BillPatch

According to my previous entry which you quoted and were replying to above, the KnR(Also known as the Kaplan and Rubens count and the 4C's count, was (Edited)13.50. I got this from the Goldschmidt site. Where did you get a 13.75 value? I know that in KnR there is a deduction with HHT for an honor unaccompanied by a spot card. The T is still better placed there than if we switched it with a spade spot, and I think the KnR also would reflects this difference for this change. I assume in your deduction for HHT you were deducting a Kleinman count computing point, or 1/3 of a hcp.

Everyone polled denies that this is a strong NT. But is it really closer to a pass than a 15 hcp strong NT? The two rating scales on the Goldschmidt web site disagree significantly. Kaplan and Rubens rate it as 13.5. The Kleinman evaluator rates it as an even 14. Since I usually use the Kleinmam count as an approximation of the other rating, I am troubled by the discrepancy between the two scales.

Directed to me. I would hope that he would bid here like Kantar, who would invite over a 15-17 NT only with 9 hcp with bal hands, except 8 would suffice with both 4 card majors, or Kleinman, who would require 9 hcp. But I must admit that my partners rarely play as well as these world class players, so I probably should come to an agreement with partner whether the opening notrumper or responder should be more aggressive especially vulnerable. Another Bridge World witness that ordinary 8 hcp responders to 1 NT was Ed Manfield. He used a 15.00 to 17.99 NT, so he would frequently downgrade some 15 hcp hands. Even with this agreement, he showed that responder have at least 8.4 hcp strength to invite in NT not vulnerable, and 8.2 vulnerable at IMPS. Another proponent of 15.00 plus definition for the stronger NT hand was Edgar Kaplan though he normally use this with the weak NT, except he would play the strong NT vulnerable with Norman Kay.

Both vulnerable at IMPS is the hour for the Hideous Hog!

This hand has 14.7 Kaplan and Rubens points. For balanced hands, are roughly comparable in number to the 40 hcp per 52 card hand. pluses that make this a very good hand for 14 HCP: Surplus Ace; 3 quick tricks, a surplus of over 1/2 qt from normal 14 hcp hand,86% of high card strength in the 2 long suits, good placement of 9 with j and higher honor. Neutral factor: only slightly greater than average intermediate spot cards for a hand with this many honors. Negative factor: bad 10 placement. Positive factor not measured in Kaplan and Rubens points: majority of cards in majors. Reason for aggressive upgrading: Our side is vulnerable. At IMPS vulnerable we gain 10 imps if game is bid and made and they underbid, and lose only 6 imps if we bid to game, and they bid a trick short and both sides make 8 tricks, From this math at the scoring table all authorities agree that games should be bid more aggressively vulnerable than not. Sorry Ggwhiz, your argument for upgrading more NV for third seat preempting fourth is unsound. Strong NTs are for efficient game bidding, not preemption. Thomas Andrews, a major bridge simulator and the author of the free Bridge dealing program Deal, has derived from simulation that game should be bid on average vulnerable at IMPS with 24 hcp between the side when both partners hold balanced hands; versus the 25 hcp generally held necessary not vulnerable when we want a minimum 50% shot at game. I am my friend Hermann, another fellow simulator, joined me in selecting the upgrade on this hand. It feels much better only being outvoted 13 to 1 rather than 26 to 1. I am glad that none of my fellow BBO forum members upgraded the other 14 HCP hand. It had sterile distribution and few pluses. I think it is only worth 14.0 Kaplan and Rubens points at most. No where near 15.

"bbo TM p and opps randoms" Sorry, I forgot what "TM" means on bbo. I don't think it meant "trademark" here.

By the way, I was using Jack6 and its version of BWS2001. On the default settings and also at the world championship level settings, Jack when asked(Ask Jack)chose the poor 8 of diamonds for the opening lead. Assigning maximum time and power to the query, Jack chose the 6 of clubs.

I ran a double dummy simulation of 1000 on Jack and the race is too close to call between clubs, spades, and hearts. defeats contract: S 10 11.4% S 8 11.6% S 3 11.2% H 10.9% low C 11.7% I didn't record A or 10 of clubs.

If I recall with this distribution you have about a 34% shot of finding a spade fit, an improvement unless partner is 4=3=3=3. On the other 66% of hands you will be in 3 NT and declarer can conceive that the minors might be weak and worthy of a lead. According to the poll 65% lead a major if you bypass Stayman so there is a high probability you blew the contract.

On p 70 of chapter 4 ,"Leading from a weak hand," Bird & Anthias. Winning Notrump Leads. they stated their conclusion as "From a weak hand it is generally right to lead your shorter major, whether or not it includes an honor." I feel that this is a good precept.

Edgar Kaplan would disapprove calling this a weak NT. It has 15.80 of his knr points. 14.99 knr points is a maximum weak NT in his book. knr = Kaplan @ Rubens points. edit: I agree with pass for the problem.

