jchiu

I am thrilled to see that Money Bridge Tournaments have caught on like a wildfire! Summary: However, I am not so excited about the current payout structure becuase it rewards a session with extreme good luck much more than it would for a small tournament. I am proposing a change in the payout structure. Rather than paying the top player about $10 and the fifth place player about $1, with an exponential dropoff in between, I suggest paying the top player about $6 and the tenth place player about $1 with a harmonic dropoff in between. This way, more players will feel like they have won something even with a decent game and return in hopes of winning the big prize. This would also give mediocre players with a lucky collection of cards a chance to scratch more often, thereby increasing the expected returns. Details: Long and hypothetical, with the use of some basic mathematics. Status Quo: In a thirty-player tournament, the prizes are $12.50, $6.00, $3.00, $1.50, and $1.00. No player finishing below fifth received anything back. Possible Proposal: Give prizes according to the structure by which the ACBL awards masterpoints. In the most recent North American Swiss (For those who are not familiar, this is a six-session swiss team event, in which each session consists of four matches of seven boards. The IMP scores are converted to the 20-point VP scale. After every two sessions, half of the field is cut. This is a strong North American Bridge Championship event, but runs along the more famous Reisinger BAM teams.), the ACBL paid 160 masterpoints for first, 120 for second, 90 for third, and 160*(6/(rank+9)) for fourth through twenty-eighth. I suggest money bridge tournaments pay a depth of one-third, and proportional to some masterpoint structure like this one. In a thirty-player tournament, first place would get $4.82, and tenth would get $1.52. Impact: Suppose we have two players, a flight A player (called A) who plays steady and averages 900 points per session with a standard deviation of 1500 (I just used my numbers here); a flight B player (called B ) who plays almost as steady and averages 150 points per session with a standard deviation of 1650; and a mediocre player (called C) who plays somewhat haphazardly by accident and averages -600 points per session with a standard deviation of 1800. We shall assume that the distribution is Gaussian (simplified!). In the most recent tournaments this afternoon, it has taken anywhere from 3000 to 4000 total points to win, about 1800 points to finish fifth, and about 1100 points to finish tenth. Under the current scheme, A would win approximately one time in fifteen, finish second or third once, barely scratch twice, and out of the money eleven times for an expectation of about $19.00 for fifteen games. How can such a player lose? Because other higher-variance players are stealing the pots and keeping A barely out of the money. In the new scheme, A would also finish sixth to tenth thrice (in fifteen games) for an expectation of about $18.50. Note that this is slightly less than the current payout structure for A. But it would be a much more satisfying way to play for me, and would be less susceptible to droughts. Personally, I would still play the $1 tournaments at the current payouts but less often; and would not play $20 tournaments if they came to be, for this reason alone. B would win approximately one time in thirty, finish second or third twice, and fourth or fifth twice, for an expectation of about $22.50 for thirty games. Under the new scheme, B would finish sixth through tenth another three times in thirty for an expectation of about $23.50. Note how close this brings the expectation up to being almost par with the $24.00 expectation for the average player. C would win approximately one time in ninty, finish second once, third twice, and fourth or fifth four times, for an expectation of about $29.50 for ninty games. Under the new scheme, C would finish sixth through tenth another ten times of ninty, for an expectation of about $38.00. Note that the payout structure more than doubles the number of times a mediocre player finishes in the money, and increases the expectation noticably.

Have they banned bathing suits? Try a bikini. I think Bridge will be a lot more popular if people wear skimpy clothes. What! You must have much prettier bridge players in your neck of the woods, better they cover more not less in the USA. Bring back Hats! I totally agree with Mike here! I don't know what type of country with pretty bridge players you're from, Rain, but the number of bridge players whom I would not disprefer (i.e. neutral or better) to see in skimpier clothing can be counted on one-and-a-half hands.

PASS

I'm punching it. My BAM experience shows that punching semi-normal contracts that end up down one is winning BAM. I certainly expect 2♠ to fail, and expect that the opponents are in a 5-2 spade fit. I also expect that most of the time we can make 2NT or 3♥, defending 2♠x has a reasonable shot at +300 instead. My only reservation about doubling is that 2♠x may only go for 100, leading to a loss when our counterparts have made a partscore. But I certainly don't want to be +100 from 2♠ undoubled. Getting robbed is not fun ...

