cherdanno

Mikeh, one of the oddities that makes some of your posts so annoying is that you don't seem to be able to have any grasp of the identities of other posters, with very few exceptions. Otherwise you would have long noted that by now there are a few other good bridge players posting besides Frances and Jlall (there might even be a few that are better than you), and you might have noticed that you don't have to explain the basics of selection bias to me. Anyway, I am right now not in the mood to write a long explanation of a statement as simple as "the fact that West's hand was of the good tank variety makes it more likely that EW transmitted and used UI in this impossible auction". Suffice it to say that if NS had called the director, West had turned up with a minimum (Kxxxx xx xxx Kxx), but 6H made because ♠Q was on and ♥Q turned up singleton, that would make it much less likely that EW used UI. [btw, the logical basis for reversing "if A, then B with 100%" to "if B, then A more likely" is Bayes' law, of course.]

As is often the case I think I agree mostly with MikeH (it seems to me that if we were discussing an actual pair the probability we would agree on whether to adjust or not would be pretty high), but still don't understand his main point. Mike, when West has the good version of the tank and East makes a bid that takes advantage of the good version of this tank, that obviously increases the likelihood that EW have some "black magic" that tells East what kind of hand West has. Why shouldn't this be allowed as evidence towards the assumption that they do have such a magic understanding? Obviously, in many cases (e.g. if EW are a very weak pair) it would be extremely weak evidence. But disregarding it completely (as you seem to be arguing for) seems non-sensical to me.

I assume this was played without screens? Of those who think adjusting is wrong, have you never played with a partner where, during his tanks, you could tell whether he was thinking about trying for slam (he really looks interested in the hand) or thinking of passing a highly invitational bid (he looks frustrated and bored)? Or some who only tank when they are thinking of a complicated bid (exploring slam) but never when they are faced with a simple judgment problem (pass or raise 3H)? Do you think such players exist? If yes, do you agree that their partner will be much more likely to pick up such tellls/tendencies than their opponents? If you agree, how do you think the law should be enforced against such partnerships? By asking them about their tendencies for tanking/facial expressions? Seriously? (Remember that such partnerships don't typically make a conscious decision to cheat, but rather take advantage of it without really thinking about it.) Finally, don't you think that the combination of West having extra values on the actual hand, and East making a strange 6H bid, should be allowed as evidence towards the possibility of such tells/tendencies? [sorry Josh if I am just repeating your points, I haven't read every single post in this thread.]

Is there any chance to convince the moderators to move this thread to a different forum?

Of course I am kidding. My point is that while partner knows they pay a bonus for bidding game, there are still many fitting hands where he won't dream of raising (unless you have defined 3H as intermediate, where this would be a (sub-)minimum. Obviously I made the most extreme example, but opposite many hands with ♥K and a minor suit game is quite playable, and partner won't raise.

weird how you think that you are the only member of the partnership who knows this. You think he will bid game with ♥xx and ♦ATx?

Why? I think housing prices correlate directly with rent. In fact, property value is a direct function of lease. Have you heard of that "housing bubble" that happened not all too long ago? :D It included an atypically high P/E ratio for real estate.

Jeff Rubens suggested this years ago. Doesn't sound like a contradiction to me!

The "hoping to sell" part obviously makes the risk much bigger (as it seems housing prices fluctuate more than rents). Or to rephrase, your risk is that housing prices fall and you will be bound to Dallas. The opportunity cost of not really being able to move in with that girl in Manhattan might be pretty high :P

So when West wants to know his opponents cards just to know whether he obtained a good result on this board (say, in the last segment of a KO team match), then North is not obliged to show him his cards?

Didn't you consider this before you played at T1? Justin would say, by thinking at T1, that you've already spilled the beans, and I will concede this, but I think he would concede that if I always think a lot at T1, then it mitigates this tell. I guess I shouldn't have picked a trick 2 example. Say you have to pick between different squeeze lines, which will require you to read the ending at trick 11. If you quickly realize which line is best (or that they are all about the same) you can play the hand in tempo and hope to learn a lot from the discarding tempo. If you spend 10 minutes computing which line is a percent better than opponents can plan their discards during those 10 minutes and not give away anything with their tempo later. Yes they might stop to think at their first discard anyway, but as it is unethical to stop when you don't expect to have a problem (and players don't seem to do this anyway) declarer will get some information. I think ajm's example is quite nice also.

I wish hanp would read this thread just so he could post "I completely agree with mikeh." I agree with hanp anyway.

