navahak

I agree that SST+WP information is rarely available at the table. When the information is available visualizing partner's hand is more accurate method to estimate tricks. But SST+WP is still a tool for post-mortems when trying to figure why we should have bid more or less and what suggested the better biding choice.

This is a bit more complex interaction with two parameters that you claim here are not related to each other. Our total trump length has direct influence to the probability distribution of opponents SST. That makes trump total correlate with number of tricks available in board. That is reasoning behind Lawrence's claim that trumps has nothing to do with tricks. It is a bit extreme claim when clearly thinking process from trump length to SST makes them clearly related and it can be also tough to give equation why LoTT works. SST+WP is way to estimate losers in your contract. But losers aren't only thing that mandates how many tricks can be taken in a given contract. You need also enough winners to score the tricks that you think you will make. That causes variance both ways from simple SST+WP loser evaluation. One might quickly think that is proof trumps influence the equation but that isn't complete truth. There is also possibility that tricks are provided by a long side suit which makes trump length only one of possible source of tricks to archive enough to match loser based hand evaluation.

Yeah. See absolute average scores. hrothgar: 4.8 IMP/board me: 2.2 flavoneus: 3.5 I was just lucky to score small plus all the time. So you were destined for a very high score until the penultimate round :)

4-1 heart could be problem ... Throw spade to first trick? That could keep losers at 1♦+1♠+1♥ and keep trump control. Then spade ace and diamond defense leads to ruff. Heart to ace and small heart from dummy. Now you goe down if heart Q wins and give a club ruff but in other cases you make it. Diamond can be ruffed to dummy with honor and you have club entry back to hand to pull the remaining two trumps. Did I see completely wrong problem here? I just misplayed a simple ending in the last board of BBF indy.

3♥

"How much do your pre-empts vary with vulnerability?" A bit over two playing tricks between extreme ends.

Rating bridge players is very hard. Specially when skill levels are far from each other. There is huge variation in results and errors dominate the score. Basically one doesn't have to be very good player to score well in mbc. One only has to avoid making costly errors. While playing in table with only good players then skill starts to dominate the results if field is good too (which it isn't in mbc). Of course something like chess engines rating different games might work better. But we don't have strong enough AI to analyze quality of play or enough knowledge about meaning of bids and signals. In end any rating system is going to be very inaccurate and most likely cause more problems than not. On top of that many players with similar skills simply won't form good partnerships because differences in biding and signaling methods. To improve partnership matching for help me find game it might help to have someway to match people based on systems they know about.

Sound openers... How sound overcalls? We probably hold 2-2♣ unless partner surprisingly holds singleton. That means two losers there so forcing to game requires overcall to be quite sound and hold pretty specific card for us. That why to me 3♦ is the best level to show this hand. Of course if your overcalls are realy sound there could be case to force to game with 4♦. Also fourth spade would be a huge card that would make me rethink the level but we don't have the card.

Spade because I don't want to play anything from dummy. But actually best line seems to be .... ♦ to A. Then small ♥ finessing ten. They can take now 4♠+1♥+1♦. After that I ill enter dummy with ♦Q and lead ♥J dropping Tx from Cayne. But playing spades first doesn't lose anything compared to this line and it might even win on some defensive error along the way. But you have to be careful to raise the ♦A if Garozzo shifts to ♦ or Cayne can play low forcing the dummy entry before you are ready to use it. Playing club back to hand is worse because that loses control in clubs and defense can setup a club trick in addition to diamond play line losers. EDIT: As a second tough I might settle for down one in table. Making is quite unlikely while opponents probably have 8-9 tricks in spades (clubs 4-1). Team mates might manage to bid it. This game isn't easy. On the way to down one there is remote chance that heart honors are favorable dropping under the ace so making could still happen but a bit less often. But even in this line spade first seems to keep all chance while adding defensive error to the list.

Actually as simple as tricks=(WP-20)/3+13-SST puts you very close to actual trick count available for your side.

What is scoring? Assuming IMP and no firm agreements: 3♣-4♦; 5♣-5♥; Then opener has to just guess if biding 7 is odds on or not. No easy way to figure out trump holding after earlier bidding takes so much space. Of course opener could just bid 4NT to ask aces after 4♦. That would work this time when answer is 3 aces. But two aces would be pure guess if there is 11 or 12 or 13 tricks.

Is this data based on facts or just feeling without trying? I have played that kind of responding style (without transfers) without issues. If I go -200 uncontested undoubled it is shockingly often that opponents forgot to bid their cold game (24-26 HCP in their way). Also penalty double after one suit opening is even harder than after weak 1NT. Most often we are in contested auction where passing with minimal hands doesn't even leave penalty double chances. But of course in that style of biding it is nice to play 1M if holding 4 opposite 11 and opponents forgetting to bid.

This works very well if one changes his biding attitude about strong hands that opener holds. That includes biding after Gazilli and reverses needs to adjust so one can stop low enough. Of course this adjustment to biding thinking is surprising hard. Even adjusting to biding after overcalls seems to be near impossible for most bridge players. They seems to think they bid same after opening bid and one level overcall.

I knew about multiple fits increasing the opponents fit. But if you take into account probabilities of different distributions the correlation is a lot stronger than if you just look extreme examples. This correlation is very similar to LoTT and how accurate it is on average. Same as Mike explained in long detailed post: I follow law only loosely and base my decision in many other factors too.

Probably because people don't think this as a club event with schedule. But many are probably also playing life games on Sunday which makes it bad day for a long online game. Too bad week days aren't much better with time zone differences. I could play on Sunday if someone agrees to play with me.