[Hanoi5]

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Playing teams against not very good opponents you receive a ♣4 lead (3rd and 5th) and the small club from dummy draws the King from East. You play a spade to dummy's King drawing the 2 and 4 from them (standard count but they might forget to signal). You try the ♣K and discard one of your small diamonds losers while they play the 6 and the 2. Time to tackle the hearts:

-Do you finesse or play ace and another?
-A priori it seems the finesse would win 50% of the time (which would also bring an overtrick) and playing Ace and another will only get and overtrick if the King is singleton offside but you don't risk the possibility of having a spade ruffed when trumps are 2-2 with King offside or the already mentioned singleton King offside.
-You play the ♥9 from dummy and East plays the 4, does anything change in the calculations? How?
-Do you take into account the opponents level to decide whether or not they might find the possible ruff?
-Do you take into account the fact that at the other table they may not have the diamond discard?

[eagles123]

DELETE

[Hanoi5]

Totally? Hahaha. Kxx or Kxxx onside with the ruff and you're going down, man.

[eagles123]

ha yeah im tired

[apollo1201]

Playing IMPs, a red game, they offered me a trick on the lead and I'm not even sure they play 4H at the other table. So I want to play über-secure... Kxx and S doubleton from RHO and finesse is necessary. Having (probably) diagnosed SA, DA plus Q and/or J, and CJ in LHO's hand and just CK in RHO, it then depends if you judge your "not so good" RHO can bid "with just 3 points" or not...

[robert2734]

RHO has the king of clubs and either the king or ace queen of diamonds. So it's LHO that needs the king of hearts to have a vulnerable two level overcall. To go with at most AQ of diamonds ace of spades jack of clubs. But I'm not anxious to draw that conclusion with bad oppenents. They don't know or don't care how dangerous 2 diamond bid with a broken suit is. I refuse the finesse and play ace and another.

[nige1]

Hanoi5, on 2016-February-20, 06:43, said:

Playing teams against not very good opponents you receive a ♣4 lead (3rd and 5th) and the small club from dummy draws the King from East. You play a spade to dummy's King drawing the 2 and 4 from them (standard count but they might forget to signal). You try the ♣K and discard one of your small diamonds losers while they play the 6 and the 2. Time to tackle the hearts:
-Do you finesse or play ace and another?
-A priori it seems the finesse would win 50% of the time (which would also bring an overtrick) and playing Ace and another will only get and overtrick if the King is singleton offside but you don't risk the possibility of having a spade ruffed when trumps are 2-2 with King offside or the already mentioned singleton King offside.
-You play the ♥9 from dummy and East plays the 4, does anything change in the calculations? How?
-Do you take into account the opponents level to decide whether or not they might find the possible ruff?
-Do you take into account the fact that at the other table they may not have the diamond discard?

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IMO, you should take into account your good luck at trick one, as Hanoi5 suggests. Play ♥A and another. At match-points, you should break even, at least. At imps, taking the finesse is foolhardy. The main downside of the safety play is that RHO might have ♥Kxx and ♠ shortage but that would just be bad luck.

[gszes]

bidding goes 1h 2d 2h and you are looking at either

xx Kxx K(Q)xx Kxxx
OR
xx xxx K(Q)xx Kxxx

Would you bid 3d with both or would you be more likely to try 2n with the first example? It just seems wrong to try and play rho for Kxx hearts when they are known to hold a dia honor and the club k. Lho might have had an easy trump lead from a small trump vs the more speculative club lead but if they held the trump K not so much. For those playing the Ace because it seems very secure it is not. Only the bidding seems to make playing the ace right.

[SteveMoe]

Ace and another.
Good players don't bid 2♦ on garbage.
The lead allowed us to rid a loser. NO reason to risk a ♣ ruff unnecessarily.

[jogs]

nige1, on 2016-February-20, 16:31, said:

IMO, you should take into account your good luck at trick one, as Hanoi5 suggests. Play ♥A and another. At match-points, you should break even, at least. At imps, taking the finesse is foolhardy. The main downside of the safety play is that RHO might have ♥Kxx and ♠ shortage but that would just be bad luck.

♥A and another (heart)? Don't they then win ♥K, ♠A and two diamonds?

[SteveMoe]

jogs, on 2016-February-22, 19:36, said:

♥A and another (heart)? Don't they then win ♥K, ♠A and two diamonds?

You missed the ♦ pitch on the ♣Q