The Fruitiness Index
You often hear comment at the end of an evening that "there were lots of interesting hands about" or, contrastingly, that it was a "dull set". Sometimes it makes a difference what seat you occupy; if you are faced with no problems, then time passes unconcernedly. Of course, some players make problems for themselves and perhaps you compliment yourself for playing well and keeping out of trouble.
But back to the cards themselves; true, slams are usually interesting – but not always. Remember those with almost every high-card in the pack. And games, when they make eleven tricks you know not much money is likely to change hands. In fact high-cards are a poor indication of interest. I'm working on a 'Fruitiness Index' and an early factor will be the ability of each side to make a contract at the three level. Take this deal from the Club Teams of Four where everyone had the regulation 10 HCP:
| Love All Dealer South | ♠ 43 | ||
| ♥ AQ75 | |||
| ♦ 10 | |||
| ♣ KJ9762 | |||
| ♠ KJ109 | ♠ A87652 | ||
| ♥ 1064 | ♥ 9 | ||
| ♦ AQ43 | ♦ 95 | ||
| ♣ 104 | ♣ AQ85 | ||
| ♠ Q | |||
| ♥ KJ832 | |||
| ♦ KJ8762 | |||
| ♣ 3 | |||
| West | North | East | South | |
| 2♦ | ||||
| Pass | Pass | 2♠ | Pass | |
| 3♦* | Pass | 4♠ | End |
South's weak two diamonds wouldn't be everyone's choice. That type of hand is better expressed with a two suited overcall and here, as east would surely open one spade – only the very pusillanimous would pass – south could describe the hand with a two spade cue bid, hearts and a minor. Of course, had the north-south fit been in diamonds, getting their blow in first might have caused trouble for the east-west but in some senses you have two tries with the delayed action.
East-west take twelve tricks in spades with their half of the pack and north-south ten in hearts with theirs. The par result – given there is a slam for the opponents – is for north-south to sacrifice in seven (!) hearts down three and concede 500. That is small beer against the likely 480 they would suffer from simply defending the spade game. I doubt few got close to this result (it was four spades at the other table in our match) but I'm entering a 'ten' (for six spades plus four hearts) on my FI chart. If you played the deal (back on the Ides of March [15th]) I'd be interested to hear of other results.
Published Saturday 18.Apr.2009