[eagles123]

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Firstly, comments on the bidding please I know it's a bit stretchy! Is there any more scientific way of doing it and is it somewhere you'd like to be?

secondly, this is a slam that no-one else in the field will be in so the priority will be making the contract not worrying about overtricks, therefore when the hearts split and it's time to play on diamonds is there some kind of safety play rather than the usual finesse queen then bang down the Ace?

Spoiler

D were Jxx with E and K with W = 1 down for a bottom when p finessed Q then played the A.

Thanks,

Eagles

[Cyberyeti]

Playing the A first then leading towards the Q given that you have 10987 and can thus cope with 4-0 onside means that you make 6 if it's possible to do so (although you will fail to make 7 sometimes).

[steve2005]

did he pick up the Q♥? sound like you played for 2-2 and it worked.

cause if he did then he can afford safest line of play to have at most one loser in ♦

which is to play A♦ then lead up to the Q

[eagles123]

yes H were 2-2

[ArtK78]

This is not a great slam, but I have seen worse. South was extremely aggressive in the bidding.

You don't know how to play the diamond suit until you find out whether you can afford to lose one. So, you play hearts. When you bring in the heart suit without a loser, you should take the best play to limit your losses in the diamond suit to one trick. The best way to play the diamond suit for no more than one loser is Ace first and, if no honors appear, play towards the Q next. This will limit your losses to no more than one diamond trick against any 2-2, any 3-1 with the 3 onside, and any 4-0 with the 4 onside - in other words, any time the suit can be played for one loser, Ace first works.

Playing to the Q first is the best way to bring in the suit for zero losers; however, as demonstrated, if the Q loses to the singleton K, you will have succeeded in going down when the hand should be made (unless you subsequently decide to finesse against the Jxx on your right). If you are certain that no one (or very few others) will bid this slam (and I believe you are correct), then you should take the best line to make the slam and give up on the best play for a meaningless overtrick.

You can also attempt to partially strip the West hand of black cards by playing on clubs then spades before tackling the diamonds. It is removely possible that you can endplay West to force him to lead diamonds (Club A onside, QJx of spades come down).

Moreover, you may be able to throw LHO in to force a diamond play. Suppose the ♣A is onside. If, on winning the ♣A, RHO does not play a diamond, you can win the AK and ruff a spade (pitching a diamond on the second spade winner), cash the ♣K and ruff a club. Now when you lead the ♠10 from dummy if RHO does not cover you can pitch a second diamond. LHO will be on lead and will have to give you your 12th trick. I believe that if the opps give you free reign, you may be able to combine your chances. Just make sure that you don't give up your chance to make the correct play in the diamond suit if you are running short on entries.

[MrAce]

At MP, when you reached a 24 hcp slam, you try to make it like IMPs.

Above people said why it is better to play ♦A first. But if you failed to do so and finessed using the Q and lost to K, i think it is better to play the A on second. KJ doubleton off side is about very little better chance than K stiff, but not too much.(one of them being 6.78 % and other 6.22 %)

Suit play exe says best-MP play of this suit is to play small to the 9 or 5. But i think it assumes that everyone will be in same contract.

[the hog]

South bid badly. He has a minimum opening and the wasted King of Clubs. I would have signed off in game opposite the splinter. If you bid on on this hand it seems to me that your splinters are almost slam forcing.

[Fluffy]

What ron said, 5431 10 count shouldn't make an encouraging move.

[somajigoma]

one has to be extremely lucky to make this slam.I know a beginner will make all thirteen by taking (1) heart finesse and then (2)diamond finesse and 2-2 break.Lesser mortals like the experts will make the apparently safety play in diamonds.But let me ask the mathematicians about the success percentage as there are quite a few percentages to be worked out.Some world class will just avoid by saying "I would like to be at the table so that I can get the feel of it all during the auction."

[neilkaz]

the hog, on 2014-April-07, 18:52, said:

South bid badly. He has a minimum opening and the wasted King of Clubs. I would have signed off in game opposite the splinter. If you bid on on this hand it seems to me that your splinters are almost slam forcing.

Same here, and no, this isn't a good slam.

[dboxley]

The slam is not all that bad. It depends on hearts 22 or singleton Q and holding yourself to 1 diamond loser OR 1 heart loser and 31 hearts and bring in the diamonds for no losers, probably around 50-50 (I'll leave that to the math geeks). That being said, I would have bid 4H over 4C and wouldn't be in it.

On second thought, South SHOULD bid 4D as it doesn't take up any space. North should not bid 4S, if South can't take another bid over 4H then let it rest.

[whereagles]

Like Jim Carrey in the liar movie... "I've had better"

[aikya]

Bonjour.Hi
On The bidding we play my Partner and I play UNDETERMINED splinters....

1[hearts 3♠]* Opening hand four ♥support. and (two spades * with 8 to 11 pts )

3 N.T.* show me your splinter . 4 ♣* club splinter.

I am now interested in slam .

4♦ my second color. 4♠ * control Ace

4 N.T. Key Cards ask. 5 ♥ * Three Key Cards ( VOid in clubs is a KEY card )

Thank you Partner two Aces and VOID in clubs ...Six ♥..

Safety play Ace ♦ than x D to the Q ♦.

Armand.