But they started to diverge as early as move 5 in the recent games! In earlier WCs, they (I think Kasparov-Karpov) followed the same line of Spanish opening until move 12 dozens of times. Anyway, it has certainly to do with risk aversion. If they would choose a different line, they would have prepared it less, and would have to hope the opponent also had it prepared less. Meanwhile, they may have found an improvement in the line of the previous game that would give them a promising position, so unless the opponent has found an earlier improvement, it sounds like a good idear to try it...

But in both cases it is doubtful the will be solved ever, certainly not with the current approaches. The game tree complexity of chess is somewhere in the order of 10^123. The number of possible positions is around 10^50. To put that in perspective the number of atoms in the observable universe is around 10^80. Even if you were doing more than a million positions each microseconds it would take roughly 10^80 years of processing. That is one year for each atom in the observable universe. Hmm. I find this kind of argument ok for, say, a NYT article about computer chess. But I think on BBF we could do better. Just because the game tree is that big doesn't mean you have to analyze a tree that big. The size of the game tree of gomoku (five-in-a-row) is much bigger but still it has been analyzed by computers for a 15x15 board. Also, "the game tree of go is bigger than the game tree of chess" is really not the reason why computers suck at go (compared to chess).

In general terms why is this? Because humans and computers have different strengths. A human might see a long-term plan that is very promising ("bring the bishop to e7, the rock on f6 and i don't see how black could save this position") and then use a computer to check it tactically ("Oops, if I first bring the bishop to e7 I get mated in 7 moves, so lets try starting with the rock - YEAH it works!")

Why would West bid 2NT with that hand?

Yes I am allergic to pass when I have a decent 6520 hand opposite a partner who opened the bidding.

I still think this is only good advice in this thread. All of the other rules will make you a worse bridge player in the long run (compared to trying to visualize partner's hand in all such auctions). Well if you give partner perfectly fitting cards (♠K ♥A ♦A) then grand could be on a finesse. If you give him terribly misfitting cards (bad trumps, ♥KQ ♦A ♣K) then you could go down in 5, but opposite most badly fitting hands (♠K and heart wastage, or the previous hand with better trumps) small slam will be on a finesse. So it must be right to investigate slam. However, you may also notice that it's better to be relayed than to relay when you are unbalanced. Also, the time to wonder whether you should investigate for slam is before you have told opponents his complete shape.

I think this misses the point. If declarer is fast, then he will always "shotgun" (relatively speaking) at trick 2. Then either you go along with his tempo, and miss some great plays from Kxx, or you stop to think when you have Kxx in that suit and then you give away the position of the king EVERYTIME at trick 2. There isn't a huge load of IMPs to be won between the declarer play of the technical level of Meckstroth and that of Rosenberg. I am sure Meck would happily treat those IMPs for knowing every time whether his RHO has an honor in the suit he plays at trick 2.

Actually, a while ago someone posted a link to detailed statistics of the performance of top partnerships and players in various settings (e.g. as declarer in game when the contract is the same as in the other room, etc.) in world class events. (gwnn?) One thing I noticed was that players who are well-known as great but slow declarers (e.g. Rosenberg or Bauke Muller) weren't actually winning IMPs as declarer.

The title is a quote from memory by Meckstroth (in the most recent ACBL bulletin). True? The context was a question about what makes him successful, and among other things Meck mentions that he is quite fast, which he thinks is very important.

Yes, they play that all NF hands with 6+♠ are in 1♥ - 2♠. I assume this situation is the same as in standard though. As MR opens very light I wouldn't be surprised to see many 12's for 3♠ here. They stole that from JDONN!!!

The value of the 4th trump is more crucial when opener has shortness?

Well if we have the agreement that 3♣ shows 5 clubs then of course I don't bid 3♣ with this hand. But I see many auctions where you can't really show this hand after 2♠ but can show it pretty well after 3♣. 2S 2N 3D 3H - I guess 4C is a cue for clubs now but we haven't shown our heart shortness; compare with 3C 3H 4D. 2S 2N 3D 3N - I guess we have to bid 4C now but is 4C really a side suit now, rather than a cue with, say, a strong 6232 hand? On the other hand, I think after 3C 3N we can pass as we have shown extra values and partner has shown a good stop in hearts. Or we can bid on with 4D and again have described our hand pretty well. I guess on many other auctions we will come out even, e.g. if partner rebids diamonds I guess we can just force to keycard.

Mbodell in your long post you make a much more elaborate analysis of the payout matrix at poker than the one at bridge - and the one at bridge is just waaay too simplistic. If you think they have a 55% chance to make, and that you will be down 2 in 5♥, and that there will be some -150/-130 or -100 or -200 scores in the field, then pass beats both double and 5H. Anyway, there is a good reason to believe 5C will be making - partner didn't double and he knows our type of hand very well. There is also a good reason to believe 5H won't be a good sacrifice - partner didn't bid it and he knows our hand very well.