[dburn]

bluecalm, on Apr 11 2010, 08:43 PM, said:

Quote

Worth another look, that combination:

AJ32

K954

If, needing four tricks, you play the king, you have already blundered. If, needing three tricks, you play the king, you have also already blundered. If, needing two tricks, you play the king, this is not necessarily a blunder, although given your previous record no one would be particularly surprised to see you overtake it with the ace.

Interesting. When needing 3 tricks I can see that playing A and low to the 9 is 100% line, but I don't see why playing a king when 4 tricks are needed is a blunder.

The king is a common - probably the most common - of what is called a "danger play"; it guards against making the contract when West has the singleton queen. Since this is the only 4-1 break against which you can take four tricks, correct is low to the jack.

[gnasher]

Jlall, on Apr 11 2010, 07:52 PM, said:

I will say if you actually know the suit is 3-2 and you don't play for the drop when they drop the ten on the right, you're making a huge mistake against most people imo. Of course against Gnasher or Sandqvist you should hook though.

That's a flattering comparison, but I'm not sure that you're right. It's a lot easier to be a good player on the BBO forums than in real life.

I was, in fact, West, and I'm fairly sure I played my clubs in ascending order. It's almost as important for West to randomise with xxx as it is for East to randomise with 10x. OK, this might have been the 1/3 of the time that I should play the lowest two, but I'm sure that in practice I do it more often than that.

I think David Burn had my cards at the other table. It would be interesting to know whether he remembered to plays his clubs in a random order.

[lmilne]

I notice that I randomize whenever it's costless, but when there's some risk that partner might play me to be making some obtuse signal, I normally just play up the line. Most people I play most of the time aren't watching anyway

[dburn]

gnasher, on Apr 12 2010, 08:03 AM, said:

Jlall, on Apr 11 2010, 07:52 PM, said:

I will say if you actually know the suit is 3-2 and you don't play for the drop when they drop the ten on the right, you're making a huge mistake against most people imo. Of course against Gnasher or Sandqvist you should hook though.

That's a flattering comparison, but I'm not sure that you're right. It's a lot easier to be a good player on the BBO forums than in real life.

I was, in fact, West, and I'm fairly sure I played my clubs in ascending order. It's almost as important for West to randomise with xxx as it is for East to randomise with 10x. OK, this might have been the 1/3 of the time that I should play the lowest two, but I'm sure that in practice I do it more often than that.

I think David Burn had my cards at the other table. It would be interesting to know whether he remembered to plays his clubs in a random order.

I have some vague recollection of the deal, but to be honest I do not remember whether I was the player with three low clubs or the player with ♣Q10. I do remember thinking at some early stage in the play that declarer would take the club finesse and go down, but I do not remember any specific attempts to avoid dissuading him from this course.

I am not sure, though, to what extent it is possible to "remember" to do something in random fashion. Human beings are particularly bad random number generators - if you ask someone to pick a number "at random" between one and ten, you will get the answer "seven" far more often than 10% of the time. If you find yourself in a position where you need to do (or appear to do) something "at random" and try to think consciously about how to do it, the chances are that you will fail.

I do have a habit of trying to work out early in the course of a defence whether I will actually need to play equals in some random order; if so, I will use some external aid such as the vulnerability on a board - NV I will play low from QJ, VUL I will play high. I recall once having to play from J109 when declarer held Axx and dummy KQ8x. Since there are six orders in which one can play those cards, I took the board number modulo 6 and selected what turned out to be the order 10-9-J. That jack fell under dummy's queen, of course, and declarer said "I knew you were trying to fool me by petering with 10-9 to show a doubleton".

[Little Kid]

dburn, on Apr 12 2010, 10:02 AM, said:

"I knew you were trying to fool me by petering with 10-9 to show a doubleton".

LOL

[gnasher]

dburn, on Apr 12 2010, 04:02 PM, said:

I do have a habit of trying to work out early in the course of a defence whether I will actually need to play equals in some random order; if so, I will use some external aid such as the vulnerability on a board - NV I will play low from QJ, VUL I will play high.

Haven't you rather diminished the value of that method by publishing the details on an internet newsgroup?

Quote

I recall once having to play from J109 when declarer held Axx and dummy KQ8x. Since there are six orders in which one can play those cards, I took the board number modulo 6 and selected what turned out to be the order 10-9-J. That jack fell under dummy's queen, of course, and declarer said "I knew you were trying to fool me by petering with 10-9 to show a doubleton".

Surely you only needed three numbers? It's OK to always play upwards; what matters is that the pair of cards be selected at random.

[pooltuna]

gnasher, on Apr 12 2010, 12:34 PM, said:

dburn, on Apr 12 2010, 04:02 PM, said:

I do have a habit of trying to work out early in the course of a defence whether I will actually need to play equals in some random order; if so, I will use some external aid such as the vulnerability on a board - NV I will play low from QJ, VUL I will play high.

