[MrAce]

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Click next to see how the play went..

I was watching a good teamgame in BBO, all worldclass players not only by BBO standarts but from their real life achievements as far as i know. This hand was played by a famous Israeli player (Amiri in BBO). I think 1♥ was xfer. Other table landed in 4♥ making 6.

Of course double dummy experts claimed that this hand was cold now after declarer finessed the Q of ♥. However i was not as sure as they were, after all declarer didn't see all 4 hands and i commented "He may go down if he plays N for AJx ♦" And when declarer finessed ♣ suit i commented again "Yup he is playing for AJx ♦ with N and he will go down, and i was LOL ed I said, now he will cash ♠K discard a ♦ from hand and ruff last spade which will squeeze N if he is holding AJx♦, if he discards a ♦ the suit will be problem free, if he discards a ♣ then declarer will cash ♣ A and simply play a ♦ to the Q. Only one agreed with me among all the kibs and this was Norberto Bocchi which made me flattered.

But see what happened !! Declarer cashed the ♠K and discarded a ♦, ruffed the last spade which North carefully discarded a club as i predicted, and played a ♦ to Q (seeing south dropped 9, after cashing ♣ A of course) which was won by North and played ♦4. After a small tank declarer played the K !!! Dropping the J and bringing home his slam. And making me lose my bet

I was disappointed, after all he played for something and i couldn't see any reason why he would change his mind. I mean i understand that it would be better if N played ♦8 from 84 but South could have easily played 9 from 98 too, no ? Besides the fact that N is known to hold 3 ♦ vs 2 by south. I assume declarer used the restricted choice, thinking that South could have played the 8 as well from 89, which is also logical but what do you all think ? How would you play last 2 cards ?

[han]

AJx vs xx is exactly as likely as Axx vs Jx. You know north has the diamond ace so you shouldn't count that. The remaining diamonds are 2-2.

I would have played north to hold the diamond jack because I wouldn't have thought that this hand was an opening bid.

[Phil]

Nice spot in the kib gallery and great to see Bocchi support you.

Well, the diamonds are 'effectively' 2-2, since North holds the Ace, however, couldn't North be 2=2=2=7?

When South holds ♦J9, his play is forced, and singleton 9 is impossible at this point. With ♦98 or ♦94 there is a choice (assuming North leads back the 8 - I realize he didn't).

So, I think he played it right.

[han]

That is a nonsensical argument Phil and Timo. With J8 his play of the 8 would be forced. With J4 the play of the 4 would be forced. Are you going to play for Jx whenever south plays the 8 or the 4?

The 9, 8 and 4 are equals, and I would think that at trick 11 these world class opponents would have an idea of what's going on. They are capable of playing the 9 from 94 or 98. If they play it in half of the cases the odds are exactly equal, since there are twice as many 98's plus 94's as J9's. In short, there is no restrictive choice argument here.

[phil_20686]

The way you described it makes it look like he forgot to cash the club ace before playing a diamond to the queen. In that case the defence can beat it with ajx by returning the club. Since jx and ajx are the same, and keeping the club ace works sl

[phil_20686]

The way you described it makes it look like he forgot to cash the club ace before playing a diamond to the queen. In that case the defence can beat it with ajx by returning the club. Since jx and ajx are the same, and keeping the club ace works slIghtly better as you pick up aj tight when the clubs are 72, whereas if you cash the club ace west has another club to cash.

[phil_20686]

Sorry for double post using my iPhone on a train, so could not edit the first one.

[JLOGIC]

han, on 2012-September-07, 04:56, said:

That is a nonsensical argument Phil and Timo. With J8 his play of the 8 would be forced. With J4 the play of the 4 would be forced. Are you going to play for Jx whenever south plays the 8 or the 4?

The 9, 8 and 4 are equals, and I would think that at trick 11 these world class opponents would have an idea of what's going on. They are capable of playing the 9 from 94 or 98. If they play it in half of the cases the odds are exactly equal, since there are twice as many 98's plus 94's as J9's. In short, there is no restrictive choice argument here.

I don't think these things are nonsense. Some people would play the 9 too frequently or too infrequently.

More important, in my experience people almost always lead back the lowest spot, so I think if my RHO led back the 8 I'd definitely play for the hook. If LHO played the 9 and RHO played back the 4 I would definitely consider going for the drop depending on the opps.

