[inquiry]

Board 9, Dealer North, Vul E-W

E-W do not bid.

Two pairs in 6S
Two pairs in 4S

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Board 10, Dealer East, Vul Both

E-W do not bid.
Two in 4S
One in 6S
One is 7S

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[han]

The first slam is very difficult to estimate. Slam is quite decent on a non-heart lead. On a heart lead, you can hope for trumps 2-2 and diamonds 4-3, but perhaps better is to run the heart, hoping that the opponents don't find the club shift (Justin suggested this when rogerclee was bidding the hands, I thought I needed to practice serving but I ended up not serving any of the contestants).

This is a terribly difficult hand to score, I'd say something like 4S = 9, 6S = 7.

On the second hand 6S is great on a heart lead, pretty much without hope on a diamond lead and close to 50% on any other lead. Missing KQJ of diamonds I'd say a diamond lead is about 70% likely, a heart lead is 15% and any other lead 10%. So I'd give 6S about 20% chance to make.

7S gets 0 matchpoints, 6S gets 1.4 mathpoints and 4S gets 2.3 matchpoints. This is on a 3MP top, so rescaling to a 12 point top gives us

7S = 0
6S = 5 or 6 (5.6)
4S = 9 (9.2)

I'd go with 0, 5 and 9.

[inquiry]

inquiry, on 2010-November-09, 22:20, said:

Board 9, Dealer North, Vul E-W

E-W do not bid.

One pairs in 6S
Three pairs in 4S

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While Han has a point about a non-heart lead, 4♠ is better than slam. I agree with han's rating for 4♠ (a 9), but I think the 6♠ score he suggest is too high. I rated 6♠ as 4. With this scoring, TylerE-bidemup stretch their lead.

inquiry, on 2010-November-09, 22:20, said:

Board 10, Dealer East, Vul Both

E-W do not bid.
Two in 4S
One in 6S
One is 7S

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This is a hand where I thought the best slamwas clubs. But a the pairs -- perhaps pushed by matchpoints -- all stayed in spades. However, the best contract is Notrump (it makes 5NT easy enough). If we agree that 3NT is the best spot (a 10 I think), and that from among slams, 6♣ is the highest scoring (I have it at an 8 point).

We will start with 7♠, clearly it is not making, and should get a poor score. 4♠ is a very safe contract, and will make, with an overtrick (unless someone ruffs a club at trick one). The question is, how will 6♠ do? It can make, but only rarely, needing a non-♦ at trick one and the ♥King with EAST. If we eliminate a black suit lead, it is at best 25% to make. So we can rate this as a 3. Of course, 7♠ has no chance, and I rate that as 0.

5N = 10
6C = 8
4S = 6
6S = 3
7S = 0

On this hand two pairs moved closer to TylerE-bidemup, but the TylerE pair is still ahead.

[TylerE]

Seems rather harsh to rate 4S so low when for most pairs unbiddable (e.g. 5N is always SOMETHING) is the only one to score well.

[han]

Tyler 5NT = 10 means 3NT and 4NT also get 10. This is Standard American.