1) What's wrong with
like
?
2) If you can't use this operator for whatever reason, you probably need to redesign the whole thing
3) You could use regular expressions, but it is not supported by default, and it is much more resource-expensive than like
4) You can use
PATINDEX[
^] function, but I think it is even a little bit more complicated than using like
5) In you samples all "esh" are at the end of the string, if it is true in all cases, you can use
RIGHT[
^] function