Study 9Z00 Main

Contract Comparisons

by Richard Pavlicek

This study compares choices of contract in 72 major events from 1996 to 2014. Source data consists of 40,069 deals (80,138 results) from vugraph archives of the Vanderbilt, Spingold, U.S. Championship and World Team Championship — widely considered to be the four strongest team events each year.

Choice of Partscore

Choice of Game

The basic idea is to consider only cases where a different contract was played at one table than the other. Further, both contracts must be of the same genre (partscore or game) and in the same direction (N-S or E-W) as the objective is to determine which contract choice is superior in the long run. Results based on minimal data may be unreliable but otherwise should be meaningful, because all participants were experts, including the world’s best.

The winning choice for each comparison is tinted gold to aid recognition. To view the actual deals for any comparison, click on the number in the Cases column.

Choice of Partscore

The following table compares cases where Table 1 N-S played a different partscore than Table 2 N-S.

Results are more or less as expected: Trump fits of 8+ cards fare better in a suit; those of less fare better in notrump. The exception is for 5-3 fits in a minor, which have a better expectation in notrump.

Comparison	Cases	Table 1	IMPs	Percent	Table 2	IMPs	Percent
Notrump vs 4-3 Major	105	1 NT	151	59.92	2 2	101	40.08
Notrump vs 5-2 Major	111	1 NT	138	51.49	2 2	130	48.51
Notrump vs 4-4 Major	81	1 NT	52	26.26	2 2	146	73.74
Notrump vs 5-3 Major	77	1 NT	24	12.44	2 2	169	87.56
Notrump vs 4-4 Minor	40	1 NT	41	43.62	2 2	53	56.38
Notrump vs 5-3 Minor	43	1 NT	59	56.19	2 2	46	43.81

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Choice of Game

The following table compares cases where Table 1 N-S played a different game than Table 2 N-S.

Results may seem surprising, particularly that 4-4 and 5-3 major fits fare better in notrump. (Only 6-2 major fits fare better in the suit.) Keep in mind, however, that only cases where different games were reached are included, so both hands were almost always balanced when a major fit was eschewed. This often arises out of accepted expert practice not to pursue a major fit with 4-3-3-3 shape after partner opens 1 NT.

Minor-suit fits, even up to 10 cards, almost always lost out to 3 NT, mainly because of the additional two tricks required for game. The exception is a 5-5 fit, which makes sense if you think about; minimal length for tricks in notrump but great ruffing potential.

The last three rows compare cases where a deal contained two major fits of different lengths. No surprise that the 4-4 beats the 5-3, as only the latter can provide a discard. Observe, however, that this does not extend to the 6-2 fit, which beats all by a wide margin, albeit based on sparse data.

Comparison	Cases	Table 1	IMPs	Percent	Table 2	IMPs	Percent
Notrump vs 4-3 Major	127	3 NT	427	60.23	4 4	282	39.77
Notrump vs 5-2 Major	168	3 NT	462	61.76	4 4	286	38.24
Notrump vs 6-1 Major	97	3 NT	250	68.49	4 4	115	31.51
Notrump vs 4-4 Major	226	3 NT	619	58.23	4 4	444	41.77
Notrump vs 5-3 Major	396	3 NT	843	53.35	4 4	737	46.65
Notrump vs 6-2 Major	137	3 NT	221	42.18	4 4	303	57.82
Notrump vs 5-4 Minor	46	3 NT	126	64.95	5 5	68	35.05
Notrump vs 6-3 Minor	101	3 NT	346	74.57	5 5	118	25.43
Notrump vs 7-2 Minor	34	3 NT	134	63.51	5 5	77	36.49
Notrump vs 5-5 Minor	44	3 NT	62	35.84	5 5	111	64.16
Notrump vs 6-4 Minor	55	3 NT	111	54.15	5 5	94	45.85
Notrump vs 7-3 Minor	31	3 NT	57	53.27	5 5	50	46.73
4-4 Major vs 5-3 Major	34	4-4 4 4	62	60.78	5-3 4 4	40	39.22
4-4 Major vs 6-2 Major	14	4-4 4 4	33	32.04	6-2 4 4	70	67.96
5-3 Major vs 6-2 Major	10	4-4 4 4	13	27.66	6-2 4 4	34	72.34

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© 2014 Richard Pavlicek