Counting outs isn't so bad ...

From “that other game” again last night:

Seven of North's 13 cards were diamonds, and she preempted 4♦ over 1♠ at equal vulnerability on a queen high suit with a side ace. South, a good player, had only one diamond, and at least one spade, and actively sought a diamond ruff. Is it more likely that spades are splitting 4-0 or 3-1 with North holding two singletons, but not the spade queen; or otherwise?

(You have three minutes to solve this problem, and be prepared to justify your answer to your partner if your resulting choice doesn't work).

For the record, we had a 65% game, which may not sound so good (and indeed it wasn't -- it should have been 70% but I lost some concentration towards the end, not having played a lot of bridge recently). But, it's a score that is virtually guaranteed to win a session (and even a 60% game will win more often than not). Duplicate bridge is a game of extremely low variance, as poker would be if you were comparing your results on a hand with many other people playing identical cards.

And of course, like most big sessions at cash tables, you get a score like that because people are throwing money at you (and, to give you a little credit, you're putting yourself into a position to catch it!)