[JLOGIC]

And let's not forget, if you know that they will open this 10 count all the time, it is an exactly 50-50 spot so even if you think I'm crazy that people always lead back the 4 rather than the 8 (or rather, at least 85+ % of the time), it doesn't matter, it's 50-50!

[lalldonn]

"In theory" there are no restricted choice arguments, since restricted choice applies against whichever player holds two spot cards and we don't which that is. ATT, jlogic seems pretty convincing and like he says it's an ok place to go by your gut / intuition / whatever IF you know north would open this hand (which may be a pretty big if) since then it's 50-50 anyway.

[gnasher]

I'd go down, thinking that my only useful inference was that not everyone would open the North hand. I know that there are people who can get this sort of layout right, but I'm not one of them. That's what they mean by "world class".

[JLOGIC]

FWIW I agree if I was not sure that north would open this hand, that is a more telling clue than anything else. However, declarer may have known RHOs style (when I play precision, I open the north hand ~100 % of the time also etc). If you know your opponent rather than going with "2/3rds of opponents like him would open in my estimation" you can basically go with "this guy would always open this hand" or "this guy would never open this hand." I don't know if declarer had played a lot against RHO, but perhaps he knew this to be true so it was a non clue to him.

[han]

lalldonn, on 2012-September-07, 10:36, said:

"In theory" there are no restricted choice arguments, since restricted choice applies against whichever player holds two spot cards and we don't which that is.

In theory there definitely are restricted choice spots, only is restricted choice a bit of a misnomer.

[JLOGIC]

Random side note, but it would be quite brazen/impressive for north to just pitch a diamond in this spot as well as a club honor, coming down to Kx of clubs and Ax of diamonds. It feels very likely that declarer would play north for AJxx of diamonds, and KJxxx of clubs, since no one pitches like this in real life. I have always wondered if this kind of thing would work but I have never had the guts to do it.

[MrAce]

@ Phil; No bro north can not be 2227 because then he would have cashed his ♣ when in with diamond A.

@Phil_numeric ; I edited the post to make it clear that declarer cashed ♣ A before playing diamonds, i thought it was obvious, sorry.

@Han; I think Justin explained why your 'nonsensical' comment was nonsensical.

@Andy and Justin; N was Roy Welland i suppose (BBO name was Roy) and i am sure South was Sabine Auken (JCmax ? ) I don't know if that tells you something about their opening styles and/or if N can hold a hand without ♦J.

About North discarding a ♦; i think declarer figured out the counts earlier, or at least commited to play accordingly. Overall, like Andy, i would have gone down too to be honest. ( and that is if i was focused enough to see this position and commit to play for it upto this point in the play, or i would just have made it by a grandma play )

What so amusing is, seeing 4 hands sometimes prevent people seeing good plays/positions. Seeing 4 hands that ♦ suit has no problem makes most of us kibs lazy, but a single dummy player on the other hand uses his/her imagination for alternatives and can find an alternative play than the one expected by kibs. This happens a lot even during the big vugraph matches even with very good commentators.

Thanks for replies, i thought this was an interesting decision/position for expert readers in the forum.

[JLOGIC]

I assume declarer came down to the CA and Kxx of diamonds opposite a club and QTx of diamonds. If north pitched a diamond and the CJ, he could be down to AJx of diamonds stiff CK, with south having 1 diamond and 3 clubs, or down to Ax of diamonds and Kx of clubs as in the actual layout.

I know if I was declarer pitching a diamond would certainly get me, because I have never seen anyone (including myself) have the balls to do it.

[Fluffy]

I am not a math expert, so please correct my thinking:

I disagree that there is no restricted choice, south is restricted to play his spot when he plays from Jx. The reason why Jx is not more likelly than xx is because north is again under restricted choice if he has AJx and plays one back, so both cancel each other.

[JLOGIC]

Fluffy, on 2012-September-07, 13:39, said:

I am not a math expert, so please correct my thinking:

I disagree that there is no restricted choice, south is restricted to play his spot when he plays from Jx. The reason why Jx is not more likelly than xx is because north is again under restricted choice if he has AJx and plays one back, so both cancel each other.

Yeah.

here is an easy way to look at it: Either player with Jx remaining has restricted choice (they must play their spot). However, it is equally likely that either player has Jx (south when he first plays, or north when he returns one).