[TWO4BRIDGE]

gnasher, on 2012-October-04, 05:40, said:

A heart from dummy, won by East's ace as West threw an encouraging spade ....
... ( then ) ♠K, West giving count

If West started with only 3 cards ♠, how could he give a convincing "present count" with only A x left ?

[PhilKing]

TWO4BRIDGE, on 2012-October-05, 07:25, said:

If West started with only 3 cards ♠, how could he give a convincing "present count" with only A x left ?

I, for one, can live with this kind of ambiguity. One can never have too few cards in suit when trying to cash out. This position is a bit like when you follow with a singleton - although holding to two is so much clearer than having to play a woolly seven.

[gszes]

gnasher, on 2012-October-05, 03:20, said:

I was West, in case anyone hasn't worked that out.

I think I made the mistake of thinking in absolute terms: "If the diamond was cashing, partner would have cashed it, so a spade ruff is the only chance." Instead, I should have approached it like most bridge problems, by estimating probabilities.

I should have asked myself what were the relative probabilities of (1) a 3♥ opening on a 4711 shape at green and (2) partner's cashing his winners in the wrong order, and playing the wrong spade on the second round. Those were both quite small numbers, but I think I should have concluded that (1) was smaller.

You defended the board perfectly--your side used count (4th best opening lead) and your p correctly rose with the trump A to prevent declarer from taking a winning club
finesse. Your p failed to try and cash the dia Q then revert to spades. If a mistake is made when proper information is exchanged you can only grin and bear it or change
partners if it is too irritating. It is however very unflattering to assume errors and start making your plays based on stictly % as if the information was completely irrelevant
and contrary to some opinion it is not winning bridge. Save the % for hands where the information is not clear cut and work harder on getting as much clear cut information
as possible ---as an aside--what was E trying to accomplish with spade K followed by J after you had already encouraged in spades. If your signals do not change based on
new information maybe they should.

[TWO4BRIDGE]

gnasher, on 2012-October-04, 10:17, said:

Declarer was Gunnar Hallberg (again).

Another question. How often does Gunnar preempt with 4 cards in the other-Major ?
And, is that commonplace these days ?
It used to be taboo .

[mikeh]

gnasher, on 2012-October-05, 03:20, said:

I was West, in case anyone hasn't worked that out.

I think I made the mistake of thinking in absolute terms: "If the diamond was cashing, partner would have cashed it, so a spade ruff is the only chance." Instead, I should have approached it like most bridge problems, by estimating probabilities.

I should have asked myself what were the relative probabilities of (1) a 3♥ opening on a 4711 shape at green and (2) partner's cashing his winners in the wrong order, and playing the wrong spade on the second round. Those were both quite small numbers, but I think I should have concluded that (1) was smaller.


That's a good point, which again I probably wouldn't have considered. As it happens, this was three boards into the match and the opponents had just gone down in a game, so one wouldn't expect partner to be distracted by earlier boards.

Andy, I think you are being way too hard on yourself, altho my thoughts are somewhat contingent on who you were playing with.

if a client, then I think you ought to have got it right.

if a non-client and especially if a regular or potentially regular partner, then I think you defended correctly, for more than one reason.


I think there are two reasons why your defence was correct.

The first is that (for me, at least) the most effective way to learn is to screw something up and suffer consequences.

Any partner worth cultivating would immediately apologize to you after this misdefence and the error would operate as a lesson far better than would be the case if you 'saved' him from the error.

Secondly, as a matter of partnership trust, just imagine that he has defended brilliantly...that his defence was the only way to beat the contract, and you had refused to do so because you felt it more likely that he had screwed up than that declarer had made an offbeat call.

I have often played the wrong card and found myself hoping that partner would play me to have made a mistake....but in the long run I know I'm better off when partner assumes I knew what I was doing...it really helps reduce the sloppiness that underlies this sort of mistake.

[MickyB]

Agreed, I was going to say something similar, and that's despite not being a fan of superficially similar arguments - eg "never pass a forcing bid, if you do then partner will just punt 3NT next time".

If partner is weak, seems to be struggling for focus or has just let through a slam, saving him is reasonable. If there are no such indications you have to trust him.

[MrAce]

Obama and Romney out ! MikeH for president !

[gwnn]

By the way there is some old meme about always playing K first (to show KQ) and then J from KQJ to give more information. Of course it is bogus but it might be something that still very good players have in their subconscious and might rear its ugly head in unwanted circumstances. I think the question of which of the two scenarios is more probable is completely valid and your partner should not take offence if you had tried to cash the diamond. Of course it might be that the answer about comparing the probabilities is that it is much less likely that partner made a mistake, but it should not be the null hypothesis.