[Vilgan]

Just a quick card combo question/confirmation

With ♠J97xx

opposite ♠Kxx

What is the best way to play the suit for 2 losers? I think the small spade to the 9 is the obvious first step, but not sure if there is a "correct" next play other than just guessing whether Q or A is doubleton and playing for that.

Thanks for any insight, or just telling me "its a 50/50 guess, stupid"

If I have the 8 of spades, I would assume small spade to the 9, then run the J is the correct play with that combination?

Eric

[Stephen Tu]

Why not just low to K first? Then low to 9. Low to 9 first doesn't seem to really pick up anything extra & loses vs. stiff T on the right.

With the 8, running the 8 becomes an option.

Get suitplay.exe and/or Richard Pavlicek's card combo enumeration program and you can tally up how the options work out for yourself fairly quickly.

[nige1]

Jlall, on Jul 30 2008, 05:03 PM, said:

small to king small to 9.

Suitplay says that gives you a 68.4% chance of 3+ tricks.

[dburn]

Vilgan, on Jul 30 2008, 01:26 PM, said:

Just a quick card combo question/confirmation

With ♠J97xx

opposite ♠Kxx

What is the best way to play the suit for 2 losers? I think the small spade to the 9 is the obvious first step, but not sure if there is a "correct" next play other than just guessing whether Q or A is doubleton and playing for that.

Thanks for any insight, or just telling me "its a 50/50 guess, stupid"

If I have the 8 of spades, I would assume small spade to the 9, then run the J is the correct play with that combination?

Eric

Without the eight, it is correct (as others have said) to lead to the king and then to the nine. With the eight, however:

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it is better to lead low to the eight first, then if this loses to the ten, to run the jack. Leading low towards dummy is inferior by some margin.