sfbp

Laugh all you want. But there's one element here that ought to make sense to even you. The data on WJS are (laughably) clear. It's also clear that bidding very bad hands with NFB works too, when partner passes. The element you missed is one of inductive (or analogous) reasoning. It may be fallacious, but I'm suggesting you could do a lot worse than discard the died-in-the-wool thinking that says "free bids are forcing, therefore anything else is nonsense". Or "I had a bad experience with NFB, and I dont like them any more, the rest of the sheep are right after all". I'm trying to suggest exactly WHY that bad experience, and how, with this very limited and flawed data, it might have occurred. It's backed up by what I have seen at the table. Frequently I got lousy results precisely because we didnt have the absolute agreement that NFB should be passed, and the result we WOULD have got from passing spent the rest of the week annoying me. We now have that agreement. Stephen

Ben, I'm not actually suggesting NFB's should be 6 or less. My current thinking is that given that 6 or less seem to show a profit (played non-constructively, vide supra) it's about right to divide the hard hands between a normal positive free bid (good 10+ or 11) and there in two, and lump the 7-8 in with the bottom fish - and the data seems to show that you make a small loss on those. Any hand with non-perfect shape that has 9 or more I tend to double and then backpedal whilst bidding. Sure, I get nailed in that side of the crack too. But it seems better than having to pass so many hands because they don't add up to one of the forcing free bids that are standard and endorsed by so many here. Face it, most of those guys are doubling on all 9-point hands anyway, so where's the big loss? Noone says that doubling and bidding guarantees a game force. I tried to deal with that in the prior post I made.

I don't argue (from the data) whether or not it is right to use NFB, and I don't argue whether it is right to use WJS. What I say is, if you are going to use WJS, you better be aware that it will bring you the maximum profit at the lowest end of the range, say 0-6. Most experts when asked will actually insist on this from their practical experience, so the result i found is in accord with expert expectations. Similarly, if you are going to use NFB, I observe, based on this data, that they work best at the lower end, well below any hand that might conceivably construed as constructive. My experience is that whenever partner raises my NFB, whether it was a good hand or a bad one, we get into trouble. Not just because we get too high, but also because opponents now can do the arithmetic and deduce their own fit from knowing that we have one. So i *think* that we can only be sure that these sequences are NFB if someone passed them. I prefer to think of the 9 point variety as "constructive free bids" and I agree totally that it is impossible to tell whether those are forcing free bids below the end of their agreed range, or non-forcing freebids above what I consider to be the upper end of the range. Ben and others said that some people raise an NFB on a good hand and therefore it's unfair to filter out the NFB's by taking only the sequences where opener passed. I can't tell you about the hands where that happened, sigh. But I can tell you that if you always pass a NFB, for whatever reason you decide to, that works best if the NFB has no more than 8 points (maybe less). Is that useful? Maybe not. It's what I do, and it works quite well from the final scores at the table. I also suspect that putting a lower limit on NFB isn't such a good idea, because (say) 7 points guaranteed can be widely scattered and not useful to declarer. This is why most play that the bid promises the values are concentrated in the bid suit. This leads naturally to the bext issue. How much do we overload double with the remaining hands? Several people have pointed out to me (not here) that there is another bid it is perfectly permissible to overload, and that is PASS. Personally I don't find doubling to be a problem - on most strong hands and on most hands with perfect shape. The remainder.... ah well, there'll always be some hands that fall in the crack. At least if you play your crack in a different place from the field you will tend to be less at the mercy of what your particular opponents decided to do on that board. So as long as NFB is not the majority treatment, I suspect it gives us a possible edge. Stephen

Well, we have spent in excess of 12 hours figuring out whether to play the A or not :) Somehow I think he's getting it right, today. Also if declarer's LHO had A why would she duck smoothly the first time? (sorry FrancEs, I know you are a much better player than I am) Declarer still has to guess the JC whether or not LHO takes the first one. I think the overwhelming presumption is that I hold the Ace and that declarer will play the high club the second time. Especially with only one club left in dummy, as now declarer can drop 3-3 distributions and Jx by ruffing high. Stephen