Haven't you rather diminished the value of that method by publishing the details on an internet newsgroup?

Yes but of course this assumes that this is the only method he uses to randomize I suspect he has several others and probably picks what comes to mind at the moment which is sort of random

[dburn]

gnasher, on Apr 12 2010, 12:34 PM, said:

dburn, on Apr 12 2010, 04:02 PM, said:

I do have a habit of trying to work out early in the course of a defence whether I will actually need to play equals in some random order; if so, I will use some external aid such as the vulnerability on a board - NV I will play low from QJ, VUL I will play high.

Haven't you rather diminished the value of that method by publishing the details on an internet newsgroup?

Not necessarily, for future opponents will need to guess whether I am actually using the method as disclosed here, or whether I have reversed it so that I play low when vulnerable and high otherwise.

However, the thought occurred to me that the vulnerability might not be a sufficiently random datum in this context. I have no statistical data with which to verify this hypothesis, but I conjecture that on balance you are more likely to be defending when you are vulnerable than when you are not. No doubt there is someone here who does have the necessary data, and I should be interested in any findings.

[Jlall]

lol you don't have to even be close to 50/50 so you should be safe as long as you're not 100/0.

[Fluffy]

dburn, on Apr 12 2010, 08:51 PM, said:

gnasher, on Apr 12 2010, 12:34 PM, said:

dburn, on Apr 12 2010, 04:02 PM, said:

I do have a habit of trying to work out early in the course of a defence whether I will actually need to play equals in some random order; if so, I will use some external aid such as the vulnerability on a board - NV I will play low from QJ, VUL I will play high.

Haven't you rather diminished the value of that method by publishing the details on an internet newsgroup?

Not necessarily, for future opponents will need to guess whether I am actually using the method as disclosed here, or whether I have reversed it so that I play low when vulnerable and high otherwise.

However, the thought occurred to me that the vulnerability might not be a sufficiently random datum in this context. I have no statistical data with which to verify this hypothesis, but I conjecture that on balance you are more likely to be defending when you are vulnerable than when you are not. No doubt there is someone here who does have the necessary data, and I should be interested in any findings.

The biggest problem I see with this is that partner might be able to get UI if he knows it.

[gwnn]

One friend of mine told me 'oh I always play for the drop if the Q appears and ignore restricted choice, almost everyone drops the Q from QJ tight 90+% of the time', does anyone here follow this in weakish fields?

[Fluffy]

I have heard that argument before yes. But its not like people should play or the drop when the queen appears, what it means is you have a 95% when the jack appears by finesing. The others are almost equal then.

[Jlall]

gwnn, on Apr 12 2010, 04:43 PM, said:

One friend of mine told me 'oh I always play for the drop if the Q appears and ignore restricted choice, almost everyone drops the Q from QJ tight 90+% of the time', does anyone here follow this in weakish fields?

It's not worth it, you'd have to be really sure. The edge you gain is so tiny from doing this, compared to the potential loss you are incurring if you're wrong about their frequency.

edit: Not to mention if it's matchpoints do you really want to get a top every time it's QJ tight, and a bottom every time it's stiff Q? Even though you make a small gain in the long run, it's not worth it if you're one of the best pairs in the field. If it's a team game then do you want to risk win 13 or lose 13 on something that random...not if you're the better team. It's a small enough edge and big enough variance (because everyone will play restricted choice) to pass up.

[Little Kid]

gwnn, on Apr 12 2010, 04:43 PM, said:

One friend of mine told me 'oh I always play for the drop if the Q appears and ignore restricted choice, almost everyone drops the Q from QJ tight 90+% of the time', does anyone here follow this in weakish fields?

If my maths is correct they would have to make that falsecard over 91% to break even? I guess if the opponents are that predicable it works.

[MarkDean]

I am reasonably certain that people play the Q from QJ against me over 91% of the time. I started paying attention over a year ago, and only once has somebody played the jack. It was definitely a bigger sample than 11.

[cherdanno]

I guess it's a good opportunity to swing when you are down though.

[Mbodell]

Perhaps in honor of this thread I played the J from QJ-tight tonight.

[Fluffy]

Mbodell, on Apr 13 2010, 06:23 AM, said:

Perhaps in honor of this thread I played the J from QJ-tight tonight.

did it work?

[Jlall]

Fluffy, on Apr 13 2010, 02:53 AM, said:

Mbodell, on Apr 13 2010, 06:23 AM, said:

Perhaps in honor of this thread I played the J from QJ-tight tonight.

did it work?

lol

[EricK]

I remember a time when I played the J from QJ and the declarer "accused" me of being tricky!