NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/rec/games/bridge/6503

Text File | 1992-11-16 | 1.8 KB | 38 lines

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Path: sparky!uunet!spool.mu.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!bloom-picayune.mit.edu!athena.mit.edu!jmh
From: [e-mail] (J Michael Hammond)
Subject: Possibly FAQ - "finesse or play for the drop"
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Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 14:30:24 GMT
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Say you've got a nine card trump fit missing the Q432. (Say dummy has
the KJ65 and you've got the AT987.)  Assume further that the play of
the rest of the hand is automatic and your only concern is picking up
that queen of trumps.  In the absence of any other information, the
odds very slightly favor playing for the queen to drop.  But how much
information is sufficient to make the (non-table-feeling, purely
odds-calculating) player change that line of play?

For example if your opponents play "sound opening actions" and "never
psych", righty opens 1D, and you end up in 4S with 27 HCP points and
the above nine-card fit between you and pard, you're clearly going to
play dummy's king and then finesse righty for the queen because he's
all but faced his hand and shown he has all the remaining high cards.

So how about the case where you and partner have a double fit and went
to game with 21 HCP after that same righty opened with 1D?  Or how
about a negative inference -- you get into the 21 HCP game on the
auction 1S-pass-4S-all pass and therefore assume that lefty holds
fewer than about 12 HCP?  Is that enough to change the line?

I guess the industrious person in my position would run a million-hand
Monte Carlo on this question, but I'm lazy and also want to afford
someone with a soap box the chance to climb up onto it and give us all
the good word.

--JMike