[gwnn]

I've been thinking about what makes forum posters so much better than any non-forum posters. I think it's not discussions with very good players like gnasher or mikeh, since those are just the absolute correct answers and all they can do is agree with one another. I think it must be correcting fallacious arguments proposed by Humpty-Dumpties like me and some other posters here, that must teach them to think outside the box of logical soundness and hence make them more grateful for what they have. I think we, unnamed followers of shady logic and hasty conclusions, deserve our fair share of applause for these successes.

[han]

I think jlall would be the first to agree that hearing the correct answers from gnasher and mikeh was what did it for him.

[Phil]

Kit mentioned the same line in 6N as Andy. Certainly the x of 2♣ makes that very attractive if it occurs to you.

2♣xx'd looks an easy 960. Is it crazy for Meck to sit looking at 17??

[pooltuna]

 glen, on 2011-May-13, 02:39, said:

Board 60 in:

http://usbf.org/docs..._R8_2_31-60.PDF

Spade suit was Q32 -- AK874, both tables reached 6NT, after West opened 1NT, East bid Stayman and South doubled. After winning ♣ lead, Wooldridge played ♠ Q, ♠ to 7. Meck ♠ Q, ♠ to ace. South had singleton spade ten.

Surely this is restricted choice in action but with 3 top cards it gets weird. Does anyone have the math on this?

[gwnn]

 Phil, on 2011-May-13, 08:22, said:

Kit mentioned the same line in 6N as Andy. Certainly the x of 2♣ makes that very attractive if it occurs to you.

2♣xx'd looks an easy 960. Is it crazy for Meck to sit looking at 17??

Meck had 15 balanced opposite an unknown #, Rod had 17 opposite a 1NT opener, but unfortunately he could only pass 2♣x, not xx.

[JLOGIC]

 gnasher, on 2011-May-13, 04:08, said:

The vugraph is here:
http://www.bridgebas...ph_archives.php

Nickell-Bathurst, set 4.

On the actual layout, after Meckstroth lost a spade and North returned a club, he'd still have been able to make it if he had been able to cash ♦K - there's a double squeeze with hearts as the pivot.

If you think clubs are 6-2, the best line might be ♦AQ, ♠Q, spade finesse. If that loses, you have a red-suit squeeze when South is 2236, and a double squeeze if he is 2326 with ♥9 (without ♥9, he can break up the double squeeze by switching to hearts).

Yes, this was our teams post mortem (that cashing diamonds first is best).

[cherdano]

 han, on 2011-May-13, 07:17, said:

I think jlall would be the first to agree that hearing the correct answers from gnasher and mikeh was what did it for him.

 JLOGIC, on 2011-May-13, 09:06, said:

 gnasher, on 2011-May-13, 04:08, said:

The vugraph is here:
http://www.bridgebas...ph_archives.php

Nickell-Bathurst, set 4.

On the actual layout, after Meckstroth lost a spade and North returned a club, he'd still have been able to make it if he had been able to cash ♦K - there's a double squeeze with hearts as the pivot.

If you think clubs are 6-2, the best line might be ♦AQ, ♠Q, spade finesse. If that loses, you have a red-suit squeeze when South is 2236, and a double squeeze if he is 2326 with ♥9 (without ♥9, he can break up the double squeeze by switching to hearts).

Yes, this was our teams post mortem (that cashing diamonds first is best).

Seems the others still could learn by hearing the correct answers from gnasher

[gnasher]

Quote

Surely this is restricted choice in action but with 3 top cards it gets weird. Does anyone have the math on this?

If it's pure restricted choice, you can just compare a priori probailities, treating the honours as identical.

There are three ways that you can deal HHxx-H, and three ways that you can deal Hxx-HH.

With no information about anyone's shape, the 3-2 breaks are more likely in the ratio 6:5. (After we've distributed four of the spades 3-1, LHO has 10 vacant spaces and RHO has 12.)
Knowing that clubs are 3=5 makes the two distributions equally likely (13 - 3 - 3 = 13 - 5 - 1) .
Knowing that clubs are 2=6 makes the 4-1 breaks more likely in the ratio 4:3 (13 - 2 - 3 = 8; 13 - 6 - 1 = 6) .

[cherdano]

Andy you are forgetting xx-HHH.

[Phil]

 gwnn, on 2011-May-13, 08:59, said:

Meck had 15 balanced opposite an unknown #, Rod had 17 opposite a 1NT opener, but unfortunately he could only pass 2♣x, not xx.

Meckstroth's pass was "club stop, no major".

Rodwell xx'd with 17. The explanation was "willing to play".

I will re-phrase my question. "Once we have shown a club stopper, and partner has redoubled, is AKx good enough to convert"?

[gnasher]

 cherdano, on 2011-May-13, 09:57, said:

Andy you are forgetting xx-HHH.

Good point. What was that you were saying about correct answers?

With clubs 2=6, I think that the finesse is still right, though. If we were adding a 3=2 break, that would make it evens, but we're actually adding a 2=3 break, which is less likely.

[pooltuna]

 cherdano, on 2011-May-13, 09:57, said:

Andy you are forgetting xx-HHH.

The other thing that is weird is while J9 are two equals they are not perceptively equal to the holder.

[BunnyGo]

 cherdano, on 2011-May-13, 09:57, said:

Andy you are forgetting xx-HHH.

And the 100% play from HHx.

[JLOGIC]

 BunnyGo, on 2011-May-13, 11:44, said:

And the 100% play from HHx.

No.

I was definitely rethinking my X of stayman when they XXed lol

[gwnn]

 Phil, on 2011-May-13, 10:06, said:

Meckstroth's pass was "club stop, no major".

Rodwell xx'd with 17. The explanation was "willing to play".

I will re-phrase my question. "Once we have shown a club stopper, and partner has redoubled, is AKx good enough to convert"?

Hard to answer without knowing what "willing to play" exactly means. Seems to me that it's best if it's well defined (either the club holding of responder's, or the club holding that opener should pass with), but maybe it's just my over-reliance on clear and simple rules that's speaking.

[gnasher]

 BunnyGo, on 2011-May-13, 11:44, said:

And the 100% play from HHx.

That would give the other player Hx, but we already know that both small cards are on the left.

[gnasher]

 pooltuna, on 2011-May-13, 11:43, said:

The other thing that is weird is while J9 are two equals they are not perceptively equal to the holder.

To prevent declarer's exploiting this, the defender should follow this strategy:
J9: Always play the 9
J10: Always play the jack
109: Always play the 10

Of course, not all defenders understand this, and many (sensibly enough) don't care. However, when a defender plays specifically the ten you can't get any useful information - either he's correctly playing as above, or he's incorrectly playing randomly from J10/109.

[bluecalm]

It seems that those long matches really wears players off - a lot of seemingly simple mistakes made by US anchor pairs. Maybe they should post on the forum too

[nige1]

Who are the sponsors? Is there an all-pro or all-amateur team?

[MickyB]

 gnasher, on 2011-May-13, 12:59, said:

To prevent declarer's exploiting this, the defender should follow this strategy:
J9: Always play the 9
J10: Always play the jack
109: Always play the 10

Of course, not all defenders understand this, and many (sensibly enough) don't care. However, when a defender plays specifically the ten you can't get any useful information - either he's correctly playing as above, or he's incorrectly playing randomly from J10/109.

Surely this strategy requires knowledge that declarer is missing JT9, and if you know that, you can randomise from all three holdings.