Restricted View by Foxymoron

 I always avoid any seats at the theatre, opera, or sports stadiums that have a restricted view. As the number of attendees that will be allowed when lockdown eases will be restricted, I expect that those seats will be taken out of circulation for a while. In bridge, restricted choice refers to the principle that one is less likely to have the other of two touching honours because one might have played it.

Wikipedia sums it up well: In contract bridge, the principle of restricted choice states that play of a particular card decreases the probability its player holds any equivalent card.

There were several conflicting pieces of evidence on the following hand last night, but I think I gave the wrong amount of weight to restricted choice and took the wrong view:

My marginal 1D overcall was perhaps ill-conceived and I soon reached a thin 3NT. In almost all other rooms, West had opened a weak NT and gone for a penalty, usually undoubled, but here EW were playing a strong NT. All NS, except Muggins, went plus.

East led the three of clubs to West's king and the two of clubs was returned. My thinking at the time was that the two relevant holdings are AKxx with West and KJxx with West. With the former, West has free choice which honour to play. With the latter she does not have.

West can easily have an opening bid without the ace of clubs. For example, Qxx Qxxx Ax KJxx or even Txx QJTx Ax KJxx, but I think it is a bit more likely that West has the ace of clubs than not on the bidding. However, it did occur to me that something like QTx Qxxx Ax AKxx would be a strong no-trump, so West does not have that. Also West did not double 3C, so I thought it less likely that she had AKxx in clubs.

The other factor I considered was that West might return the jack from KJxx to pin the ten, in case her partner has A9xx. Of course that saves North a guess when he has the nine of clubs, so it is very much a two-edged sword.

In the end I decided to just play restricted choice, and played low, but that was one off and zero match points instead of the 90% for making, losing out to a couple of 500 penalties only. And egg on my face.

As Lord Chalfont reflected in 'The Times' of London in 1972: 'There is something reassuringly changeless about the capacity of the highest [military] authorities for getting egg on their face."