[dave_w]

Phil, on 2012-May-11, 12:39, said:

This hand is not about ducking the ♠K at T1.

There was a beautiful hand in the USBC here Hemant abandoned his winners to stop Reese from getting squeezed in the red suits.

Surely there are many similar layouts on this hand from the defender's perspective where it is correct to follow Hemant's line of defense and not cash the spades.

On this hand, I can see a beautiful swindle if RHO has the ♦A and LHO abandons his spade winners.

People are horrible at problem hands - you gave them the problem before you'd won the ♠K so they all went ... "oooooh must be right to duck RHO must have QJ xxxx Axx xxxx and we can duck and duck again, knock out the ♦A and strip squeeze LHO" (as if that's the right play. Obviously everyone wins the ♠K (even though it can be right to duck it). Maybe you should have given the problem as "what do you play at trick 2?"

However, I think you are over thinking the hand as much as the other posters. If you play back a Spade they will cash their Spade tricks with 90-95% certainty (come on Meckstroth cashed them in the same position). If your ruse requires a defence found by only one player at the US trials then it's just not worth pursuing.

It might be the right play if it doesn't give up other chances, eg would anyone really duck with AQxxx Qx(x) Ax(x) xx(x) (any 2 of the 3 small cards in Hearts/Diamonds/Spades). Sneaking 2 Diamond tricks seems unlikely so you'd either need LHO to have the ♥Q and subsequently get strip squeezed, or Spades 4-3 or LHO 55 in the Majors (very unlikely) so the ♥Q comes down. There's also the chance that Spades are AT8xx opposite QJ and the opponents don't manage to untangle it (LHO wins ♦A and either switches to find partner's entry or continues with a LOW spade).

[phil_20686]

Wasn't there a thread recently about splitting from two and three honours? Would RHO play the J from QJT? Think several forum posters felt strongly that that was the correct card?

It seems super obvious to me to win the K at trick 1. After that, well, I would probably just play a diamond from hand and not think about it too much. I quite like the line of playing a spade back, and I might have tried it at the table. With double stops in every suit it doesnt seem to lose, I can always play a diamond later. I mean, if your opps are good enough that randomly blocking the spade suit can be discounted, that is definitely the right line. I mean, lho could be in a tough spot potentially.

If the hand looked like

---

then west needs to switch to a diamond to beat this I think, as then declarer will likely end up taking the heart finesse. I mean its a little bit of a contrived construction, but it could happen. If west instead cashes his spades, east is bound to end up revealing the heart position. I think from wests point of view this could be a consistent layout for failing to continue spades. There is no way I would think like this as declarer, but it could work.

[han]

JLOGIC, on 2012-May-11, 12:17, said:

RHO didn't play the SA. Ergo LHO has the SA. Ergo I win the SK!

Sigh, I post in another thread how much I dislike the word Ergo, and JLOGIC immediately posts it twice in one sentence! At least here the usage is appropriate.

[JLOGIC]

I use ergo a lot, I do not really understand the objection to it, I like it because it's 4 letters and you know how lazy I am!

[han]

4 letters and thus you use ergo?

[gnasher]

For a one-fingered typist, "ergo" is more ergonomic than "thus", because the letters run from left to right. QED.

[Zelandakh]

You seem to searching for a short, ergomically-friendly word that can be used by lazy typists as a conjunction meaning "it follows that", so try harder. Perhaps there is another alternative that can usually be used to fit the bill. As a mathematician I would prefer to use => but I guess not everyone would get this.

[Fluffy]

Now this is a real Expert-forum discussion

[cherdano]

I am lazier than Justin, so I don't even use "ergo".

[JLOGIC]

Heh, I honestly never realized people dislike the word ergo. Yes, I could say thus rather than ergo for the same number of letters, I did not know that thus was considered a better word than ergo. Thus is never a word I use irl though I do type it sometimes for variety, thus sounds funny to me, I'd rather say therefore than thus if speaking. I still do not know what the objection is to ergo, why do you hate it so much han?

[gwnn]

phil_20686, on 2012-May-12, 05:49, said:

Wasn't there a thread recently about splitting from two and three honours? Would RHO play the J from QJT? Think several forum posters felt strongly that that was the correct card?

I believe that thread, just like almost all other threads on splitting from a certain number of honours, was about second seat situations. In third seat everyone plays lowest from touching honours unless they want to deceive declarer, or partner, or don't care. Wherefore, I believe that thread is irrelevant. Nota bene, this is just my impression.

[Phil]

I use ergo a lot too. Maybe because I've never been taught to differentiate between "thus" and "thusly" and "hence" and "henceforth". Investigating, it appears thusly is pseudo-english. Learn something new every day.

Ergo sounds a lot less stuffy to me, although maybe not as much as therefore.

[gwnn]

BTW "so" isn't getting a lot of love in this thread. It is less precise but it gets the job done in most sentences.

edit: oh yes I skipped Arend's post because he's a non-native.

This post has been edited by gwnn: 2012-May-14, 10:21

[gnasher]

"So" in this sense is a conjunction, so it should be used to link two clauses within a single sentence.

"Hence", "therefore", "thus" and "ergo" are adverbs. Therefore these should be used when the conclusion appears in a new sentence (or preceded by "and" or some other conjunction).

[gwnn]

Plenty of sentences begin with conjuctions, even in literary works. But obviously it is a matter of taste. And if all else fails, you can always switch the structure of your paragraph to make "so" work even for purists like gnasher.

[phil_20686]

gwnn, on 2012-May-14, 10:14, said:

I believe that thread, just like almost all other threads on splitting from a certain number of honours, was about second seat situations. In third seat everyone plays lowest from touching honours unless they want to deceive declarer, or partner, or don't care. Wherefore, I believe that thread is irrelevant. Nota bene, this is just my impression.

You know when I read that thread I was amazed, I thought surely everyone just plays low all the time.

It makes so much more sense now.

[gwnn]

Sloppy language by me, sorry, I meant to say 'second hand' instead.

[gnasher]

gwnn, on 2012-May-14, 11:26, said:

Plenty of sentences begin with conjuctions, even in literary works. But obviously it is a matter of taste. And if all else fails, you can always switch the structure of your paragraph to make "so" work even for purists like gnasher.

It's a matter of emphasis rather than taste. Starting a sentence with a conjunction draws attention to the sentence, deemphasising the relationship to what precedes it. There is difference between

Justin said we should play Ghestem, so it must be a good idea.

and

Justin said we should play Ghestem. So it must be a good idea.

[gwnn]

But surely the choice of what to emphasize is also at least partially a matter of taste?

Anyway, I think your last post is slightly off-topic (), probably caused by another sloppily worded post of mine. When I wrote it's a matter of taste, I meant to state that it's a matter of taste whether you sometimes start sentences with conjunctions, i.e. you can express yourself perfectly well even if you never do. I didn't mean to imply that it's just a matter of taste whether you use '. So' vs. ', so' and certainly that is not something I would need to imply. All I was saying is that in most paragraphs you can substitute '(...) Ergo, (...)' with '(...) So, (...)' and get an acceptable sentence (it is less precise, but it gets the job done). It is not true that you should not start sentences with conjuctions as your post #34 would have people believe.

When will we open a grammar thread?

[Mbodell]

han, on 2012-May-14, 04:53, said:

4 letters and thus you use ergo?

I actually think ergo can be used with a tone that has some exasperation and sarcasm so I think in the post that started the ergo question, ergo was indeed the ideal word to use.