The Schnapsen Log

April 13, 2013

Rags and Riches

Martin Tompa

You are playing your favorite game against your favorite buddy Peter in your favorite hangout, the Café Abeles. You’ve recouped some of your losses, coming from a depressing game point score of 1:6 a few deals earlier to your present score of 1:2. Can you possibly continue making the right decisions and go on to win this close game?

Unseen cards:
♠ ATJ
♥ —
♣ TK
♦ A

Your cards:
♠ —
♥ TQJ
♣ AQ
♦ —

Trump: ♣J
Stock: 1 face-down card
Game points: Peter 1, You 2
Trick points: Peter 26, You 15
On lead: You

You have only 15 trick points and are staring at some more ragged looking cards in your hand. The majority of aces and tens appear to be in Peter’s hand. What should you do at this point? When you think you have a good plan, you are welcome to read my analysis.

© 2013 Martin Tompa. All rights reserved.

Comments

blog comments powered by Disqus

About the Author

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.