[KurtGodel]

After a questionable, auction you wind up in 6♥. The 9♣ is led, you try the queen from dummy and this fetches the king and your ace. How do you choose to play if when you play a heart to the king LHO:
i) Plays low
ii) Drops an honour (does it matter which one to you?)
iii) Drops the 9
Try posting your answers as spoilers, as it might be a good opportunity for some to learn by working the problem out. I appreciate that this auction might not have a single call you agree with, but it's important to include the auction so that you can think about whether you were asking for a particular lead, or whether the opponents might have bid.

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[rhm]

Spoiler

Your only losers are in trumps. So you intend to play 3 rounds of trumps to the king and if LHO follows low on the first heart, back to the ten, winning when hearts are 3-3 or LHO ♥9x.
If LHO plays the ♥9, ♥J or ♥Q you finesse the 8 on the way back and can also make if LHO has ♥QJ, Q9 or J9 or singleton trump and RHO a suitable distribution.
But the play diverges depending on whether East has two or more clubs.
Best to assume East has three or more clubs.
If LHO shows out on the second trump play 2 further rounds of clubs.
If both follow, ruff a spade and then play East for 2♠=5♥=3♦=3♣ or 3♠=5♥=2♦=3clubs, by trying to cash the king of spades first.
If LHO shows out on the third club, ruff a spade cash you fourth club, play diamond to dummy and then the king of spades to discard a diamond or overruff if RHO ruffs, then further diamonds.

If LHO played the ♥J or ♥Q from ♥J9 or ♥Q9 you will have to decide whether LHO has done so from a tripleton or doubleton trump.
The latter case is more probable, in which case you need to try a trump reduction play by trumping a spade and then playing side winners ending in dummy.
You win the return again play two further rounds of clubs first to find out whether RHO has a fourth club.
If yes, ruff a spade, cash your club, two diamonds and the king of spades.
If no, discard your fourth club on the king of spades, ruff a spade and 3 rounds of diamonds ending in dummy.

Rainer Herrmann

[nige1]

KurtGodel, on 2015-May-03, 08:34, said:

After a questionable, auction you wind up in 6♥. The 9♣ is led, you try the queen from dummy and this fetches the king and your ace. How do you choose to play if when you play a heart to the king LHO:
i) Plays low
ii) Drops an honour (does it matter which one to you?)
iii) Drops the 9
Try posting your answers as spoilers, as it might be a good opportunity for some to learn by working the problem out. I appreciate that this auction might not have a single call you agree with, but it's important to include the auction so that you can think about whether you were asking for a particular lead, or whether the opponents might have bid.

---

Spoiler

Whatever ♥ LHO plays at trick 2, IMO, you should just play ♥KA and another because, regardless of skill-level, LHO is quite likely to false-card from ♥QJx, ♥Q9x or ♥J9x. A trump-coup seems to depend on LHO holding at most 5 cards in the round suits.

[rhm]

nige1, on 2015-May-03, 13:58, said:

Spoiler

Whatever ♥ LHO plays at trick 2, IMO, you should just play ♥KA and another because, regardless of skill-level, LHO is quite likely to false-card from ♥QJx, ♥Q9x or ♥J9x. A trump-coup seems to depend on LHO holding at most 5 cards in the round suits.

[/size]

Spoiler

Even if LHO has false carded with ♥QJx, ♥Q9x or ♥J9x, it cost nothing to play low to the 8 in case LHO has a singleton.
you have to loose one trump trick even if they break 3-3 anyway.

Rainer Herrmann

[nige1]

rhm, on 2015-May-03, 14:23, said:

Spoiler

Even if LHO has false carded with ♥QJx, ♥Q9x or ♥J9x, it cost nothing to play low to the 8 in case LHO has a singleton. you have to loose one trump trick even if they break 3-3 anyway.

Spoiler

It costs if LHO can give RHO a ruff (e.g. LHO has 5♣s). if you intend to play a 3rd round of ♥ anyway, then it costs if LHO has ♥Q9, or ♥J9, when you can no longer take advantage of the trump-coup recovery.

[PhantomSac]

Is this supposed to be a theoretical debate, or what we would actually do at the table?

