> |> : K Declarer has 2 hearts, dummy 3+. The defense
> |> : J start with a diamond to Easts Ace, the King of Hearts,
> |> : 7 a Heart to Wests Ace, Heart ruffed by East with the
> |> : 6 Eight and overruffed with your Ace. A trump to dummy
> |> : draws the Nine from West and you play the ???????
> |> : A
> |> : 5
> |> : 4
> |> : 3
> |> : 2
> |> :
> No one has p[ointed out what I see as the most crucial problem on this hand. WHY DID WEST PLAY THE SPADE 9 on the lead?
>
She was sleeping, but in her defense (no pun intended), the play developed
rather suddenly.
> You just assume West made a thoughtless play from ST9 and go up with the > SKing.
I think this is the correct solution at the table, even against most
experts.
> But what if BOTH EW are experts.
>
> Now, I think the finesse is correct. Follow the reasoning through and see if you agree.
>
> With T9 an expert East would be much more inclined to play the T rather than the 9. With Q8 West would of course ruff with the S8 but this is inconsistent with an expert Easts play of the S9.
>
> What would an expert West do with T8? He would reason as follows. If S is missing the SA his play is immaterial. If S has SAQ again his play is immaterial. The only situation is when S has the SA and no SQ. Now if W ruffs with the T this forces the Ace, and South will almost definitely finesse the SJ as this win with Qx and Qxx of spades with East. Therefore, the T is not likely to help much. Now consider what happens if E ruffs with the S8. If S has the S9 its all over for the good guys, but as
we saw the T was not going to win by much anyway, so the loss is not very great.
>
> But what if S does not have the 9, it will draw the Ace, and now South will definitely go down when he reasons as above and tries to drop the SQ with East.
>
> So in summary, if I was playing against an average to good pair I think the SK is right. But if your opponents were Mackwell or Stansby/Martel then I think the SJ will be the correct.
>
> Opinions?
>
I think you may have discovered yet another obscure "falsecard" situation
(i.e., ruffing with the 8 instead of the 10), but I think I'd only try it
against the likes of Soloway. In practice, against less-than-perfect
declarers, I suspect that it will still pay to ruff with the ten to protect
when declarer holds the nine (Note: declarer will hold the nine 80% of the
time that he holds the Ace but not the Queen). Upon winning the Ace,
declarer may decide to play for the drop (slightly against the odds, but
not without merit considering that the ruff has created more "vacant
spaces" in the East hand). If declarer would play for the drop more than
20% of the time, then it will pay in the long run for East to ruff with the
10. If you're certain that declarer would finesse, then ruffing with the
