bad popular game at MPs

[JLOGIC]

One possibility is to win the heart and play the DQ and then a diamond to your hand and believe their count (I believe this is a situation where many would give honest count as holding up is a live possibility). This makes the spade switch more obvious but if diamonds appear to split you can run diamonds and then decide on the club hook later. At least you will not go down an extra undertrick if the club hook is off and diamonds dont split.

[BunnyGo]

I was wondering if winning in dummy to conceal the A, cross to diamond A, and hook the club gives the hardest time for the defense.

[rhm]

This is illegal according to most interpretations of the laws.

Why is it illegal to draw conclusions from the behavior of your opponents?

It is called table presence

Some are praised for being good at that (Lawrence, Hamilton etc)

 

Rainer Herrmann

[gnasher]

Why is it illegal to draw conclusions from the behavior of your opponents?

It is called table presence

I think gwnn was arguing that "observing" the opponents is illegal.

[gwnn]

Why is it illegal to draw conclusions from the behavior of your opponents?

It is called table presence

Some are praised for being good at that (Lawrence, Hamilton etc)

It depends on the manner and intensity of how you observe your opponents. My initial post was exaggerated, sorry about that.

[billw55]

In a bad standard game, lead the Q of clubs. If they don't cover (or at least think about it), they don't have it. Clear cut in my book.

It would take a pretty bad opponent to consider covering the queen with AJTxx in dummy. I would not rely on this inference.

 

i am skeptical that our sequence is the most common. There seems to

be a much greater chance 3n would be played by p than by us (bidding

2n with club support and 2 little spades being a tad umm eccentric).

 

Helene_T hits on the combined chance of dia first followed by the

club finesse and I think this is best precisely because we got lucky

"right-siding" 3n and we have a legitimate chance of making it where

most will probably be wondering how many tricks they are going down

when a spade hits the table.

This is a good point. In fact, with spades wide open, I expect some pairs to play in 5♣. Assuming a spade lead, this is either = or -1, depending only on the hook.

[JLOGIC]

I am also of the school that many people would not bid this way. To me a "normal" auction might start 1D 2C 2D 2H 3C... or 1D 2C 2D 2N. In the former, 5C is very likely. In the latter 5C is also likely as I think south would bid 3C and north would bid 3H, but even if he raised to 3N it would be played by north who would likely lead a spade.

 

In that case, it is probably right to cash diamonds since RHO might have 5 spades anyways, but nothing is clear. I am not sure if trying to figure out if diamonds are 3-3 first is the play, or if trying to make it as hard as possible for RHO to shift to a spade is the play, they are both appealing. I would definitely try one of them.

 

If playing on clubs before diamonds really is good MP play then it just reinforces the "MP is not real bridge" argument I hear from time to time (one of the best players in the local club said this to me only Saturday).

 

I so disagree with this. This hand is enormously complex and massively interesting because it is matchpoints. It is a great hand, and such a stupid/easy hand at imps. This is why MP has much more skill than imps, there is just inherently more important decisions to make on each hand, more judgement to be used etc. I don't know what "real bridge" is, but I prefer the form where skill matters the most.

 

People thinking they're baller because they know how to play AJ8x opp K9xx for 1 loser to guarantee their contract so they're playing real bridge, instead of playing matchpoints where they have to jduge whether or not to play low to the jack, or king and low to the jack, all while a ruff is possible but not guaranteed if you lose the hook and you are not sure if the field will be in the same contract etc etc, is just lol. The 2nd is just way more interesting/complex/requiring more skill than the first.

[Zelandakh]

I so disagree with this.

FWiiW I also disagreed with him, albeit not as vehemently as I daresay you would have.

[awm]

I so disagree with this. This hand is enormously complex and massively interesting because it is matchpoints. It is a great hand, and such a stupid/easy hand at imps. This is why MP has much more skill than imps, there is just inherently more important decisions to make on each hand, more judgement to be used etc. I don't know what "real bridge" is, but I prefer the form where skill matters the most.

 

Can I plus-infinity this? Nominate for post of the year!