15+ to 18-, or thereabouts. The reason why this is not a common, set-in-stone agreement for many pairs is that they are allowed, and in fact encouraged, to use judgment about balancing. In fact, I have intentionally left this range undefined in all of my partnerships in which the issue has surfaced. Expected high cards mean nothing compared to trick taking potential. With expected bad breaks and a nearly-isolated long suit at the left, I would rather look at spot cards and trick structure than pure high cards. Even the opponents' tendencies mean more than high card points. Playing against a known aggressive preemptor, I would certainly shade out of this range to double with a doubleton or trebleton. Here, the range might more closely resemble 16-17. On the other hand, playing against a pair who would hesitate to punch 2NT (or 3X) when I am overboard, I would shade downward to ensure that the preempt has not kept us out of a makable 3NT contract. Holding a good 14-count, I might balance 2NT to get to game opposite partner's mini notrump. Occasionally, table feel even matters more than high cards. If RHO hitches honestly before passing, I would be reluctant to include any mediocre hands in the balancing 2NT. I would rather not give them a second chance to find a better fit, or a chance to double. Therefore, this is a trick question; and my only answer is that if it looks like a balancing 2NT, and it smells like a balancing 2NT, .....

With fresh oysters from the shore, I like to make http://seafood.allrecipes.com/AZ/OysterStew.asp but use heavy cream instead, and increase the shallot-to-celery ratio if using smaller, younger shallots.

I'm also part of this minority. I listen to many orchestral recordings, mostly remastered versions of classic LPs from the 1950s/60s. I am a big fan of the work of Herbert von Karajan, who has achieved a technical perfection from the Berlin Philharmonic that no orchestra has matched since. All records are of Karajan and the BPO unless otherwise noted. My favorites for bridge are Relaxing (first online game, or tense period) - Beethoven, Symphony No. 6 - Dvorak, Symphony No. 8, von Dochnanyi Cleveland - Grieg, Peer Gynt Suites, Karajan VPO - Tchaikovsky, Piano Concerto No. 1, with Berman Exciting (whistle along during a casual game) - Brahms, Piano Concerto No. 2, Leinsdorf Chicago, with Richter - Dvorak, Symphony No. 9 - Mussorgsky, Pictures at an Exhibition - Strauss, Die Fledermaus, Karajan [old] Philharmonia, with Schwarzkopf, ... Dominating (listening while playing well) - Bach, Brandenburg Concertos, I Musici - Beethoven, Symphony No. 9, Furtwangler Bayreuth, with Schwarzkopf, ... - Offenbach / Rosenthal, Gaite Parisienne - Tchaikovsky, 1812 Overture with choral, Lockhart Boston Pops Contemplating (listening while playing less well) - Mozart, Violin Concerto, with Mutter - Ravel, Bolero

I'm living off a graduate student fellowship bumming around (really, I do some math when I'm not on BBO). This has been my first year at Rutgers University (Piscataway, NJ), and I am in a five-year PhD program. Unlike the previous poster, I actually do math that looks like it might be useful, although it really is just as theoretical. However, just as he mentions, I do math because combinatorics problems are more interesting than purely practical applications (e.g. computer programming). I will continue to do math for the time being, but may choose to go into industry after completing my doctorate.

Darn, I really should not have been retiring this psych here, where my partners could be reading about its adventures. ;) But I wanted to leave it with an honorable discharge from my arsenal of bidding techniques. I was inspired to make this bid after I heard (from Toni Bales, in Denver) a story of Zia psyching such a call and his partner Michael Rosenberg getting the lead wrong because of the psych. A not so glorious advertisement for the psych, but I definitely had keeping the opponents out of slam as the main purpose of (1) and (2) above.

