kfl@5941ux.UUCP (08/22/83)
For the record, there is a practical application to the "simple statistics problem" discussion that has been going on on the net. Those of you who played in the Distric 3 Summer Regional (Meadowlands Hilton, East Rutherford, NJ) Friday night side game may remember hand 22: Bd: 22 S-742 Dlr: E H-A852 Vul:E-W D-T74 C-Q84 S-KT S-AQJ H-K76 H-T4 D-QJ932 D-86 C-T72 C-AK9653 S-98653 H-QJ93 D-AK5 C-J The bidding: E S W N 1C P 1NT P 2NT P 3NT P P P Opening lead: 2 of Hearts. You win the K of Hearts and lead a club to the ace. South drops the Jack. Plan the play. ************************************************** The actual play: North lead the natural 2 of Hearts and West (me) won with the king. There are two ways to make this contract: play with extremely poor opponents or immediately run 6 club tricks and 3 spade tricks. I choose plan 2 and attacked clubs first to use the spades for entries. If the 2 of Hearts is 4th highest, the hearts will split 4-4, so that gives no added information on the hand distribution. I can lead a spade to the ace to see if spades split 8-0, but that is not likely to be useful. Therefore, all I know is that there is a 40% chance that clubs will split 2-2, and my best chance to win all of the clubs is to play the A and the K and hope. So, I lead a low club to the A and low and behold, South drops the Jack. Now the Law of Restricted Choice (the 3 cabinet rule) comes in play. The chances of South starting with a singleton J are almost double the chances of South having a doubleton JQ (11 to 6, to be exact) and any false cards by South are rather useless (think about it), so I cross back to my hand with a spade and finess the 9 of clubs. What do you know, it works, and I get a top board. A note about the bidding. The 1NT response was because I have a thing against minor suits and wanted to protect my kings against probable major suit lead in NT. The 2NT rebid is a little light in HCP, but reasonable in view of the nice club suit and solid spades. Ken Lee 5941ux!kfl a long reasonably strong Club suit and solid spades.