[Bska] Hand records from our January Duplikat event

[John McLeod]

Nick encourages us to reply to the BSkA list rather than privately, in 
the hope of getting a discussion going.

On Tue, 8 Feb 2011, Patrick Phair <patrickphair at btinternet.com> wrote:
>John,
>
>       I replied to Nick that Vorhand might have been hoping for a miracle
>in the skat after two passes.  In fact the skat gave him the ace and 9 of
>clubs.
>
>       It wasn't a desperate event to catch up after a bad tournament -- it
>was board 11 of session 1, which was the third hand of the whole event at
>the table involved.  Declarer had made a 120-point Grand on the first hand
>(actually below par since someone else had made Schneider for 144) having
>found two jacks in the skat, and had picked up 40 from an enemy loss on the
>second (as had the others in his seat, though it wasn't the same enemy at
>all tables).
>
>               Patrick
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: bska-bounces at weddslist.com [mailto:bska-bounces at weddslist.com] On
>Behalf Of John McLeod
>Sent: 08 February 2011 13:19
>To: Nick Wedd
>Cc: bska at weddslist.com
>Subject: Re: [Bska] Hand records from our January Duplikat event
>
>On Tue, 8 Feb 2011, Nick Wedd <nick at maproom.co.uk> wrote:
>>I see that, for 15 of the 84 deals, the result was identical at all
>>three tables.  This is higher than I have noticed in the past; maybe
>>players are getting better.
>
>Maybe. It used to surprise me that we got so few identical results in
>these events - far fewer than in a Bridge tournament, for example.
>
>>But one hand struck me as odd.  Vorhand, holding
>>  J   C H
>>  C   K Q
>>  S   K
>>  H   K 9
>>  D   9 8 7
>>became declarer, and unsurprisingly, failed in his contract.  Why would
>>anyone bid on that?  I can only guess that someone else said "18", and
>>he responded "yes" before looking at his hand.
>
>It could have course have been an accident - Vorhand said yes too
>hastily or mis-sorted his hand. If it was a deliberate action then my
>guess would be that both other players passed, and Vorhand decided to
>risk finding something good in the skat. Note that if you are interested
>in jacks and aces there are 6 of these cards that you can't see. If both
>your opponents are fairly aggressive bidders you would expect them
>always to bid with 4 of these cards and sometimes with only three. So
>there is an excellent chance that there is at least one ace or jack in
>the skat.
>
>If both skat cards are useful (jacks, aces or diamonds) you have a
>chance to win. It's not a good percentage decision in a money game but I
>suppose you might do it near the end of a tournament if you need a swing
>to catch up?

-- 
John McLeod                      For information on card games visit
john at pagat.com                   http://www.pagat.com/