 The above probabilities assume formula_18 and that the direction of the split is unimportant, and so are given byformula_19The more general formula can be used to calculate the probability of a suit breaking if a player is known to have cards in another suit from e.g.the bidding.Suppose East is known to have 7 spades from the bidding and after seeing dummy you deduce West to hold 2 spades; then if your two lines of play are to hope either for diamonds 5-3 or clubs 4-2, the "a priori" probabilities are 47% and 48% respectively but formula_20 and formula_21 so now the club line is significantly better than the diamond line.