[Stephen Tu]

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♥3-♥4-♥T-? (opps playing 4th best leads)

What's the best MP line?
IMPs?

[gnasher]

If our objective is to make:

A club to the jack works when clubs are 3-2 with the queen onside, or singleton queen onside, or Qxxx onside but the spades coming in. Ignoring inferences from the lead, that's about 34 + 3 + 6 = 43%.

Playing spades from the top works when spades come in, and either ♣Q comes down in two or LHO has ♦A. That's about 52 x (0.5 x (2/5 x 0.68 + 1/5 x 0.28) + 0.5) ~= 35%. However, you also survive when spades don't come in but there's a singleton queen of clubs on the left, so that gets us up to about 36%.

At IMPs, a club to the jack is clearly best.


Considering the matchpoint problem:

If the club finesse works, we may then find the spades coming in too, and make 11 tricks. Or if spades are xx-Jxxx offside but LHO has ♦A, we will still make at least 10 tricks. If the club finesse loses, we lose a club, probably four hearts, and a diamond for two off.

If the spade line works, we might get one overtrick if LHO has the red aces and ♦J (cash the spades, cash two top clubs, lead ♦Q), but two overtricks will need everything working. If the spade line fails, we lose two black-suit tricks.

So a club to the jack is still better than playing spades.

Playing for one off might be reasonable if we had a good line for one off, but we don't.

Hence a club to the jack is best at matchpoints too.

[bluecalm]

There is also a line of playing club to the ace and running J of clubs. This wins whenever clubs comes in or W has Qxx/Qx/Txx of clubs and A♦.
Looks like 45+% to me.

Even better would be to play spade to the ace first I think and then run J♣. Additional chance is that RHO won't put his Qx on this.
If he does play the queen then we play Ace and King of clubs if T won't come up then we try spades "knowing" T♣ is on the right. If spades provide 5 tricks then we just play diamonds.
I don't know how much % is that but looks like 50+ easily.

[gnasher]

bluecalm, on 2011-March-31, 16:41, said:

There is also a line of playing club to the ace and running J of clubs. This wins whenever clubs comes in or W has Qxx/Qx/Txx of clubs and A♦.
Looks like 45+% to me.

Even better would be to play spade to the ace first I think and then run J♣. Additional chance is that RHO won't put his Qx on this.
If he does play the queen then we play Ace and King of clubs if T won't come up then we try spades "knowing" T♣ is on the right. If spades provide 5 tricks then we just play diamonds.
I don't know how much % is that but looks like 50+ easily.

Yes, that does look better. If ♣J is covered and the 10 doesn't fall, you should switch to spades. If the spades come in, now you just need LHO to have ♦A, and if he doesn't you've only gone one down. If the spades don't come in, you can still play another club, hoping to find LHO with xx AJ9xx Axx 10xx.