Clearly they are not. But the averages of bridge matchpoint scores are so in the majority of cases. Not sure exactly how to do this, please give me some help! The Cavendish example, might have a Poisson distribution, one of the known shapes for small numbers of events. I actually wish BBO had more tables than 16, from a statistical viewpoint. 52, the OKB standard since about 1997 is probably better in this regard, as more tables tend to spread out the results. Theres was a lot of discussion about ratings being non-normalised on okbridge. You could see the obvious effect on the graph. When I recalculated ratings using more sensible assumptions, they appeared to be normalised. It's obvious how they differed from the chart produced by okb management, and how much like a Bell curve they were, that seeing is believing. Maybe some plotting of matchpoint scores would be enough - although I'd be dredging my schoolday memories to remember whether it was Student, Xi-squared, or some other one of these you use to answer your question. I believe abilities are normalised - this is the basis of all educational testing. So bridge rating at least, is a measure of ability. Maybe not THE measure. So matchpoint averages should be. Stephen

What did i miss? If the hearts are solid declarer, after I duck, can ruff 2 clubs and a spade before being left with only high trumps, surely. Stephen

I think it's a bit simpler than that, Ben. Each player is an actor, and he has a decision. I can hear the chuckles about "Captain Theory" coming on! All the other uncertainties (did partner remember, do the opponents get shut out or do they have countermeasures, was it a good field, was someone cheating 17 tables away, did the pub across the hall just close creating extra noise and thereby breaking declarer's concentration, was declarer DEAF?) can be reduced to a statistical measurement of "what happens if?" All of the above influences affect the result. The only question is whether they do so in a systemic way. To use the Baseball/cricket metaphor, how hard should I hit this pitch? (that is really my only choice). For example, getting the agreement wrong will tend to cancel out in the long term, as some will make mistakes in the opposite direction to others (on average overbidders cancel out underbidders too). Presuming that the majority of people bid according to agreements, testing the point count that this bid works on should reflect whether or not this is a good agreement, including the effect it has on opponents and also its effect in/on the field. If I let StephTu rubbish this argument on the basis that "someone might have thought", next one we will have is "The best data obviously come from world championships". Well, I have news for you. They don't. People in world championships make mistakes, perform badly under pressure, etc etc. And where is the virtue of a 6-table movement like the Cavendish where 5 tables have an identical result, perfectly played by world class players against world class players, and on the sixth there is an odd result because Zia psyched? We play systems, adopt treatments, and take actions based on their effectiveness in a multitude of situations. So in fact their overall effectiveness is measurable. Perhaps you need to play different systems in world championships - but this is a second order effect. First you need to play well, and reach your own par. Any standard action will tend asymptotically towards 0.0 IMP/ 50% mp. Think about that for a while. Bridge is about getting the edge. If everyone played weak jump shifts exactly the same way, and everyone defended the same way against them, the data would guarantee to converge on "no profit". In fact simple (1-level) opening bids do just that. It may well be that the best data doesn't even come from OKbridge, or from the tourneys here as opposed to the Main Room, no matter what we think of the general behaviour and ethics of play in each venue. "The idiots and the cheaters cancel each other out" is one way of looking at this. Anyhow back to your contention about looking at different point counts one by one. Yes, this is exactly what I did. Y'all can do it too (as Ben frequently has). If the effect is real it should be reproduced even in the more random environment of the MBC. I've seen this many times. We can come up with all sorts of theories about why some treatments work - but really all those theories reduce to mnemonics for what to do in a given situation. Sorry if I just insulted all the "intelligent design" that went into the creation of all those fancy (or not-so-fancy) bidding systems. It's a frequency thing - why waste available bids on infrequent strong hands when you can have one bid for strong hands and a multitude of different bids for the more frequent weaker ones? Most of us learn to play bridge without ever questioning the point of a treatment like "change-of-suit forcing". People do what works, and that collective wisdom is assembled into "knowledge" and passed down. This is no different from what BRBR does. It just does it quicker. Stephen

Who cares what was in their minds? Who cares if they were on the bottom end of one range or the top end of another? There is more to making a result than the two players and what they thought each other's bid means. These results are what happened under the stated conditions. I've already built a bidding system from this and many other results like them. At any moment in time, a player takes an action in a similar situation based on his hand and a set of circumstances. Playing 2NT contracts is a heavy loser. I don't need to explain WHY in order to believe that it is. However armed with my belief I will attempt to play to better scores by avoiding it except when there is no alternative. Correct me if I am wrong - but your argument appears to be that any treatment, if played correctly is capable of the best score? Stephen

It actually doesn't matter what the response shows. I checked. If you have more than 6 points when you make a weak jump shift (over pass by opp), you get a negative score. Period. Stephen

Sure I will redo it immediately. Bottom line, when JS was made with 7+ it got bad results.

