mycroft, on 2021-February-07, 22:22, said:
People come up with the most amazing rationalizations as to why they would have got it right after they know what's right. Frequently they're even reasonable justifications. When they are, they feel obvious. When they're not, one learns to be suspicious. Not throw it out, necessarily. But rely on unbiased polling over either their or our opinion with all the ex post facts.
Although valid and unbiased polling is far from easy to achieve, both in terms of sample size (five is not enough, as statisticians have reminded us before) and bias induced by the phrasing of questions, or maybe even the sequence of questions (if I already said I would play an Ace, I might be less likely to decide otherwise now I have the correct information).
I have noticed that players polled often seem to be fishing for clues as to what I want to hear, which indicates how easily one could introduce bias. Recently I have also tried polling a group in a video conference and found it to be much harder to control than a group in presence would be.
I suspect that the best solution would be to poll a large group individually and simultaneously using appropriate software, preferably built into the play platform (although WhatsApp would be enough if it had native polling and that would work when playing in presence too).
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AL78 'Seeing both EW hands, why wouldn't declarer take a heart ruff before trying to draw trumps. They are down if the defender with the spade ace also held three diamonds and no more than two spades and leads a diamond for a ruff, but declarer is down whatever they do on that layout. It looks like declarer was playing for a defender with itchy fingers to try cashing an ace when in with the spade ace. That is the only chance I can see of a 12th tricks apart from a heart ruff in dummy.'
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If ♠s are 2-2 (as in the amended diagram on the left), then only a heart lead defeats 6♠. On any other lead, If declarer tries to ruff a ♥ in dummy, prematurely, then he snatches defeat from the jaws of victory. As the cards actually lay (with North holding 3♠s), ruffing a ♥ in dummy doesn't help declarer.