hotShot

Requirements for a rating system A working rating system should allow you to predict the most likely result of e.g. a team game based on the rating of the players. To get such a rating system you would have to have an idea how the rating of a single player effects the combined rating of a pair or team. You need to define a minimum number of boards that have to be played before you can assume that the results are no longer disturbed by the lack of agreements or simple misunderstandings. If there were such a rating system, the consequences would be: Losing against better player would not chance your rating. Winning against weaker player should not change your rating. Why would e.g. the Lehmann rating work well in my local club, but can't work on BBO Do you know how a pair tourney is scored with MP's? Lets assume the top 14 world class pairs meet to play a 7 table Howell tourney. At the end of the tourney you score the result and guess what, the winner of such a tourney will have a little more than 50% while the loser will have a little less than 50%. Now lets get a good intermediate pair and put in in a tourney with beginners and novices. After the tourney you score the result and you will find, that the winner will have more than 60% and the loser will perhaps have less than 30%. The results of a MP tourney will be close together if all player are of about the same strength and they range will be wider if the players skill differ a lot. In you local club you will always play in about the same group of people, so the field of this week is about the same as the field next week. So the results are comparable. BBO has to many player, are the player who score less than 50% in the "Bermuda Bowl Participants" club really worse than those top scorer from the "Novices and Beginner" club? What are the social impacts of a inefficient rating system? In an inefficient rating system: Pairing/Teaming up with weaker player would spoil your rating. Playing against strong player could ruin your rating. Playing weak player would improve your rating. Every board played would be scored. In such an environment one would need to know potential partners rating so you don't accidentally pick a weak one. One should not sub into tourneys, because you could get a weak partner and inherit bad results. People would run from the table/tourney, if they are about to get a bad score. The rating would be the dominant factor for getting into a decent game. People could/would lie about their rating, if it is not displayed there would be a demand to publish the ratings. To get the desired rating things like "bunny bashing" or cheating could come on more peoples mind. Some of these social impacts might also occur if in fact a working rating system would be in place.

I once wrote a program that tested boards played on bbo and checked how many tricks the players lost against what the double dummy solver could do. Please realize that these plays are not necessarily errors! The result was that experts/world class played 1 card in 4 boards that lead to a trick less than the double dummy play. Intermediate Players/Beginner played an average of a little more than 1 trick per board.

Pass! And I would be closer to bid 4♠ than to switch to ♥ . If partners ♠ are as good as my ♥, this is likely to make and if they are worse than my ♥ they are more useful as trumps. Edited: jdonn is right of cause.

Well done! And I'm sure they know!

If West is allowed to open 1♠ with this junk opposite a passed partner, than his bid includes all potential values East might have. So East has no reason to bid 1NT. If West bid on less than the agreed strength, the blame goes to West, but if West has bid within the agreed range, the blame goes to East. What was the agreement?

Using Windows Vista or Windows 7, the BBO WIN-client could have a problem with access rights to the BBO directory. Of cause that would not influence the Web-Client.

What else but a slam invitation can a 4♦ splinter be? If you want to be in 4♥ you can bid 4♥. The 4♥ response to the splinter shows a minimum hand with no extras and therefor no interest in a slam try. I think that evaluation of openers hand is wrong. The only ♦ value openers land loses is the ♦J. Even if 4♦ would by agreement always be a void and could not be a single, the Ace will still be useful. The ♣ single is a good asset. So I think opener should investigate slam. I'm not sure that partner should invite though...

HotShot, At the point where East doubled 2♠, NS had neither shown hearts nor raised hearts. NS had shown two suits: ♦ and ♠. Thus, when the double of 2♠ is takeout, it shows hearts and clubs. It doesn't make sense to say that a takeout double shows the minor suits when diamonds and spades have been shown and clubs and hearts have not been shown (yet). A NS raising and bidding hearts, later in the auction cannot "undo" the meaning of East's double. The bidding was: 1♦ Pa 2♥* Pa 2♠* X What reason kept East from bidding over 1♦ if he had ♥ and ♣, and why is he strong enough to enter the auction over 2♠? If you know a reason other than holding long ♦ I'll be happy to change my view. So I know that partner never intended to show ♥ and ♣, so there is no "undo" about Easts dbl.

Rik, NS bid and raised ♥ showing a fit and West has 5♥ so West knows East has a ♥ void. So Easts t/o cannot show ♥ and ♦, has to show the minors.

