think North should play ♥A-K, rather than K-A, to reinforce the message about a singleton diamond.

[PhantomSac]

 gnasher, on 2014-November-21, 00:51, said:

I think North should play ♥A-K, rather than K-A, to reinforce the message about a singleton diamond.

I dunno man would you do that with a stiff diamond? Your partner is not going to fail to play a diamond if they get in with a trump. Seems like you are just trying to sell me a bridge or something. How about just letting nature take it's course? If you just cash 2 hearts and play a diamond most declarers are going to play a spade to the ace (or if having 5 spades is possible, they are going to run the spade regardless with AJ9xx). Doing things like giving a ruff/sluff or playing a fatuous HA HK is just going to make declarer think about not playing a spade to the ace. Maybe they will read something into it or maybe they won't but I wouldn't rock the boat and the poker player in me thinks your range is unbalanced for playing HA HK because I really doubt you'd do that with a stiff diamond on a hand where your partner is playing a diamond back 100 % of the time if they get in.

[PhantomSac]

 lamford, on 2014-November-20, 07:10, said:

Most suit combination analyses ignore the fact that the defenders do not know the layout.

Agreed, pure suit combos are always different at the table. However in this case if we are playing perfectly we might realize that we CAN afford the ten from KTx (blows overtrick but not contract opp stiff J). That means partner must ALWAYS win the Q from KQ tight (we are marked with not QTx so wininng the K is a big error). Instead of playing T 50 % from QTx and T 50 % from KTx and winning each honor 50 % with KQ tight, we can adopt a strategy where we win the Q 100 % from KQ, play the T 100 % from KTx and 0 % from QTx, and play the ten 50 % of the time from Tx.

This would make running the 8 percentage again. When it goes low low, KQ doubleton is discounted by half since Tx would play the ten half the time. HTx is also discounted by half since KTx would always play the ten. This means that running the 8 then low to jack is percentage, picking up KQTx and losing to half the Tx/KQ combos. Meanwhile if it goes low ten, that is KTx and half of Tx and all of KQT. So covering with the jack and then hooking again loses to half the Tx/KQ and picks up KQT so that is percentage.

So even with this wrinkle of QTx cannot play the ten since it doesn't know the suit, we can reach an optimal strategy vs the actual suit combo, it requires both defenders to be on board though.