| 3rd European Open Bridge Championships | Page 3 | Bulletin 9 - Sunday 24 June 2007 |
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Even Money? by Patrick Jourdain Here is a play problem from the first final session of the Mixed Pairs:
With no opposition bidding you reach Four Hearts as North and East leads diamond five to the jack, king and ace. How would you continue? One line is to cross to dummy with a club and finesse the trump queen. Another line that appeals is to lay down the heart ace. If both opponents follow and the king remains out, you cross to dummy with a club, ruff the second diamond, play winning clubs and then exit with a trump. If East is on lead he is endplayed. The Bulletin analysts have come to the conclusion the choice between the two lines is very close to even money. The lines are the same when the trumps are 3-0 or when there is a singleton king onside. The first line gains a trick when there is a singleton jack or eight offside (2 x 13% = 26%). The second line gains a trick when there is singleton king offside (13%) and also when there is a small singleton onside plus the ace of spades offside (half of 26% = a further 13%). The full deal was:
And so laying down the ace of hearts reaped a rich reward. Anton Maas reported that Rosen Gunev of Bulgaria chose the elimination and endplay to give Maas the sort of undeserved bad score most of us resent, which was just enough for declarer to win the Pairs gold medal. Nick Sandqvist, by contrast, reported that the Teams gold medallist, Jeremy Dhondy, had taken the finesse to give Sandqvist a good result. Can we draw any conclusions? One might say that a true expert would always rather play for an endplay or a squeeze than take a finesse. But since Jeremy Dhondy just won the Mixed Teams Gold Medal that can’t be it! I wonder whether East’s failure to make a weak jump overcall with apparently long diamonds might tilt the balance to his having defensive values on the side? |
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