[gprentice]

what is the best strategy to make five hearts on this contract by north. After a club lead and club return I drew trumps finishing in north I lead low towards the QS and lost to the king - so losing two spade tricks and making only four hearts.

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My line of play was possibly the worst possible line. Is there any logic that could help me find a better line of play?

[steve2005]

Could have worked if west had doubleton JT.
Playing A and small caters to actual holding KT doubleton.
Playing A and then the 8 finessing J uses restricted choice. this works if KT doubleton or KTx.

[sfi]

You need the club finesse in 5H, so you might as well take it early. You also get lucky with trumps being 2-2, which allows you to ruff both a club and a diamond in South to eliminate the minors. Only then do you want to tackle spades.

Your best chance is to find the SK with East, so try SA and spade to the Queen. Today we get lucky even when the finesse loses. West only has two spades and has to return a minor to give us a ruff-sluff for our 11th trick.

[gprentice]

Thanks. Slight change of question - the contract was actually four hearts but a few people made an overtrick and I didn't. I think I did play AK of diamonds before tackling spades (can't remember). Since posting my question I remembered I could use suitplay.exe to see the best line of play - it says if the goal is two tricks in the suit, play Ace then small to the nine (because the ten came up in west) - success probability is 90%. If west plays low (say the 4) on the first trick, declarer should play the Q on the second trick

If the goal is three tricks in the suit, also play Ace then small to nine (unless ten comes up) - success probability 22%.

So how do you know to play the ace first?

[gprentice]

also, according to suitplay.exe, the probability of KT versus JT in west is the same - 1.6% - so why does suitplay say to play the 8 and not the Q on the second trick - it doesn't know that west would have to lead a minor giving ruff and slough - or is it because the T might be a singleton?

[Cyberyeti]

gprentice, on 2024-March-19, 16:34, said:

also, according to suitplay.exe, the probability of KT versus JT in west is the same - 1.6% - so why does suitplay say to play the 8 and not the Q on the second trick - it doesn't know that west would have to lead a minor giving ruff and slough - or is it because the T might be a singleton?

Because a) it might be single, and b)with J10 he might have played either card, with K10 he always plays the 10

[smerriman]

gprentice, on 2024-March-19, 16:26, said:

So how do you know to play the ace first?

If you're planning to play towards the queen, if East actually holds the king it makes no difference whether you've cashed the ace first or not.

But if West holds the king, cashing the ace first simply handles the case where it's singleton as a bonus (or, when playing for the elimination above, doubleton as an extra bonus).

[johnu]

gprentice, on 2024-March-19, 16:26, said:

If the goal is three tricks in the suit, also play Ace then small to nine (unless ten comes up) - success probability 22%.

The goal isn't to win 3 tricks in the suit, the goal is to avoid losing 2 out of the first 3 tricks in the suit. The 4th trick in the suit will be ruffed if necessary. Also, a well known falsecard from West is to play jack or 10 from J10x.

[CrispyCrit]

 sfi, on 2024-March-19, 15:36, said:

You need the club finesse in 5H, so you might as well take it early. You also get lucky with trumps being 2-2, which allows you to ruff both a club and a diamond in South to eliminate the minors. Only then do you want to tackle spades.

Your best chance is to find the SK with East, so try SA and spade to the Queen. Today we get lucky even when the finesse loses. West only has two spades and has to return a minor to give us a ruff-sluff for our 11th trick.

That doesn't work as stated?? You're in dummy after eliminating the minors.
Two possible fixes:
1. Draw one round of trump, then eliminate the minors (but danger of a 6-2 break and overruff), and get back with a trump.
2. Eliminate minors then lead the 9♠, planning to give the trick to East and finesse with the 8♠ when East leads spades back. As it happens, West drops the 10 so you play the SA and finesse again. If West wins you get a ruff/sluff in case of a doubleton, but lose to the original poster's strategy if West has J10x. But I think it's still the approach to take.

[smerriman]

 CrispyCrit, on 2024-March-30, 11:21, said:

That doesn't work as stated?? You're in dummy after eliminating the minors.

You are in dummy.. but then you win the spade ace and lead towards the queen as stated Seems to work fine to me.

Your line only gains if West has Kxx, but loses to JTx, Jxx, and Txx, making it just slightly worse.