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.