In the other chapters, where opening leader had a stronger hand, a tripleton slightly outperformed a doubleton. This chapter the shorter short suit major won, except once in the quiz when a JTX tripleton beat a doubleton.

If I remember the chapter on leading from hands with 0-4 HCP, Bird-Anthias recommended leading from the shorter major on this auction. So I bet that a heart is best at both IMPs and matchpoints.

To mr1303 if partner advances 4NT, my understanding is that he has made a forcing bid, asking my choice of minors.

Declarer's hand and dummy specified as given. Q and J of ♠ were also specified as being with W based on opening lead. The aucton as specified was given on Jack6.

If I were to open 3♣ in fourth seat I want partner to be open to the possibility of game in 3NT. This hand clearly does not qualify for this.

I thought it was only necessary to learn to count to 13, but you are correct that the hand in question does not contain 13 cards.

I like this convention devised by Marty Bergen who named it "super unusual no trump." Unfortunately, as written on Bridgewinners.com recently, this is not ACBL compliant per the General Convention Chart. This prohibits Unusual No Trump Overcalls below 4NT unless one of the suits is specified. So, like the "Multi 2♦", it is barred from 98% of ACBL competition, including all ACBL games online.

I am sure the A will simulate well, but I want partner to read my A from AK leads.

Observations from performing the simulation. As PhantomSac noted in his first post, it is very difficult for West to find the shift to clubs at trick 2. The critical decision at the table is Will West find the right shift often enough to outweigh the gains by being able to test spades when West doesn't find the right switch. According to PhantomSac's judgment it was so. To put the null argument into figures the critical calculation was Is X(the % of club switch)* 15 >= Y(% of Spade continuation) * 7 + Z(% of heart shifts) * 3.5 ? From the start of the simulation it was easy to see that regardless of his other 11 cards(Q of spades led J of spades assumed) the west Jack was unlikely to find the club shift as forecast. Jack's signal from East at trick 1 was uninformative. The obvious shift suit was hearts, so East's main question was which major he wanted. When Jack East had three or four cards in spades, often with the 10, I only saw encouraging signals. When W did shift to hearts he did not have the ♥Q, but playing for the drop in ♥ is very anti-percentage and also never worked. When W shift to clubs he always had two small in that suit. Regardless of West's spades or East's signal, West continued spades over the 15 to 7 critical ratio so according to the critical calculation the modified mixed strategy appears to be optimal. Despite knowing that the critical calculation had been satisfied, and PhantomSac's judgment thus proven again I continued with other calculations for the exercise. Since they were redundant to the task at hand. I see no purpose in extending the simulation to defend them.

I found an improvement in the mixed strategy. After the duck, when W switches to a heart, take the free finesse immediately. If it wins, take the safety play in diamonds. If the finesse loses, win in hand and test spades for 3-3 split. If split works, take the safety play in diamonds. If the split fails, take the diamond finesse and if it wins try the diamond 3-3 split. The chance of this line working is 61.5%. (50% * 81%) + (50% * 36% * 81%) + (50% * 72& * 50% * .36%) Since Jack shifted to a heart 24% and this is a 3.5% improvement on that portion the mixed strategy gains .84% over the previous line, New winning percentage 62.4%. Edited new winning percentage to actually show an increase.

systemic low club.

I overestimated the superiority of the mixed strategy ducking line. Declarer can benefit from the safety play after the duck only if West continues ♠, and the ♥ finesse works. If W switches to a ♥ declarer should postpone the heart finesse and follow the order of the billw's line, also in the very rare chance W shifts to a ♦. If W persists in ♠, declarer takes the ♠ in hand and tests the ♥ finesse; if it succeeds he takes the ♦safety play A♦, low to K♦, low towards the J ♦. If the ♥ finesse fails: take the regular finesse in ♦, if that succeeds test both ♦ and ♠ for 3-3 breaks. I analyzed that the teacher's line works 56% and billw's line 58%. When West continued ♠ the mixed strategy gained 7% on billw's line, a ♥ or ♦ switch used billw's line, a ♣ switch lost 15% on billw's line. I simulated the hand on Jack 6 25 times. Jack continued ♠ 17 times, switched to a low heart 6 times, and switched to a club twice. Based on this, the mixed strategy beats billw's line 4.76% and loses to it 1.2% for a net gain of 3.56%. Thus the winning percentage for this strategy equals 61.6%.

AS posted by Diana_Eva, not even Zia would be able to find the switch to Q7 in ♣ rather than continue from the solid ♠ sequence, without a good look at declarer's hand.

The reason that this post received recs was because while the danger of a club shift is severe, if the shift is not found, both finesses, 3-3 splits and the safety play in diamonds may be attempted, if W fails to find the 2nd round shift into opener's declared strength and the first finesse by declarer in hearts works. My calculations are that billw's pure line wins 58%, beating the pure safety play line's 56%. The first round duck gambit loses 15% points when W finds shift, and gains 14% points otherwise.