[billw55]

Matchpoints is really hard. For me the main drawback is the luck factor that is sometimes involved. At teams, my results come only from actions of my team or my opponents. At pairs, weird things can happen that are not attributable to either, rather to unexpected field behavior. Plus the random luck of which boards get played against which pairs.

 

I got fixed at matchpoints just the other night, I'll post a vent thread shortly.

[gnasher]

Matchpoints is really hard. For me the main drawback is the luck factor that is sometimes involved. At teams, my results come only from actions of my team or my opponents. At pairs, weird things can happen that are not attributable to either, rather to unexpected field behavior. Plus the random luck of which boards get played against which pairs.

That's an argument for playing teams events, not an argument for playing IMPs.

[ArtK78]

Matchpoints is really hard. For me the main drawback is the luck factor that is sometimes involved. At teams, my results come only from actions of my team or my opponents. At pairs, weird things can happen that are not attributable to either, rather to unexpected field behavior. Plus the random luck of which boards get played against which pairs.

 

I got fixed at matchpoints just the other night, I'll post a vent thread shortly.

The luck factor exists in all forms of the game, although I have to admit that it is more prevalent in pair events than in team events.

 

But the luck factor is not the issue that makes matchpoints difficult. It is the multiple factors of figuring out what your goal is on a particular hand and the best way to attain that goal. Sometimes a hand has more than one goal - a primary goal (what line will enable me to score the most matchpoints?) and a secondary goal (how can I minimize the damage and salvage a fair score if something goes wrong?). The hand in the OP presents these issues in many forms, as well as the luck factor.

 

The luck factor:

 

Either because of our auction or because LHO chose wrong (perhaps badly so) the lead is a heart and not a spade. So, the opps failed to take their 4, 5 or 6 tricks off the top. How do I take advantage of this? Or is this a non-factor, as the heart lead is perfectly normal (and someone else in the field got the bad luck of an opening spade lead)?

 

My goal:

 

Should I take the best possible line to make 9 tricks, or should I try for overtricks?

 

My secondary goal:

 

How many tricks will I wind up with if the initial line that I choose fails?

 

Both of these last two criteria must be evaluated in matchpoint terms taking into account the initial luck factor. It is frustrating to find out after the fact that the initial heart lead gave you a chance for a top by playing as conservatively as possible, maximizing your chances to make the hand (at the cost of overtricks), but that you thought it was a normal lead and chose to play for overtricks. Worse still is finding out that if you had taken a reasonable line that failed, but only by one trick, you would still get a good result compared to the majority of players who found a line that resulted in more than one off.

 

Helene discussed the various possible outcomes in her post. Trying to decide which of these outcomes is what you are looking for is often the hardest part of matchpoint play.

 

The fact that each hand in a matchpoint pairs event counts the same as all of the others means you really never have a chance to relax at matchpoints.

[JLOGIC]

Gnasher is 100 % correct obv, pairs will have much less luck ivolved than knockouts, however that is because of the format, not the form of scoring. I doubt anyone would think that MP pairs has more luck than imp pairs, or that the reisinger (BAM) has more luck than a swiss teams format, or as has been written many times on here that a BAM knockout would have more luck than an IMP knockout (even though BAM KOs are rarely or never played).

 

BAM KO would clearly be the most skill format, since MP has less luck than imps and KOs have less luck than any other format. I suspect that this is never run because the best teams would basically always win, a bad team would have basically zero chance of an upset in a long BAM KO event.

 

There is just no question that MP or BAM scoring always has more skill/less luck than their equivalent imp formats. This does not directly go against the "imps is real bridge" argument since "real bridge" is undefined, which is probably why it's such a stupid saying.

[SteveMoe]

To all voices (and you are many) giving life to the Matchpoint dimension of the decison Many Many plusses coming your way. Thanks!

 

I have 2 itches to scratch (please forgive if these need to be separate posts. I will comply if that helps:

 

1) No one has mentioned whether the prospect of 3=5 split in ♠ should factor into a decision to simply make the hand. I would like to better understand the full odds decision process for choosing overticks vs simply making...

