[Hanoi5]

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♦7 is led. What do you play from dummy?

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♦3 is led. What do you play from dummy?

Both hands came came up during the same session, what are the odds?

[Yu18772]

Not very similar to me
Second hand seems simple - Q either it works the first round or diamonds are 4-4 or there is nothing I can do about it. Its the standard contract, hope the lead is also an obvious one, and everyone will have the same score.

First hand - uhhh - I always get these wrong - diamonds are likely 4-3, but if I get it wrong they cash 5 tricks, and the lead might be less than obvious.
Relevant LHO distributions (assuming 4th best):
1. AKJ7
2. AKT7
3. AJT7
4. KJT7
Without anything useful from their convention card, or from RHOs answer to the question "what would your lead of J mean?" (if J denies higher honor I play the 8) I would still put up the Q....
Yu

[SteveMoe]

1) Low, hoping for HJx with LHO and HTxx with RHO - RHO will often put up the H (A/K)
2) Q, hoping LHO reads Eddie Kantar and leads x from AKxx(x).

I cannot see a 4+ card holding that leads the 7 as a true 4th card - they all have better standard leads to make (top of equals, top of interior sequence).

[sathyab]

First hand: Q hoping West led from AKJ7 or AKT7

Second hand: Low, hoping that West led from a 5-card suit headed by the Jack or Ten, leaving East with AKT or AKJ so the suit blocks or 4-4. Putting up Q works when West led from AKxx(x), but loses when East has AKT.

[rhm]

sathyab, on 2012-September-11, 00:09, said:

Second hand: Low, hoping that West led from a 5-card suit headed by the Jack or Ten, leaving East with AKT or AKJ so the suit blocks or 4-4. Putting up Q works when West led from AKxx(x), but loses when East has AKT.

1.) You are playing for a specific layout of the diamond suit. West having AKxxx is at least twice as likely than East having AKT or AKJ precisely.
2.) We do not know how good West is, nor whether it is IMPs or MP. Whatever, the bidding has a strong bias in favor of a major suit lead.
Would West lead from a bad 5 card minor suit headed at best by the jack with at most the ♠Q and the ♥J on the side? I think a good player on lead would try to find partner's major.

Against reasonably good players at least, put up that queen.

Rainer Herrmann

[phil_20686]

Hanoi5, on 2012-September-10, 18:28, said:

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♦7 is led. What do you play from dummy?

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♦3 is led. What do you play from dummy?

Both hands came came up during the same session, what are the odds?

You are playing imps I assume?

On the first one West has four or five diamonds from the lead. You need a diamond trick, aswell as to prevent them cashing, so your choices are to play for west having JTxx(x) or AKxx(x). Since the lead was the 7, its clear to play the queen. (AJT KJT would lead the J, so must be AKT or AKJ, or low cards (in which case nothing works)). Of course this is not quite right, if east has Ax or Kx and the spade ace and you pick up the spade J, then you can make my playing low. But the seven makes these holdings impossible.

On the second, you need to prevent them running the diamonds. It is impossible for west to have all of the JT9 of diamonds, so playing low fails on all 53 breaks, and the lead makes 6-2 impossible. Thus playing the Q is clear again.