[thepossum]

You find yourself in the following, borderline, slam

Is there any way to increase your chances with regards to the trumps

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Was going badly in MP so went for it

Lead of course was Ace of diamonds followed by small which came round to Declarer

Hint you can make the slam and also in clubs


Please don't say you increase chances by stopping in 5 lol

[paulg]

 thepossum, on 2025-April-13, 22:12, said:

You find yourself in the following, borderline, slam

Is there any way to increase your chances with regards to the trumps

You are in a borderline slam so you just want to take the best line to make the contract and not worry about taking other lines. With no opposition bidding, you just cash the ♠A followed by the ♠K (nine never, eight ever) as you cannot cope with any 4-0 break.

When spades are 2-2, then you have an easy make.

If the ♠Q is singleton, then ruff a heart before taking the last trump and you have sufficient entries to try for hearts 4-3 and establish the last heart for a club discard in case they are not 3-3 or ♣J not dropping.

If the long trump is with East (when they are 3-1) then it is safe to try establishing hearts without drawing the final trump. If Easy has a singleton or doubleton heart, then you can test the club layout as you can still ruff your fourth club with dummy's ♠J if needed. If West has the long trump, then you are in danger of being overruffed at some point and will need to draw the trump.

[thepossum]

I could not afford to lose another trick so could not cope with a 3-1 break

As it happens the top score for any player would have involved finessing Easts Queen

Nobody did it in game or slam sadly

I just wondered if there were any way to get clues about it but could not see any myself

I almost did it

Led to the King, led the jack back which was not covered and thought. Do I go for the top or not. Sadly I went for the drop

As did everyone else. EDIT correction. About 1/3 went for that play and the other two thirds led the Ace first and would have been sad on round 2 leading up to the KJ - marginally earlier than when the rest of us felt sad

So should I have stayed in game or bid the slam. I was not alone in 6-1

If everyone is so confident about 9 ever 8 never or whatever just bid game and go contrary to the field

I feel thats stats culd be quite commplicated to model. But if going against the field occasionalyl beats a whole field how does that work out

I'm finding this drop finesse thing something of a curiosity recently. Sorry for the ramble but a few times now recently

[paulg]

Rarely going contrary to the field can be a sound strategy, but it is even rarer that you want to go against the maths.

You want to bid a small slam that is better than 50% but, of course, calculating these odds during the auction can be difficult. When you have an 5-3 card trump fit missing the queen, the odds of making five tricks is 40% which is why people avoid slam when they are missing a key card and the queen of trumps.

However when you have a 6-3 fit, as here, the odds of not losing a trump trick to the queen are 58%, so most pairs will bid the slam. However, you need a little bit more to make the slam. Hearts 4-3 (just over 60%) or a favourable position in clubs. When you start computing (multiplying) multiple positions, the odds can drop very quickly but I suspect that this slam is close to 50%.

There are numerous articles on the web to explain this. For example, https://bridge-tips....cate-Teams1.pdf

[AL78]

In the absence of any opposition bidding and with little to infer about the distribution on the opening lead, the odds favour trying to drop the queen, so there is not reason I can see to play the trump suit any other way. The fact it doesn't work is just hard luck, sometimes taking the line most likely to succeed will fail, bridge is a probabilistic game.

Reminds me of a hand when my partner was in a small slam after my RHO had opened with a pre-empt. The slam, as here, came down to playing the trump suit for no losers with a nine card fit missing the queen. She decided to play for the drop and found opener with Qx. If I were playing the slam, I would have played opener's partner for Qxx and gone down.

[thepossum]

AL78, on 2025-April-20, 07:28, said:

In the absence of any opposition bidding and with little to infer about the distribution on the opening lead, the odds favour trying to drop the queen, so there is not reason I can see to play the trump suit any other way. The fact it doesn't work is just hard luck, sometimes taking the line most likely to succeed will fail, bridge is a probabilistic game.

Reminds me of a hand when my partner was in a small slam after my RHO had opened with a pre-empt. The slam, as here, came down to playing the trump suit for no losers with a nine card fit missing the queen. She decided to play for the drop and found opener with Qx. If I were playing the slam, I would have played opener's partner for Qxx and gone down.

With such small probability diffrerences it can't hurt to sometimes go against the field - maybe safer doing it in 5 than 6 lol

Had a hand recently - shall I, should I, I did and yay