Psellos
Life So Short, the Craft So Long to Learn

The Schnapsen Log

January 20, 2014

Enemies (solution)

Martin Tompa

It seemed unlikely to me that Tibor was holding the spade marriage in his hand when he led Q, because he could have catapulted his trick point total over 33 by declaring the marriage. This inference that the last face-down card in the stock was a spade meant that I had four winning cards in my hand; in particular, I would be able to cash both AT. All that remained was to add up my trick points and see whether it would be enough. Taking his Q lead with K would bring my trick point total to 28. Cashing AT would catch his KJ, bringing the total to 55. Finally, cashing A would complete the job, no matter which spade I had drawn from the stock. This line of play was sure to earn 2 game points for me.

Is there a chance that Tibor withheld the marriage in order to try to deceive me? This would only make sense if the deception would allow him to win one game point instead of losing one, since the worst he would do by declaring the marriage was to lose one game point. The worst card I could draw from the stock after falling for the deception and winning the trump lead would be J. In that case, I would be on lead from this position:

Tibor: (32 points)
TKQ
K
♣ —
J

Hans: (28 points)
A
ATQJ
♣ —

I could still win 1 game point by cashing A and forcing Tibor with J. This would put him on lead from this position:

Tibor: (36 points)
TKQ

♣ —

Hans: (43 points)
A
TQ
♣ —

Declaring the marriage now would only bring his trick point total to 56, after which I would win the remaining tricks.

Therefore, it was completely safe to win his Q lead with my K. I fully expected to draw a spade from the stock and score 2 game points. And I did.

© 2014 Martin Tompa. All rights reserved.


Comments

blog comments powered by Disqus

About the Author

Martin Tompa

Martin Tompa (tompa@psellos.com)

I am a Professor of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington, where I teach discrete mathematics, probability and statistics, design and analysis of algorithms, and other related courses. I have always loved playing games. Games are great tools for learning to think logically and are a wonderful component of happy family or social life.

Read about Winning Schnapsen, the very first and definitive book on the winning strategy for this fascinating game.

Subscribe

Getting Started

Links for Schnapsen and Sixty-Six

Links in German

Links in Hungarian

Recent Columns

September
Sidestep a Few Landmines, Sep 2
June
Two Last-Trick Problems, Jun 27
May
More Extremes of Luck, May 21
April
Grasping at Straws, Apr 4
March
A New Scheme for Remembering Cards, Mar 23
September
As Luck Would Have It, Sep 9

Archives

2022
2021
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012