My favorite psych is the McCabe Adjunct response psych. For those who aren't familiar, the adjunct applies when partner has opened a weak two and RHO has made a takeout double*. Responder may bid any suit directly as a lead-directing raise of the weak two, directly raise the weak two to promise a control in the suit, redouble to suggest defending, or bid 2NT as a relay to 3C after which responder may signoff in another suit, or make a non-control showing raise. First psych: November 27, 2005, First Final Session of the North American Swiss. This certainly meets the criteria of strong opposition. On the first board, I doubled them in a cold game that made an overtrick on a lead misfire. The second board was relatively uneventful. [hv=d=s&v=e&s=s9xh10xdqxxxxcxxxx]133|100|Scoring: IMP[/hv] Pass (Pass) 2♠ (Dbl!) ... where double shows either a traditional takeout double or a strong balanced hand (22+). With a straight face, I quickly bid 3♥, pointed to it as to indicate an alert (we were playing behind screens). Although I felt clearly nervous when LHO asked me to write down the explanation, he apparently did not notice the psych until after the auction. The auction continued Pass (Pass) 2♠ (Dbl!) 3♥!! (Dbl) 3♠ (3NT) All Pass Twelve tricks all day, for a satisfying -690. Our teammates Barry Harper and Mike Levy had absolutely no trouble getting to 6♥ for a 12 IMP gain. Since he was sitting out, our teammate Gerry Marshall walked by their home table as they finished comparing. They told Gerry "Your teammate psyched!". He echoed the statement, and before he could ask Barry about it, I quipped "So? I wanted a heart lead if they put Warren [Foss] on lead". Second Psych: April 22, 2006, Gatlinburg. In a twenty-four board KO match, my partner and I brought back a reasonably unspectacular card, but with one disaster where I had gone for 500 on a partscore deal. I figured to be down by anywhere between the nine IMPs I surrendered on that hand and twenty-nine, based on the cards that were coming back that week. At halftime, we were down 31 IMPs and I had enough. While I reassured our teammates that we could come back, I was clearly steaming and was determined to swing. [hv=d=s&v=e&s=s9xh10xdqxxxxcxxxx]133|100|Scoring: IMP[/hv] 2♥ (Dbl) Sure, I could bid 4♥ like most experts would. But I thought the opponents (their third pair, brought in to sit on the thirty-one IMP lead) were complacent. I therefore bid a quick and confident 3♠, which was duly alerted by Warren. This sequence is not explicitly defined in the version of McCabe that we agreed, but I did mention to him that "any weird jump not a splinter or otherwise conventional is a fit jump". So he called my psych a fit jump, and with three baby spades was content to let me try 3♠ Doubled. The auction continued 2♥ (Dbl) 3♠ (Dbl) Pass (Pass) 4♥ (4♠) All Pass which was a satisfying -680. Our teammates had no trouble finding the spade slam, which brought home +1430 for 13 IMPs. This set the tone for the second half, and our stunned opponents left by saying "we think you may have come back". We won the second half by a margin of 32 IMPs. After this incident, I asked Warren whether he suspected prior to my LHO's double that he suspected a psych. He did, but for ethical reasons was planning to bid 4♠ had my LHO not doubled. However, the double gave him bridge reasons for exposing my psychic call, so he was not obligated to raise but with no clear-cut lead was still obligated to lead spades against any non-spade contract. He also mentioned that it would be legal to psych this conventional response as long as partner led the suit as requested whenever necessary. At this point, I promised that despite its effectiveness when properly timed, I would never make this psych when playing with Warren again. Third Psych: April 30, 2006, Sectional Flight A Swiss. I was playing with Richard Popper, who had no suspicion that I psych McCabe occasionally. Here, I made a semipsych 3♣ in response to a second-hand 2♦ opening with [hv=d=s&v=e&s=s9xh10xdqxxxxcxxxx]133|100|Scoring: IMP[/hv] which caused RHO to misplace the clubs in a difficult 4♥ contract. He allowed my ♠Q to score a trick, along with Richard's ♣Q, a diamond trick, and my ♣A. Had he not suspected both club honors offsides, he could have executed an endplay on me to make the contract. My teammate Jay Apfelbaum had little trouble doing this to my counterpart, and scored up +620 for 12 IMPs.

Raking 20% is very high compared to a minilimit poker table which rakes about 6-10% (I think, the more serious poker players could check this). However, the cheap entry definitely justifies making sure BB keeps a few cents. Right now, the tournaments are two to four tables, and it is fine to rake 20%. However, with larger events, I would suggest raking 20% of the first (five, ten) tables, and less for every table thereafter. Pricier tourneys would make it more worthwhile to play. I would think many more players would want to put down $20 into a two-hour event (say four sessions of 25 minutes and 5 minutes). The rake here can be considerably less, say 5%, and BB would end up making more per tournament.

Creme Brulee is extremely tastey. It's kind of like this coffee flavored pudding-like desert, with alcohol usually. It's set on fire, and then served. :) (You eat AFTER the fire goes out, of course) Maybe in Quebec only, but Crème brulée here is just a custard flan with some sugar on top melted and crystallized with a flame so that it makes a nice crunchy caramelized topping..... Delicious, my favorite dessert by far! I've had Crème brulée in at least a half dozen cities on the east coast, in at least a dozen different restaurants. There are variations in the recipe, but the most common is a smooth egg-based custard made with noticable amounts of rum, topped with caramelized sugar, and served in a short, round cylindrical dish. Mentioning a "coffee flavor" makes me think of a hybrid dessert that would ensure that I would skip dinner more often than not. Rather than coffee, I would certainly love to have the flowery, sweet muscat flavor of a premium first flush Darjeeling in place of the rum. I'm getting hungry just thinking about the possibilities! Remark. Is it possible to get my food "signature" changed to Crème brulée?

