Spisu

You're right. My apologies. I did misread those 100 100 50 numbers as being for A K and A-K. And the oddity of adding in a frequency distribution for a single card finesse, the 200 omitted hands, and the 500 wins of a first finesse (450 is max in 600 hands and 600 right for 800, so it is wrong either way) all raised red flags. But unfortunately, the one absurdity that slipped by me was the chart figure showing a four to one ratio between wins by lone honors to those from double honors (200 to 50). So it's still a terrible example to supposedly prove a point...I will try to edit out the initial post.

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Removed by originator due to unproven conclusions based on data presented.

I'm afraid I've had it with the lies, insults, and deceit, and worst of all, bizarre and arrogant ignorance in nearly every field from a group I expected to be intelligent and open minded. I have had to explain things as crazy as being attacked for questioning RC by people with no clue as to the actual basis for RC...And accused of saying things I did not say and believing absurdities. It's obvious there will be no use to go forward. I haven't encountered a single open mind. I can't imagine anyone here interested in truths outside his/her dogmas or who could even recognize the truth. If there was any interested person here I'm letting down, I wish you had made it known, and I apologize.

There is no case where I said RC gave false or bad odds. I will post a $100 reward to the BBO account of the person who finds and cites where I said those words. If something is based on a fallacy, that doesn't mean it can't come up with the right answer and even incorporate other compensating fallacies or errors, particularly when the answer is already known. Maybe there is an error but I do not know offhand of a case where in its common uses RC doesn't come up the correct advice. (Now, outside of normal play, I have seen experts criticized for not applying RC to some inane spot cards where the card was not a prior interest. THAT would be an error to me, but it's not "bad odds".)

Thank you. I appreciate your going there and checking it out, but I believe there is a factor there you didn't pick up on. I had planned to bring it up tomorrow and will do so. The other question brings in a nine card suit and a distributional issue I've avoided to concentrate on the principle without that side issue. I always finesse twice because the strategy I follow focusing on honors has me winning about 66% of the cases. That strategy is that isolating East's hand sets one up with a priori divided honors 50% of the time compared to East's a priori 25% to hold both honors. And, others to the contrary, those odds do not change when events consistent with the strategy occur...Which is all events in roughly 75% of the deals. Note that an East's winning with an expected honor that turns out to be a king (in the absence of special information) does not change divided honors' odds unless you decide to assert "He won with THE KING!", now what do I do?!

You're just trolling now. Give it up.

I greatly appreciate the moderate tone. I may see things a bit differently because of my background in every science, math, logic, Martin Gardner style skepticism (and bridge). So I was shocked at the reaction from what I expected to be reflective and open minded experts. I sought data here actually to see if I could possibly be wrong. But that hasn't happened. (Quite the contrary.) So the next step could be an element that may really surprise you, maybe even give you pause.

I have said repeatedly, I am interested in the underlying premise, not any and every case, because (as surely some informed here must know), there are cases attributed to RC where a choice between equals CAN make a difference. (Some opening leads for example or possibly other cases where an actual difference can exist between options and/or their consequences.) There is a massive chasm between an actual difference and a pretended and fallacious difference...You see, if you knew the K was in an E's hand and E later won a double finesse for K-Q with that K, then there is a mathematical basis that the Q might have been played if there. But there would be then an actual difference between the K and Q by your prior knowledge. But I did show you an example where the premise of RC breaks down.

The actual quote you deceitfully alter is: "I am familiar with Bayes and the restricted choice folks' claim it is based on the Bayes postulate known also by some as the "Equidistribution of Ignorance." Factual information to explain any related point would be welcome, however.

Please come back if you have something to add. BTW, did you see the challenge on the ACBL Encyclopedia Example 1 under Restricted Choice? Explaining why the numbers don't seem to add up would be a big "something".

As you probably know, "Bunkum" was not my word. It was one of your cohorts who used the word (that's why it was in quotes if you didn't notice), and I cited him to disagree with his point. And, as to Newton vs Einstein's general theory, there is no comparison. My point is as I've said before here...If you say 2+2=4 because 2 cubed divided by the # of integers added also equals 4, then an honest mathematician has a duty to speak up. I did not say you can't get a right answer by the wrong means. But if you understand Bayes and RC, please share how actual Bayesian statistics impacted RC other than being used incorrectly to presume a player from double honors does so randomly but with no updating or testing to verify that presumption. Actual facts would be appreciated.

Your belief that the "first play" of two equals comes "after the first finesse lost" is noted, but the Nobel committee would be interested in your disproving time reversal invariance."

Maybe it would help you read what the "Rule of Restricted Choice" definition actually is and then read what I have said. I have not said that RC gave "false odds" on a finesse, but that the basis for the "rule" is a fallacy. That does not exclude that fallacies cannot be piled together, offset, or eventually match what should have been obvious at the beginning. And some parts of multiple math calculations certainly could have partial validity. Bayes is fine if actually done properly. The words identifying RC by the ACBL Encyclopedia as general "rule" are "the play of a card that might have been selected as a choice of equal plays increases the chance that the player started with a holding in which his choice was restricted". And I showed you previously that was incorrect as a rule or principle because of the obvious fact that any two cards (equals or not) can only exist in 4 possibilities in two bridge hands...The ACBL Encyclopedia presents these 4 as equally likely...AK, K/A, A/K, KA...So 50% of all hands have combined equals..(for the hostiles, it may actually be 48-52, but please contact the ACBL to vent your rage at their Encyclopedia's restricted choice data based obviously on symmetry). Therefore, half of all first plays from equals randomly divided between 2 hands MUST come from combined honors, with no possible way for such plays to change the frequency of their own existence. Nor could a lone honor in the other 50% of deals increase its own frequency to over 50% of deals at the expense of combined honors. So the "rule" falls on its face. It is statistically impossible.