 

and the related question:

 

2) How best to hone one's field estimation skills? This is far from an exact science and usually mis-ascribed to "luck".

 

Thoughts?

[JLOGIC]

 

2) How best to hone one's field estimation skills? This is far from an exact science and usually mis-ascribed to "luck".

 

Thoughts?

 

Since it's far from an exact science, I would go with don't ever worry about it. I see so many stupid plays/bids by otherwise good players who are trying to go with the field, or go against the field, or estimate the field but doing it horribly, or whatever.

 

Yes, there are some hands where it might be a relevant thing to do. THESE HANDS ARE EXTREMELY RARE. You must realize you read about/think about/talk about a grossly disproportionate amount of these hands because they are interesting theoretically, and offer possible debatable lines.

 

If you are not a superduper world class player, you would do much better to never think about it, and focus only on figuring out the hand an making the best play. Even on this hand, my suggested idea was to try and figure out if diamonds are 3-3 or not. If you can do this, then the field considerations are completely irrelevant. If you cannot even figure out what the best play is on most hands, then how can you figure out what the probabilities are that the field will be in 5C or 3N, that the field will play it from a different side, or that LHO will lead a spade? Even if this is a hand where oyu should be doign those things, those hands are EXTREMELY RARE IN REAL LIFE PLAY, and you might misapply this on many hands when it is basically a negligible amount of hands that need it to be done anyways, and end up making stupid/bad plays.

[JLOGIC]

1) No one has mentioned whether the prospect of 3=5 split in ♠ should factor into a decision to simply make the hand. I would like to better understand the full odds decision process for choosing overticks vs simply making...

 

As far as this goes, a 3-5 split in spades is probably very likely if LHO has led from a 4 card heart suit (as he might have led from a 4 card spade suit with 4-4). That is why we should watch RHOs signal at trick 1, which will almost certainly be honest count. This kind of thing is what people should be watching instead of thinking about the field: try to figure out the hand.

 

If LHO has 5 hearts he might be more liekly to have 4 spades based on the lead, but now we have empty space considerations making 3-5 likely again.

 

How easy will a spade shift be for righty? It might depend if the opps play smith or suit preference or whatever, but given that we bid 2N he might think we have a spade stop. This will make a spade shift dangerous from some holdings. The problem is we have to cross to our hand if we want to give the illusion that LHO might have the HA, which will give away our diamond holding. There will still be room for us to have a spade card, but RHO might realize there is a danger we cash a lot of minor suit tricks. This will again depend on the level of RHO.

 

This hand is just not that simple, but hands like this are exceptions and we see these types a hugely disproportionate amount of the time if we read a lot because obv interesting hands/situations are the ones that we are going to see, and what makes them interesting is that they are unusual.

[JLOGIC]

Being good at MP will always require watching their signals well, and figuring out the layout of the cards in order to make high probability plays. Trying to hedge your risk or increase/reduce variance or whatever by predicting the field is all well and good, but at the end of the day your goal is to figure out the layout of cards, or leave the opponents in the dark and force tough decisions on them early. Field arguments are usually a copout, work on figuring out the best play at your table to make the most tricks.

[SteveMoe]

Thanks Justin! Good Luck this week.

[dburn]

Do not worry about the field. It isn't worrying about you.

[akwoo]

Since it's far from an exact science, I would go with don't ever worry about it. I see so many stupid plays/bids by otherwise good players who are trying to go with the field, or go against the field, or estimate the field but doing it horribly, or whatever.

 

Yes, there are some hands where it might be a relevant thing to do. THESE HANDS ARE EXTREMELY RARE. You must realize you read about/think about/talk about a grossly disproportionate amount of these hands because they are interesting theoretically, and offer possible debatable lines.

 

One caveat: If you are playing a system played by a minority (e.g. weak nt or strong club in the US), then there are some common situations where you end up against the field. If you are a weak no-trumper, the 1N vs 2 of a major thing comes up something like once a session, which is frequent enough to spend some time thinking about and understanding it away from the table. (Don't try to figure it out at the table! It's too late!) Fortunately it's really not that complicated.

