Steve Brown’s Game: Round 1(3)

Here is the current position

Steve continues thus:

• Move  ea, ga → 6d
• Move fd, fd, gd → Jc
• Move ge → 9c

Clearly, “ea” is essential otherwise the ability to build the 7h-6h in-suit is lost. Of course, had we known we were turning over a Six then better is “ge” keeping extra flexibility at no cost, but them’s the breaks if you pardon the terrible cliché. By shifting the Seven of Clubs onto column 4 Steve effectively treats column 4 as a junk pile, a reasonable decision since turnovers in that column ain’t happening any time soon. We need at least a second King (to make it legal) and then hope to avoid counterfeiting turnovers in column 3 (to make it worthwhile). That’s more ifs and buts than chasing runner-runner to complete the ignorant end of a straight when you’re already pot committed and facing expert opponents.

Steve now has the following position:

I have a slight quibble with the last move. I would prefer to have the Jack of Clubs in column 3 instead of column 5. This is to avoid having an excess of two Queens in a single column. If column 3 becomes a junk pile (imagine e.g. a Five appears next round and we fail to shift that Five any time soon) then we could run into a shortage-of-Queens problem in the future. Still, given the spare King in column 8 we are most likely playing the move “ch” soon anyway, so this is probably moot.

In any case, our options are limited and there is only one turnover available in column 2.

• Move ba, ij, bi → 6c
• Move ch, deal

This completes round 1.

This is a pretty good recovery for the good guys. With only one column containing no face-down cards or a King, it’s not hard to guess plan A. Ideally we would want some plans for B, C and possibly D in case the Captain Obvious option does not materialise, but we take what we can get. At least we have multiple outs as far as turnovers are concerned.

Bad memes aside, Steve has turned over 11 hidden cards this round which is above (his) average. He estimates that he is now on par with his average game and I agree with this assessment.