Lets look at it step by step. 1) Was there misinformation? 2) Was there damage? 3) Is the damage caused by the misinformation? 1) What did North tell East and what does the CC of NS say? We don't know, but lets asume MI. 2) Sure, 4♥X= is worse than 4♥=. 3) Here is the problem: How was West damaged by the MI? Please realize that it's West's obligation to explain to the TD how he/she was damaged. If West can't explain in what way (s)he was influenced, it is unlikely that the damage was caused by the MI. If West had claimed: Such an immediate claim, would convince a TD that the MI caused the damage. Wests dbl may be (very) bad, but it's far from irrational or wild enough so that West could lose the right to an adjusted score. West has 2 sure trump tricks and a chance to get a ♣ trick. East promised some values with the dbl of 2♠, it's not irrational to expect 1-2 defense tricks from East.

To evaluate the usefulness of opening 5332 major holdings with 1NT, depends a lot on your agreed bidding style. You may solve a problem you did not have anyway. Would you bid 1♠ over 1♥ holding: 1) 3♥'s and 4 or 5 ♠ ? 2) 5m and 4♠ with e.g 12 HCP ? 3) with only 4♠ cards?

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I re-run the simulation using a smaller HCP range for a weak 2 bid. A balanced 22-24 count has a probability of 0.2%. The probability of a 6-10 HCP 6+ card major hand is 4.4%. So 1 in 21.5 Multi-openings is the strong hand. Opposite the strong hand the probability to have 12 HCP is 1.5%. So you hold 12 HCP opposite a strong Multi-Opener one time in 1441 cases partner opens 2♦. I would think that holding 12 HCP more than demonstrably suggests that partner is not likely not have the strong option.

I pass. And I would not have asked about 2♠ more than once. If the explanation is right, I have 2♥ tricks and it's not sure that I get the ♣K and there is no guarantee that partner will make 2 tricks on his hand. But my asking sure made it easier for opps to avoid bidding a slam and to locate the distribution. If the explanation is wrong, they usually are in a bad contract anyway or if our side was damaged because of the misexplanation (highly unlikely because partner passed 1♦), the TD will adjust the score. Edit: I'll stick with my pass, but it's closer. Now that there is a dbl over 2♠, there is a possibility that partner has a few values, but..... If 2♠ is natural, than your LHO, you and your partner have a lot of ♠, so declarer may be able to ruff your partners ♠ tricks. RHO can't have much ♦ since your partner will have lots of them (otherwise he might have bid over 1♦), which leads to the conclusion that opener is short in ♣. So I don't feel encouraged to dbl 4♥ by partners dbl.

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The simulations were done to investigate, if holding 12 HCP is enough to justify not to explore game because your are not opposite the stronger options of opener’s Multi 2♦. What to do once you decide that partner can't have the strong option, is a different question.

Any shape that has 2-4 cards in each major and 2-5 cards in each minor. Edit: On http://www.rpbridge.net/7z76.htm the number 0.377849809933 % is for all shapes with 22-24 HCP not only balanced ones. I didn't want to pick a range that was to small.

Just a little statistic: A balanced 22-24 count has a probability of 0.2%. The probability of a a 3-11 HCP 6+ card major hand is 6.5%. So 1 in 32.5 Multi-openings is the strong hand. Opposite the strong hand the probability to have 12 HCP is 1.5%. So you hold 12 HCP opposite a strong Multi-Opener one time in 2167 cases partner opens 2♦. So imagine you play a tourney with 26 boards every day for 6 years and 10 month, your side should be in first seat on about 32343 boards leading to an average of 2167 Multi-openings. Just to give you an idea how often it makes sense to explore game. Edit: And I didn't use responders shape as restriction yet.

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No, but I guess you have a fast multicore processor, at least 3 GB-Ram and a reasonable 3D-Accelerated Graphic-Card. Reducing the security settings, helps to get rid of the annoying dialogs to enter the administrator password.

Yes would be nice to play one again.

Yes. Opposite a long-suit game-try in hearts, either of those changes improves the South hand. Sure but is this really enough to change your bid from 4 Heart to 3 Spade? It should! 2♠ promised 8-10 HCP, but you hardly have 8, because the ♦QT holding is not of full value. After North showed 10 cards in the major's, both minor queens a obviously worthless. South no longer has his bid, so South should show minimum and make the most discouraging bid 3♠, since 3♥ should at least be forcing to 3♠.

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How do you define a penalty double over a weak NT? I would say if it's penalty, then partner has to pass. If partner is allowed to bid as suggested above than it's sort of optional and I would like to know the options/conditions that allow partner to bid. How weak is the weak NT? If the weak NT is 12-14, I don't think you will benefit much from a pure penalty dbl. If the range is 9-11, having a penalty double is much more interesting.

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