Ben made one point: that the 2H bid by a passed hand is nonforcing. I'll check that asap. But it's a pretty good bet that if an unpassed hand bids 2H and it goes P P that the agreement is Negative Free. Heck i got messed up when someone from Eastern Europe (pick up pd) insisted that 2S free was weaker than double. So it's not as rare as you think, either.

This is a silly argument along the lines of All elephants are pink - this animal is pink, therefore it must be an elephant. trust me, I did the math - it was correct In any event maybe my recollection was faulty, probably I did the original search and Carl simply wrote it up. Or maybe I did it and never publish it. IN ANY EVENT, it's true. I have had dozens of good players and several experts confirm that wjs need to be very weak to be effective. Not mentioning my own experience. Get a life, Josh. Carl's middle initial is not G. Maybe he didn't do the math right sometimes... that's why many of the features of BRBR were added, to check things like standard deviations and distinguishing contracts by opener from contracts by non-opener. Hope this finds you in better humour than it left me :)

Well I did it too and confirmed the results. You can't gainsay it "just because it was Carl" Anyhow the point is you missed all the hands that I would have bid 2 of a suit on because by many peoples standards they are simply too weak. Those don't show in your analysis. All you remember is the doubles? Stephen

I'm sure you're right. I just felt a little flippant :) It's clear overcaller is 1=4=6=2 and so the finesse is favoured. Ergo, what's the problem? Stephen

Well, there is one additional element - OP said there was a problem :) These are the hands I always get wrong at the table anyway. sfbp

Noone discarded a club. That's odd, because against good opps the one with the Qxx might easily discard one to put me off. If East has Qxxx he probably discard one too for the same reason. West cannot have Qxxx. Clubs are either 3-3 or someone has Qx. I am playing clubs from the top. Stephen

I don't play (or play against) the multi - so i have never had to reason this type of sequence before. Thanks for the problem! Could partner have 5 hearts? It seems to me that his second double tends to confirm that he doesn't. What do I know? In that case if spades are 4-1 we are toast in 3 spades - but I don't think so. I place the ♥K on the table before I change my mind. Then I pick up the bidding cards. Stephen

That NorthEast feature is cool, thanks for using it, I never even noticed before! I conclude that declarer has a useless spade holding, presumably 1. If he has 2 then they're going down no matter what. His heart-club shape must be 5-4 or he wouldnt have bid 2C. He cannot be 6-4 or 5-5 (why not cash the A of spades?). The fact he didn't draw trumps suggests the hearts are good and he can see twelve tricks as follows: KQ clubs and a club ruff AK diams and a diam ruff A spades 5 trumps Partner might have J7, J8 or J9 in trumps. But I cannot promote the J if I rise and play a fourth club, he ruffs high and draws trump. Where's the Jack of clubs? If partner has that card it just got toasted, and if he doesnt....... well now all is clear! This is starting to look like the hand i posted, where declarer overbid his 1NT opener. I think declarer hasn't got the Q of clubs. Duck, like a chicken (said Bloodnok). I almost changed my vote there while I wrote that essay! Stephen

Small club. Declarer has a bad hand, with good spades (well, non-doubleton). Therefore I can place significant values in partner's hand. I'm not leading trumps, that might finesse partner, similarly diamonds. The club lead might be passive (it's not as bad as underleading king in this situation), it might hit partner's Kx (hooray), or it might be partner's best suit. A singleton in dummy doesn't disturb me.

Right. And you also pass preemptive openings by partner on bad hands, yes? The point is, if responder could have been constructive, might not opener have raised? Very likely the cases where opener passed, he *knew* responder was weak, presumably by agreement. sfbp

