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Principle of Restricted Choice


Califdude

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Having a math major in my resume, I'm interested in how much or how little respect you all have for the Principle of Restricted Choice. The following could be one example of the application of this principle.

 

Assume no other information available. You are South, holding A10xxx of trumps, dummy has Kxxx.

 

Do you play the K on the first round of trumps so that in case W plays either the Q or J you can apply the Principle of Restricted Choice and finesse with the 10 on the second round of trumps? Or do you simply play for the drop?

 

Thanks for your replies.

:D

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Having a math major in my resume, I'm interested in  how much or how little respect you all have for the Principle of Restricted Choice.  The following could be one example of the application of this principle.

Assume no other information available.  You are South, holding A10xxx of trumps, dummy has Kxxx.

Do you play the K on the first round of trumps so that in case W plays either the Q or J you can apply the Principle of Restricted Choice and finesse with the 10 on the second round of trumps?  Or do you simply play for the drop?

Thanks for your replies.

Assuming Kxxx is in dummy, play dummy's K and lead another. If RHO follows twice and a quack has appered from LHO, then finesse unless

  • Opponents are slaves to HCP and LHO needs the remaining quack to justify their bidding or
  • Extreme splits mean LHO has about twice as many vacant places as RHO or
  • With QJ doubleton, LHO would almost always play the quack that is missing (A recent Bridge World article showed that a moderate preference for one quack over the other does not invalidate restricted choice recommendations).

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Thanks to Nige1 for your clear and non-sarcastic reply. For myself, I learned about RC many years ago and have applied it when I thought appropriate.

 

What inspired my post was the impression I have from my life experiences with bridge that many otherwise good bridge players are not familiar with RC. I mentioned that I did a math major back in the day because I thought RC, along with the related Monty Hall problem and Bayes Theorem, might be of more interest to mathematicians than bridge players. So I thought I would inquire here whether the application of RC is prevalent in expert bridge. Judging from the replies, I would say it is... and it isn't. :)

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Thanks to Nige1 for your clear and non-sarcastic reply. For myself, I learned about RC many years ago and have applied it when I thought appropriate.

 

What inspired my post was the impression I have from my life experiences with bridge that many otherwise good bridge players are not familiar with RC. I mentioned that I did a math major back in the day because I thought RC, along with the related Monty Hall problem and Bayes Theorem, might be of more interest to mathematicians than bridge players. So I thought I would inquire here whether the application of RC is prevalent in expert bridge. Judging from the replies, I would say it is... and it isn't. :)

Ahem. I am a Statistics major and I just had a lecture which talked about Monty Hall today.

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Califdude, every single top player knows and uses restricted choice. 100 %.

At least.

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Responding top Roger Clee's comment that 100% of the top players apply RC...thanks, that answers my question.

 

This is a forum for expert bridge players, so what I'm about to say is off-topic, I suppose, but I retain the impression that as you begin to drop below the top and expert players, the percentage of regular players who understand and use RC drops off rather quickly. Maybe I can arrange for a poll on the Intermediate Bridge forum sometime, might be interesting. :P

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