Posted 2011-April-13, 12:03
I see two lines:
A: Win the trump in hand, play the ♠T to the Ace, cash the ♥AK pitching a spade and play the ♠Q from the board. If the King obliges, draw trump and claim. If the King does not drop, ruff a diamond, ruff a spade and hope trump are 2-2. In a vacuum, I make this line about 41% ((.68 x .40) + (.28 x 50)). In reality, its better than this since LHO is much more likely to have 2-3 trump instead of a singleton. If we were to say he will 'never' lead a trump singleton, and since trump are not 4-0, I think the odds of a 2-2 now become more like 60% and a 3-1 closer to 40, which make the success of this line 48%.
B: Start on a crossruff - win in hand, ♦A, ruff ♦, ♥AK (discarding spade), ruff ♥, ruff ♦, ruff heart and trump. I'll make on a spade finesse, or if I can guess a ♠ + ♦ squeeze, so I'm getting 50% from the get-go + some points for the ♦K dropping. Calculating the squeeze odds seems dependent on what I find out in the red suits, but it seems LHO would have to have a lot of hearts for the squeeze to be right. Depending on the auction, an evil LHO might lead a spade looking at the K. Obviously thats great for me here, but surely it is a consideration for the success of the spade finesse.
"B" looks superior to me.
Hi y'all!
Winner - BBO Challenge bracket #6 - February, 2017.