Believe it. It's a raw measurement. If you analyse what happens by point count, the better the responding hand, the worse the overall result. You can interpret it any way you like; so can I. But in terms of imps/matchpoints outcome, when WJS gets too strong, you lose. It's harder to provide this for NFB, because I have only my experience as the guide unless I can separate out the folks who play NFB as non-constructive. Here's a start. From the large dataset, 24 million hand records, the bidding started with a 1 spade overcall (of a minor opening) 11,332 times over 806 boards, when responder held a maximum of 8 HCP, and any of the following holdings in hearts: KJxxxx, KQxxx, KQJxxx,Axxxxx,AJxxxx,AQxxxx Of course I cant filter out precision/polish, but this the OKB dataset 1998-2001 and I promise you there aren't many playing non-standard in the mix there. (6778 times after 1D, 4554 times after 1C might appear to confirm this) Constraining the bidding to 1m (1S) 2H (5929 times) gave by far the best outcome (+1.8 imps, or 65%, 296 times with reasonable SEM's) when opener passed (with our without double by the opps), with the HCP count for the partnership peaking at 20, and barely touching 25. So that appears to confirm my table experience, and the theory about not wanting to be in game. The most frequent outcome of the 2H bid was 4S by the other side (of course on these hands it was anyway), for a reasonable plus (+0.80/50.8%) to the opposition - so the ability of our side to play in 2H was likely affected by the decision of the opponents to pass. But that wasn't known when opener passed the NFB, and the 1S overcaller still had a chance to act again. The most frequent contract by our side was 4H (+0.29/54%). I can't tell what their agreements were. Interestingly a signficant contribution (1/3) to the success of passing the NFB came from playing 2HX :rolleyes: I'm sure there's more there, but this is a start. Stephen

What's wrong with passing and waiting for pard to make a takeout double on that hand? If he doesn't have extras the opponents are probably going to make 3♦X In general 5-card suits are for bidding, 4-card suits are for doubling with. However this posed hand appears to be a special case where we have a lot of options including the possibility of partner passing OUR takeout double because he has significant values in the overcaller's suit, and not much else except 4 lousy spades. In addition by doubling and bidding (ever hear this theme before?) we have a way of showing our shape and strength without ruling out any of our side's possible contracts, 3N, 4♥, 4♠, or some number of ♣ sfbp

Double gives us a couple of chances of contracts that 4♣ does not a. 3NT b. defending 3♦ as long as it is for takeout, partner knows I have at least 4 clubs and a good hand of some sort. I've got plenty of time to rebid 4♣ when I see what happens to the double. Partner unless we are playing canape, will know that I have longer hearts than clubs. It also gives partner a better chance to clarify his hand. Long spades, bad, 3♠. Long spades, solid 4♠ and we may still make slam if he has a diamond top card. Preference for hearts or clubs. Why mastermind the auction and go past 3NT? Stephen

I think it was a while ago that someone (Carl Hudecek) did the work to establish that weak jump shifts by responder (usually of 2♠ or 2♥ over a std opening bid) in direct response without intervention work best when they are REALLY weak, in the 0-6 range. Otherwise the partnershp misses game too often. Your example hand is still well within those parameter, Frances. I view this (2-level NFB) bid as an extension of that. It gives us the ability to play in our assumed 6-2 fit (a priori it's probable that pard has at least doubleton in unbid suits) at the 8-trick level, something that Larry and LOTT and Vernes tell us should be right. Because of the intervention by opp we are able to make it on a bunch of hands where we were previously denied that privilege, and where frequently(unless opps are "smart" enough to overcall on bad 8 or 9 counts at the 2-level) it is in our best interest since opps promise an opening hand when they overcall in a minor. Sort of like the principle of support X - we have three bids instead of 2 available because they intervened. Don't make it too constructive, or you confuse your par with overall par. There are some bids at the top of the range where for various reasons you make a NFB, and pray that you weren't too strong. Similar to the idea that when you overcall against 1NT, the better your hand the better it is to pass and defend. When you don't have a 9 or 10 card fit with partner, the opponents cannot preempt you out of much. What we concluded (this at the table, not in the datamining) is that if he does have a 10-card fit with your nfb, you shouldnt get too wild - most of the time you are pushing them into game instead of playing in your undoubled advance "sacrifice" at the 2 level when the hand is weaker. It's only when he has a rockcrusher in terms of HCP that he should support you to game. Stephen

I never indicated that it is necessary to hold a hand as BAD as the one I showed you - just that that is the one that in my limited experience showed the maximum profit. I think it is critical to establish an upper limit to a NFB, and also to restrict them to the 2-level. Sure, most of the time it will be 6-8 points, and most of the time you will not get a *bad* result from passing it. I started to look in BRBR, and the very first hand I popped up was a perfect example. Everyone going down in 4H, and 2H made 3 scoring 80%. It's just arithmetic whether you are in the game zone. Trumps and HCP. If partner knows the upper limit to your hand, he can judge. Stephen