[gnasher]

KurtGodel, on 2015-May-03, 08:34, said:

Try posting your answers as spoilers, as it might be a good opportunity for some to learn by working the problem out.

If someone doesn't want to see other people's answers, can't they just not read them? This is a discussion forum; I can't see why you would want to make it hard for people to participate in this discussion.

[KurtGodel]

PhantomSac, on 2015-May-04, 00:03, said:

Is this supposed to be a theoretical debate, or what we would actually do at the table?

What we would actually do. I think part of the element is deciding when someone falsecards from J9 et cetera...

[gnasher]

KurtGodel, on 2015-May-04, 03:15, said:

What we would actually do. I think part of the element is deciding when someone falsecards from J9 et cetera...

The main thing to do is assume that they haven't falsecarded and play accordingly.

If LHO plays an honour, play him for HH or H by finessing the 8. If LHO plays the 9, play him for H9 by playing the ace.


If you go down against some normal layout like LHO having Qxxx Q9 xxx 98xx or Qxxx QJ xxx 98xx when you could have made it by doing the obvious, are you really going to tell your teammates that you were playing for LHO to have falsecarded?

[PhantomSac]

KurtGodel, on 2015-May-04, 03:15, said:

What we would actually do. I think part of the element is deciding when someone falsecards from J9 et cetera...

Well, no one plays the Q from Q9 doubleton imo. J9 is a more plausbile falsecard but to date no one has done that vs me. So as you might guess vs the 9 I cater to H9 but vs an honor play I don't.

[KurtGodel]

PhantomSac, on 2015-May-04, 04:08, said:

Well, no one plays the Q from Q9 doubleton imo. J9 is a more plausbile falsecard but to date no one has done that vs me. So as you might guess vs the 9 I cater to H9 but vs an honor play I don't.

Yeah, to some extent that's why I posted this (and why I said in the OP - does it matter which honour?). I can't imagine anyone dropping the Q from Q9, that would be ridiculous. I thought it would be interesting how people thought about this situation. The rest of the hand was if no high card falls you should finesse the 8 and play for a trump coup with H9xx onside. On the actual hand it did not matter, as trumps were 3-3 and my drunken bidding (and the fact I thought P would have 3 hearts) paid off.

[rhm]

gnasher, on 2015-May-04, 03:29, said:

The main thing to do is assume that they haven't falsecarded and play accordingly.

If LHO plays an honour, play him for HH or H by finessing the 8. If LHO plays the 9, play him for H9 by playing the ace.


If you go down against some normal layout like LHO having Qxxx Q9 xxx 98xx or Qxxx QJ xxx 98xx when you could have made it by doing the obvious, are you really going to tell your teammates that you were playing for LHO to have falsecarded?

I agree and false carding in this situation is not that common.
Nevertheless if LHO plays the 9 it could be singleton and your chances are not that bad making the contract even then, but not if you play the ace on the next round.
If you finesse and it losses you are not down yet either.
So I am not sure that the ace (the simple line) is best.

Rainer Herrmann

[Aardv]

Against anyone who knows and remembers Rosenberg's rule - always play the nine unless you must - 9 from 9x is an automatic false card here, so you should finesse on the second round. However, that's a small subset of the bridge-playing population.

[nige1]

gnasher, on 2015-May-04, 03:29, said:

The main thing to do is assume that they haven't falsecarded and play accordingly.
If LHO plays an honour, play him for HH or H by finessing the 8. If LHO plays the 9, play him for H9 by playing the ace.

A simple alternative is to play ♥KAT.

Gnasher's line:
Gains when LHO has a singleton ♥quack and you can accomplish an unlikely trump-coup.

Loses when

• LHO has made a strange false-card from ♥Q9 or ♥J9 (As phantomsac points out) or
• RHO has a singleton ♣ and LHO was dealt doubleton ♥QJ or tripleton ♥QJx (and has made a more routine false-card).

Admittedly, in the second losing case, LHO's ♣9 would be an unusual lead from a 5-card suit (reinforcing Gnasher's argument). But, if RHO holds 5 ♥s, it's obvious that dummy is short of entries for a trump coup. Unless RHO is short in ♣, would he masochistically sacrifice ♣K at trick 1?

Is either line demonstrably superior? Or should you just follow your instincts?