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Vil Gravis Writes

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A VERY Restricted Choice

Vil's Tips - Fri, 19/06/2026 - 4:45pm

This deal comes from many years ago. I write about it because a similar hand came up at X-Clubs and
I asked a panel of club players how they would play the trump suit when they held AQJ962 in hand and
the singleton 5 in dummy. There were different answers and quite a bit of statistical analyis but it
seems the play that would yield the best result (by a very small margin) is to lead the 5 and finesse the
9. I was asked this question and said my gut feel was to finesse the nine: if the ten was with East and
the nine forced the king I would make the rest of the spades unless there was a very bad break. I am not
great with statistics but it seems that AI says that finessing the NINE would result in five tricks 48.44%
of the time, finessing the queen or jack 37.50% of the time, and simply playing the ace followed by the
queen would yield five tricks 35.94% of the time. But in the back of my mind was the question of
whether the first card that East played should make any difference. It brought back vague memories of
a very similar hand I wrote about years ago:

Dealer W NS Vul
5AQAKJ42A6532T743KJQT9KQJ7K8T6532876584AQJ96298743J2

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Categories: Vil Gravis Writes

How to ...

Vil's Tips - Mon, 15/06/2026 - 12:16pm

This interesting hand raised questions on how to play the trumps. It comes from a MATCH POINT session at X-Clubs, Monday 8 June

Spades is trumps and you hold AQJ962; dummy has the singleton 5

Everybody should know how to FINESSE. The idea of finessing is to make as many tricks as possible. In order to be able to finesse, you have to start by leading the FIVE. Otherwise there is no finesse. If you want to win the first TWO tricks, you LEAD the five and put in the jack or queen. That is simple enough, you either win the trick or lose to the king 'off side'

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Categories: Vil Gravis Writes

Thanks Angela

Vil's Tips - Sat, 16/05/2026 - 9:48am

Angela sent Vil this problem which came from Tuesday 12/05/26 at X-Clubs

Hi, just one question for now, match points. All vul, dealer West who
passes. Your partner, North, opens 1D and East passes. What do you bid, holding

AQJQ9AT732J42

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Categories: Vil Gravis Writes

Questions and Answers

Vil's Tips - Tue, 12/05/2026 - 5:44pm

Vil recently proposed a set of posers for his readers. He says:

Just let me say that there is a lot of misunderstanding about the situations
I have outlined, and I'm not surprised that disasters occur. I suggest you
and your partner take a few minutes and agree on what you do in these
situations. Here is my very simple view, take it or leave it!

Subject: Double Trouble

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Categories: Vil Gravis Writes

Vil's Red Book

X-Club Blog

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