661_Pete, on 2016-December-21, 11:50, said:
Here's a very simple instance, I just hope it's more a case of me being paranoid, than me being suspicious. Judge for yourself.
I'm sitting over dummy, holding a bare K in the trump suit. Dummy holds AQ10xx and my partner (as I find out later) holds Jxxx. Nothing in the bidding, nor the play up till now, has given any hint of the distribution. And my gaining the lead would not be a danger to declarer. Nevertheless, declarer leads from hand and after a longish pause goes up with the A. How would you react?
I for one think it outrageous that declarer should be under the slightest suspicion in this case, and only surprised that I seem to be the only one to think so.
It takes me back to an occasion some decades ago when I was a pretentious student upstart playing in a simultaneous pairs in Leeds. Playing in 3N with no danger hands, no danger suits, I was faced with AQxx in dummy opposite xxxx in hand and needed to maximise my expected tricks from the suit. I cashed the ace, dropping the offside Kingleton, after which RHO LOL commented "he must have peeked". Well, that smarted, but I was only about 20 years old, new to the game, playing as a guest among regulars and said nothing. If it happened to me today I would have her drummed out of the club. But of course even if she had not said anything, the fact that she even thought it is unpleasant to contemplate, although you cannot help the way people think.
OK, in my case cashing the Ace was the correct play (ducking the first round would be as good, as long as you next play the Ace before low to Q), and we had the satisfaction of a pre-published commentary after the event exonerating my play. In the case quoted above playing the Ace is inferior but only by a tiny margin. Few players memorise the odds of all combinations, and of those who do not, few have the intellectual capacity to calculate the odds on the fly within this hand's margin of error without being fined for slow play.
Indeed it is far from intuitive that if you want to maximise your chances of at least 4 tricks in the suit at the possible cost of making 5 tricks, the best play is low to the Q. I calculated the relative odds of 3 lines of play on this hand:
Line A: Finesse 10 then finesse Q
Line B: Finesse Q then finesse 10
Line C: Cash Ace then finesse 10
Line C works out to be inferior in every respect but, as I say, by only a tiny margin. A full table is shown here:
https://kvisit.com/S8Kv0Aw
In reality there is always SOMETHING in the preceding bidding and play to disturb the "vacuum" odds.
I suggest that if you wish to include hands like this as evidence of suspicion you need a huge number of successful instances of such minor deviations from optimum. The greater the deviation from optimum, the fewer the number of evidential hands required. This one just does not even hit the radar.
Psych (pron. saik): A gross and deliberate misstatement of honour strength and/or suit length. Expressly permitted under Law 73E but forbidden contrary to that law by Acol club tourneys.
Psyche (pron. sahy-kee): The human soul, spirit or mind (derived, personification thereof, beloved of Eros, Greek myth).
Masterminding (pron. m
s
t
r-m
nd
ing) tr. v. - Any bid made by bridge player with which partner disagrees.
"Gentlemen, when the barrage lifts." 9th battalion, King's own Yorkshire light infantry,
2000 years earlier: "morituri te salutant"
"I will be with you, whatever". Blair to Bush, precursor to invasion of Iraq