How To Play (Insane) Speedbridge: 1. Given a new hand, just approximate its HCP value and bid. Missing the target by one or two HCP is not a big deal usually, but be careful to not miss by more. Then, when the auction goes around the table, actually count the HCP. 2. After your second turn, plan out the rest of the auction if necessary, while waiting for the bid to come around a third time. For most experts and most hands, the first two actions are sufficiently automatic that they should be instantaneous. Use the in-between time to decide your next move (like in chess), so that all bids are limited only by your reflex time. 3. When GiB-GiB (E/W) are in an uncontested auction, and you do not plan to enter or make a lead-directing double, keep the mouse over "pass". Keep passing like a good puppet, then review the auction at the end. Half of the time, you will need to look at it before your lead. The other half, use GiB's lead tanking time at the lead to actually look. 4. Roughly plan your play at trick one. Usually this takes the longest (1.5 to 1.75 seconds) for me, but saves time later. Continue planning the play when GiB is thinking and you are not on lead. 5. Play suits in "beginner order". Make sure you leave them free enough that you can play one card every 0.25 to 0.40 seconds later after you would claim otherwise. Ruff winners if necessary to make sure all tricks in one hand are played and then the other. This way, you can randomly click cards from the other hand without blowing tricks. 6. Declare, declare, declare. Besides the obvious importance of high cards, this is the main reason you want big hands. GiB is a decent and slow declarer, but can be a sloppy and fast defender often. 7. Never post-mortem. It just frustrates you and slows you down. But I digress into real bridge advice .... Using these techniques, I am averaging about 88 seconds per hand, with some records of about 81 seconds per hand (computed over 25-minute sessions). It takes practice to play well at this speed, but the law of averages definitely favors good players who are faster.

Sorry - that was a typo by me. I meant to say "1 hand every 2 minutes". I will correct my original post - thanks for pointing this out (and thanks also for your MBT enthusiasm!). I tend to play either 13 or 14 hands in a typical 25 minute MBT in which I play all the way to the end. I do make plenty of mistakes that I might not otherwise make when I play this quickly, but my (early and non-scientific) opinion is that, for me, it is in my best interest to play at this speed. Fred Gitelman Bridge Base Inc. www.bridgebase.com Neat format, many thanks to Fred, Uday, and the BB Team for this invention! This raises an interesting strategy question, which includes factors like - How much better is a player and a GiB against two GiBs? - How much worse does a player play when under (extreme) time pressure? - Should a player stall or withdraw to prevent a bad board from scoring up? Empirically, my results playing at 1.5 minutes per hand have been about 60 points per hand better than GiB-GiB (over close to 60 hands). At this rate, I have noticed that I play about 300 to 400 points worse per 17-board (25-minute) session than I would if playing a championship event. This is probably becuase GiB puts very little pressure on its opponents. However, I think that I would maximize my potential score in a short tournament by playing "all out" fast, so quickly that my physical reaction time and GiB thinking time are the limiting factors. This said, I think the 25-minute format has a lot of luck built into the tournament definition. A longer tournament would substantially reduce the luck factor, and the incentive for players to withdraw from the event for one bad board (could even be a fix, when the GiBs make a slam). Also, with so much luck, it makes sense to divide the payouts among the top finishers fairly proportionately when these tournaments involve real money.

I just spent a five hours this evening playing money bridge. I rode a roller-coaster from $80 to $55 to $135 and back to $120. And during the whole ride, regardless of whether things were going well, I noticed the biggest correlation between my stack and anything else was the link between it and the number of high cards that I received in the short run. Even at twenty-odd hands per hour, the skill factor takes a long time to play out. I believe this is because the GiBs rarely make play errors, and each human player bids very straight-up to avoid confusing his robot partner. I would even contend that the luck here is greater, in the short run, than minilimit poker, say at 25c/50c limit or 10c/20c nolimit. Which brings me to the point that .... the stakes are far too low. The rake eats you alive playing in the microlimit (1/10 and quarter cent games). Even for the penny game, the most that I achieved per hour is about $40. This is a rarity, since GiB and I bid and made two grand slams in the following auctions during that hour ;) ... 1♣-1♥; 2♥-6NT; 7♥-P 1♥-2♣; 3♥-6♥; 7♥-P I would be a much more regular customer if i could play the penny game during "breaks from work" (if there were more people willing to play this) and a new 3-cent game for the usual kicks. Furthermore, does anyone know why we cannot see the tables currently in progress? At an online poker site, it is possible to see the players at full tables.