 

Of course, people who dare to play unusual systems probably don't need to be told this.

[32519]

I posted the hand because I didn't know what to do at the table, in the end I opted for one line, then I switched to other and even played spades myself to muddy the waters

 

This doesn’t help much for those interested in this thread. Did you –

1. Start off by testing the ♦ as suggested by helene_t?

2. When they did not break, decided to take the ♣ hook?

3. The ♣ led from hand towards dummy becomes irrelevant as midway through the play you “opted for one line and then switched to another” and went up with the ♣A realising that if the ♣ hook failed you stand to lose 7-tricks in total:

a. 1X♣ (the offside K)

b. 1X♦

c. 5X♠ for a possible down 3?

4. At this point you tried to “muddy the waters” by leading a ♠ yourself?

 

Justin has already posted that this is a very interesting MP hand. Kindly post the full hand for the benefit of all.

[paulg]

Justin has already posted that this is a very interesting MP hand. Kindly post the full hand for the benefit of all.

It is a very interesting hand. The full hand is nowhere near as interesting as it kills much of the debate. Keep it hidden :)

[billw55]

Yeah, what I was saying is a pairs thing, not a MP thing.

 

However, some things are still lost at matchpoints as a form of scoring. For example, devising a scheme of deception to set a contract which will work a minority of the time but concede an overtrick the rest of the time.

[Finch]

 

Justin has already posted that this is a very interesting MP hand. Kindly post the full hand for the benefit of all.

 

The full hand is irrelevant to the discussion.

 

The decision of whether to play exactly two rounds of diamonds (or only one) depends a lot on the opponents. If they play Smith then you won't get a useful count on diamonds (particularly having opened 1♦) and LHO will have a chance to discourage hearts. So then I think I'd simply go for a diamond to the king and the club finesse. Also, I wouldn't start with the CQ, because RHO can duck in order to get a suit preference signal for partner while if I start with low to the 10 he will find it much harder to duck.

 

The problem with playing on spades ourselves is that while it might work, it's giving up on the maximum number of overtricks when everything comes in.

 

In an English field the auction will have been 1NT-3NT; no-one will be in 5 minor. (We'll be in 3NT on a slightly different auction after a 1D opening).

I think it's right to take the club finesse and quickly. Even if diamonds are 3-3 you still don't know whether to take it or not, and now they'll have had plenty of chances to signal.

[FM75]

It might be nice to know whether the opponents are advanced enough that you could expect them to be familiar with Bird - Anthias "Winning Notrump Leads", or the article that they wrote in Bridge World. The auction could just as well have been 1N-3N, since north had the opportunity to show a 4 card major and declarer is very unlikely to have 5 card major. That auction was extensively analyzed, and the winning leads from declarer's perspective must be a major, but much less likely 4th here - most certainly not in hearts.

 

If they are likely familiar with Bird - Anthias, there is some reasonable chance the the ♥5 is a doubleton, not 4th. If West were short in spades, on this auction a spade, even A from Ax is the "book" lead. Also W is unlikely to have AKQ, AK, or even KQ in the spade suit. Opponents are 8-7-6-5. The majors seem reasonably likely to be dividing fairly evenly. No preemptive overcall by W, though W could easily be short in hearts and long in spades but holding little in the way of honors.

 

Why not play the 8!H, just to see which of JT96 East has? If W has JT9, then J is probably his best lead. Can East afford to duck? So I think we should at least take a look.

 

Next consider the major splits. You can reasonably consider ♠6-2 and worse as less likely than normal after this auction. ♥ 2-5, or 1-6 is possible, after this lead, (if they have read the book), otherwise, 4-3 heart split odds increase (intuition). That should marginally improve the odds of 3-3 diamond split as well as a 3-2 club split.

 

To me, playing the diamonds first looks best for the reasons mentioned, and looks perhaps to have better percentages than the a priori odds. Nothing about the bidding suggests that the location of the ♣ king is better than 50-50 guess, and you will get no improvement on that guess during the play of the red suits.

 

If it gets to that point, you will have to decide what line is best after 2 discards by each opponent.