Repentigny Québec Canada.

[simpa961]

Hopefully you will read this the safety play in ♦is to play low from dummy towards the Ace then low from dummy and cover that's safety for 1 loser only loses when LHO has KJx where you can do nothing. the bidding looks ok to me however others might disagree for S to bid 6♥ directly it's a bit aggressive from my point of view its a good sequence well evaluated.

[bacca2002]

The bidding would be reasonable if the king of clubs was the ace, but here it is a little pushy. Slam is a little more than even money, and yes, try the safety play in diamonds.

[Wackojack]

I thought I would try and calculate the odds of making this slam:

Hearts no loser = 57.3%: Then diamonds 0 or 1 loser
Play small towards ace and then small towards Q
1 or no losers = 76%.
Odds of both = 43.5%

Hearts 1 loser = 12.4%: No diamond losers = 16.6%
Odds of both = 2%

Odds of slam making 45.5% excluding endplay or favourable lead.

Chance of heart lead away from Q = zero
Chance of diamond lead away from K10x or K10xx = zero?
Chance of endplay when otherwise you are down = ?
I don't think this figure will be more than 6% and my estimate would 3%-6%.

So the odds of making the slam is about 50%.

[Zelandakh]

The North hand is absolutely as good as it can possibly be, and for many will actually be too good, and yet the slam is only borderline. That alone should tell you that South has overbid. To get to the slam legitimately (for example if the ♠K were the ♦K) you should not splinter with the North hand. There are a few alternatives to that possible, with my own "toy" being a 2♠ response that shows either a mini-splinter (invite) or maxi-splinter (stronger than normla splinter) with unknown shortage. A typical auction might proceed:

1♥ - 2♠;
2NT (ask) - 3♠ (maxi, void);
3NT (ask) - 4♣ (♣ void);

where South is now in a position to make a move towards slam, the how (and perhaps success) depending on the methods being used. You can play 4♦ here as showing a ♦ control, or asking about a ♦ control, as Last Train or probably a half dozen other things. On this hand asking (for a ♦ control) probably works out best. Not many have that option available though.

[Cyberyeti]

Wackojack, on 2014-April-10, 05:17, said:

I thought I would try and calculate the odds of making this slam:

Hearts no loser = 57.3%: Then diamonds 0 or 1 loser
Play small towards ace and then small towards Q
1 or no losers = 76%.
Odds of both = 43.5%

Hearts 1 loser = 12.4%: No diamond losers = 16.6%
Odds of both = 2%

Odds of slam making 45.5% excluding endplay or favourable lead.

Chance of heart lead away from Q = zero
Chance of diamond lead away from K10x or K10xx = zero?
Chance of endplay when otherwise you are down = ?
I don't think this figure will be more than 6% and my estimate would 3%-6%.

So the odds of making the slam is about 50%.

I don't understand your odds, the chance of hearts with one loser is 1 - (0 losers + 2 losers). This is 100 - (57 + 5) = 38%

The chance of no diamond loser once you know there's a heart loser is Kx/KJ onside + Kxx onside (as you'll play small to the Q) which is half the 2-2 breaks + 1/8 of the 3-1s which is 26.5%

So your chances when there's a trump loser add 10% not 2% so I get 53.5%. This is actually slightly modified by the fact that length in 1 suit modifies the chances of length in the other, but I don't see this making much difference in this case.

The major chance of a helpful lead is a stiff diamond allowing you to pick up KJx

[rmnka447]

I agree with those who don't think the slam is a good one. South overbid and got lucky to find a very favorable combination of cards in dummy and fortunate lie of the opponents cards as well. South has no way on knowing that North is void in ♣s and has the very useful ♠ K. With something like ♠ AQ10x ♥ AQxx ♦ 8762 ♣ x, would North have bid any differently? Yet with that hand as dummy, slam has no play.

Others have already pointed out the best play in ♦ once ♥s have come in without a loser.

[Wackojack]

Cyberyeti, on 2014-April-10, 10:08, said:

I don't understand your odds, the chance of hearts with one loser is 1 - (0 losers + 2 losers). This is 100 - (57 + 5) = 38%

The chance of no diamond loser once you know there's a heart loser is Kx/KJ onside + Kxx onside (as you'll play small to the Q) which is half the 2-2 breaks + 1/8 of the 3-1s which is 26.5%

So your chances when there's a trump loser add 10% not 2% so I get 53.5%. This is actually slightly modified by the fact that length in 1 suit modifies the chances of length in the other, but I don't see this making much difference in this case.

The major chance of a helpful lead is a stiff diamond allowing you to pick up KJx

Sorry very careless of me.

Chance of zero heart losers = 58%
Then play A diamonds first and you only lose 2 tricks when KJx or KJxx is offside = 17%
Combined chance = 58 * (100-17) = 48%
i diiffer from you here. I think you may have included stiff K♦ offside as a losing play


Chance of 1 heart loser = 37%
Then take diamond finesse which succeeds 26.5% of the time.
Combined chance = 37* 0.26 = 10%.

Overall chance of making = 48 +10 = 58%
This as you say assumes no asymetric effect of the other suits which I trust as you say is very small and for me much too complicated to work out.

I hope this is correct now. If so 58% turns out to be not a bad slam after all.