Johann Strauss II - Die Fledermaus Karajan - Schwarzkopf - Gedda - Streich - Krebs - Kunz - Christ Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus (1955) A prank with the happiness and carefree qualities of a bright spring day. In this recording, Karajan achieves a nice balance between the orchestra and soloists. As a result, the impression is much lighter and crisper than his later recordings of similar "comic operas" (I haven't been able to get a hold of the late 60s VPO studio recording, but the mid 80s VPO performance recordings are much slower). Of course, I also enjoy Elisabeth Schwarzkopf's radiant, refined arias.

Did this come from a textbook? Double, WTP?

From a preprint of a recent article of mine ... And you thought Matthew's post was complicated ... There are four ways to distribute the missing queen and ten between the defenders, namely 10 opposite Q975, Q10 opposite 975, 109 opposite Q75, and Q109 opposite 75. Clearly, the last case is hopeless. The trick here is the observation that RHO plays the nine in the second holding with probability $0 \leq p \leq 1$. Note that by bridge logic, no RHO will ever play the nine from the first holding, almost no LHO will ever play the queen from the second holding. By restricted choice, the probability that the third case occurs is halved. Assume also that the probability ``lost'' by playing the nine in the second case is distributed proportionally to the first and third case. By the law of total spaces, the {\textit {a priori}} probability of the first case is $\gamma = 0.0283$ and the {\textit {a priori}} probability of the remaining cases is $\delta = 0.0339$. Then, the probability that playing the king wins (the second case) is $(1-p) \delta$, the jack (third case) is $\frac{\delta}{2} + p \delta \frac{\delta}{\gamma+\delta}, and the eight (first case) is $\gamma + p \delta \frac{\gamma}{\gamma+\delta}$. Solving the appropriate inequalities, the king is better than the jack whenever $p \leq \frac{\delta^2 + \gamma \delta}{2 \delta^2 + \gamma \delta} = 0.6472$, the king is better than the eight whenever $p \leq \frac{\delta^2 - \gamma^2}{\delta^2 + 2 \gamma \delta} = 0.1135$, and the jack is better than the eight whenever $p \geq \frac{\delta^2 - \gamma \delta - 2 \gamma^2}{2 \gamma \delta - 2 \delta^2} = 3.719$ (never). Hence, play the eight whenever RHO falsecards occasionally, but otherwise play the king. As a corollary, the optimal strategy with thse assumptions requires RHO to play the nine from 976 with probability $0.1135$, and this minimizes the success rate at $0.3794$.

Absolutely lucid, Roland. Except for one question, which is what the heck is the "batting side"? Also seems obvious to diagram (remember those petty diagramming exercises in middle school?). Back to the topic, though, I like to play 1. [should be obvious] 2. Baseball ---------------------- 3. Football 4. Table Tennis 5. Basketball and like to watch 1. Baseball 2. Vugraph 3. Softball ... M. Basketball ... N. Football ... ZZZ. Golf

I'll be going to Gatlinburg for the entire tournament. For those who have been there before, do you have any restaurant or "must-see" recommendations?

http://image57.webshots.com/157/8/57/37/2763857370072806547lGmjuL_fs.jpg Does anyone know why the bidding screen inserts arrows and and moves the turn indicator to West when it's clearly South's turn to bid?

Then pass pards 4H splinter :P At least someone's on the same wavelength. Anyways, opening 5♥ for anything other than solid suit missing the AK is an atrocity. The last time I remotely considered using that as an "extension" of 4♥, I had already consumed two bottles of wine.

In real life: 4♥ WTP? On forums: 1♠ WTH? B)

Rather than doing further complaining that hands do not show up at lightning speed on "myhands", I would like to ask whether the number of times a hand is played before retiring could be increased. Increasing this number improves accuracy. According to the central limit theorem, the accuracy improves according to the square root of the number of independent trials. My experience indicates that performance is much more closely reflected in larger matchpoint tops. Likewise, an unusual result (you know, the guy who goes for 1400 on a partscore deal) skews the IMP results on BBO by approximately 2-3 IMPs. I have seen many hands such that (1) achieving the normal result gives the pair going plus a premium of about 2.5 IMPs and (2) had the exact hand been played in a national IMP pairs game, the premium would be less than 0.25 IMPs per table. A disproportionate number of these are due to the skew results. There are several benefits to the accuracy of results, since it would help - improving players who consider their main bridge club results seriously - regular set games where players keep score for fun - irregular set games where the players play for (say, $3) per crossimp Jason

Nah, back in my Roth-Stone days, I would regularly pass the problem hand. Especially against declarers who only count out missing HCP for inferences, I would get weird looks when the third straight finesse into me lost :)