[eagles123]

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Lead is K♥ which I win - please comment if ducking lead is better for any reason.

what is best now diamond to hand and finesse spade
ace of spade and another
other

thanks

Eagles

[Michael000]

As an aside . . . am I right in saying that there is only a 12.5% chance of the KS being a singleton?

[Fluffy]

Ducking is right if RHO has ♠K, doubleton heart and ♣A. It is wrong when the suit is 5-1. I think 5-1 is more likelly, but not by far.

Another benefit from ducking comes when LHO doesn't return the suit when it is right.

I would make spade finesse always, you win a trick whenever ♠K is onside. You lose a trick when it is offside AND they can manage a ruff. So finesse is better.

[nige1]

eagles123, on 2015-January-20, 06:58, said:

Lead is K♥ which I win - please comment if ducking lead is better for any reason.
what is best now diamond to hand and finesse spade
ace of spade and another
other

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Agree with Fluffy...

• Win ♥A immediately. ♥K may be a singleton or ♥Kx or ♥KQxxx.
• Now finesse ♠Q. Earns an over-trick when it works. Especially effective when LHO has ♠ Kxx(x) and short ♥.

[whereagles]

I'd duck, purely out of feeling.

Then finesse spade and later try small club to the Q, trying to sneak past the ace and maybe get a heart discard (did you remember to try to camouflage the ♥J at trick 1?). Obviously something here will fail, for finding LHO with KQ/K/A gives him an opener

[wank]

definitely finesse for the reasons fluffy said.

also if the spade finesse is wrong, you might already be losing to a few people who made north declarer and avoided a heart lead off a doubleton. how might they do it? bad players might open 1 spade, good pairs might bid 1c (5cM system) - 1h (spades), north might open 1NT and become declarer by a transfer, north might open a 2D showing 18-19 bal, north opens 2nt because he's your local bulgarian pro playing with a client, etc. these are not very likely, but you can normally find someone who's got to play from the other side.

[mgoetze]

Michael000, on 2015-January-20, 07:39, said:

As an aside . . . am I right in saying that there is only a 12.5% chance of the KS being a singleton?

No, it's about a 12.43% chance.

http://www.rpbridge....cgi-bin/xsb2.pl

[Jinksy]

mgoetze, on 2015-January-20, 18:35, said:

No

I do not think that word means what you think it means

[mgoetze]

Jinksy, on 2015-January-22, 13:14, said:

I do not think that word means what you think it means

If what you mean is that the answer could have been "close enough" rather than "no" ... the point is that he obviously used an incorrect method to get his answer. That the answer still happens to be close to the correct one is just a coincidence.