So here's another hand, this time from the Teams event last Sunday. Rotated for convenience, sitting South at favourable vulnerability, your partner opens an 11-14 NT. RHO overcalls 2 alerted as either natural spades or spades plus a minor. You upgrade your spade jack and bid 3 raised to 4 by partner. West leads the Spade King:
How do you plan to play? Poll time!
Do you duck a club immediately? Do you play on hearts immediately? Or do you play one heart, perhaps, and try a spade to the Queen?
Here's the hand as it was at the table...First a hand from the pairs event, at favourable vulnerability. Right-hand opponent opens 1 and you overcall 2 on:
LHO bids a generous 2 giving partner chance to bid 3. The auction proceeds 3–4–4–Pass–Pass–5–Double–All Pass.
West leads the spade Ace which you ruff with table providing:
You lay down the club Ace, West dropping the King and East the nine.
(East turns up with a second club)
It's been a busy first week of term so I've not had much time to post, especially given I've played 121 boards since Wednesday too. On the play side that means there are soon to be lots of hands to post. Anyone reading this who wants to point me towards the more interesting of the 98 hands at the Pairs & Swiss event in Spondon this weekend feel free to do so in the comments below or by email.
I'll be using the hands to pose some interesting declarer play articles soon. I was dealt a lot of interesting cards and got to play a surprising number of interesting contracts this weekend so as long as I manage to get on top of my lecture-prep there might be a bumper number of hands this week.
Don't forget to go make comments on the slam hand a post or two back if you want a hand to comment on in the meantime.
Here was the question again.
How do you play the following suit at matchpoints?
Which very similar line actually achieves a higher expected number of tricks?
And now for what I think is the answer (with the help of the nifty program "suitplay"):
I'll call the best two lines A and B. Both Lines A and B play initially to the eight, and repeat any marked finesses on the second round if the eight loses to an honour. The hands where they differ are when the eight loses to the nine. Note that Line A plays to the Ten next, while Line B plays to the Queen next, Line A being the dominant line as far as beating all other lines.
The table below presents the number of tricks won by Lines A and B after the eight loses to the nine on the first round.| West | East | Percentage | Line A: To 8, then to Ten then Ace | Line B: To 8, then to Queen then Ace | A beats B | Trick Difference | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KJxx | 9x | 4.8% | Tricks | 3 | 2 | ✔ | +1x4.8% = 4.8% |
| KJxxx | 9 | 1.2% | Tricks | 3 | 2 | ✔ | +1x1.2% = 1.2% |
| Kxxx | J9 | 1.6% | Tricks | 1 | 3 | -2x1.6% = -3.2% | |
| Kxx | J9x | 5.3% | Tricks | 2 | 3 | -1x5.3% = -5.3% | |
| Jxxx | K9 | 1.6% | Tricks | 2 | 1 | ✔ | +1*1.6% = 1.6% |
Line B, however, wins more tricks on average, slightly, because of the two-trick gains when the Jack is offside and the King onside to at least three.