Sure, if an East always played the K from KQ, when he wins with the K the odds are 50-50 on the other card's location IF he NEVER varies. Not that it matters much unless KQ happened to be doubleton....You'd be nuts to gamble on a 50% low end of the scale that E never varies play, when normal play odds for finessing (in this specific situation) range from 50% and up, better by that "and up" than a finesse for a K when you hold A-Q. Interestingly, if an East accidentally dropped a Q from his hand just before you made a double finesse for K-Q, that would be random discovery that increased the odds for the other honor to be in East's hand to 50%. And you are wrong that at the decision point of the second finesse **"A very large number of the a priori probabilities have been eliminated"**. Very little has been eliminated. The 50% likelihood of divided honors is in full play because an East winning honor is fully consistent with that, as is whichever honor E won with. The 25% chance West had both honors is gone, but that also is consistent and actually essential for divided honors. The belief that very much has changed is bizarre. That is the beauty of a double finesse. The a priori odds favor you at every stage.

As I have said at least a couple times the point here is the basic assumption of RC that play of one equal gives mathematical basis to a certain percentage exclusion of the other. For that reason, I stipulated and later explained "I" was addressing the very very basics. Your 9 card suit incorporating RC, random discovery and distributional elements in your 24,000 hands has different issues that would be interesting if we ever got beyond the most simple fundamentals. (Like, if you can't deal with basic science, then stay away from quantum theory or probability maybe.) Here's a very simple for YOU (or anyone here) at the simplest level: The ACBL Encyclopedia has had an explanation/proof for "Restricted Choice" in editions going back at least to the 3rd (1973), and in the newest, 11th, 2011. Find some edition, first check out Example 1 (it's in all earlier editions I have seen) and explain how the data supporting the basic principle of RC would have fared had the author not excluded 200 plays from AK holdings on a basis akin to "you lose those anyway". Second, explain why the author, in what should be a simple example of leading to QJx from xxx to set up one trick, added a faulty dilemma of making it QJ9 to shift the focus over to whether to play the "9". I would really like your opinion (no joking) on how adding those excluded plays (half of them quite interestingly) from double honors would have affected the final numbers.

The fact is indisputable that if 2 specific cards are involved in your strategy the odds they are both in one opponent's hand are 1/2x1/2, or 25%, and the odds for the second only change when one of the two is identified by random discovery (and only then can the second card become 50%). For any unspecified run of the mill cards, odds are 50% each. Science is apparently not your strong suit. Congratulations on your banner of shame.

Do you have a problem with language? I have never hinted other than that RC is a fallacy. Maybe you misunderstood when I said dividing by 2 reduces a quantity by half. And RC does that quite accurately if not appropriately.

We have had raging thunderstorms and power interruptions, but I have an assignment for you I'll post when the storms are over.

Odds vary with one's intent and interest, such as if some number of missing cards are not on your radar they will normally each be 50-50 to be in one opponent's hand...But if 2 cards are jointly significant, and the first is 50-50, the second becomes a a 25% joint probability. That's why I started out here citing only the 2 equals (which was a bit confusing to some). But I did this because a principle affecting only those two cards was in question...The expectation was that some uninteresting number of sidekicks would exist just to keep the 2 equals from possibly falling together when you have all those 11 card suits. Exactly how that disinterest which includes ALL other distributions calculated would work out is not exactly clear, BUT the calculations in the ACBL Encyclopedia (under Restricted Choice) use the same expectation frequencies I do here. Those seem to be that an AK combined will be in both hands 50%, and be divided in two ways between the hands 50%, see 2011 ACBL Encyclopedia pg 458...Also, specifically under "Restricted Choice", you can see they show 800 hands divide 200-200-200-200 as AK A/K K/A KA. Also of note is that it sems 200 hands with plays from "AKs" are omitted from the totals verifying RC which makes the number of specific honor plays from combined AK appear to be half the rate of an associated honor. Please check that out if you've got any edition of that ACBL book, because it goes back many decades. See if you view it that way. Feedback welcome.

It does matter as a principle when in general play you see a card having an equal played from a player just following suit. If you try to apply the restricted choice principle to that card, you must accept that it was 2:1 a lone equal. But absent conventional play, no one can or at "has" been able to dispute that frequencies of lone and combined honors exist at ca 50-50 in the opponents hands, contrary to RC. If one isolates one opponent hand into a subset of the deal, things change. That does not create a principle that applies to all hands. "I challenge you to find a single case where RC does not produce the correct answer" you say? Challenge met and defeated. (And yes it is what RC was invented to do, trying to set the odds for the second of a double finesse at 1/3 when they asserted the faulty dilemma that there were only 2 otherwise "equal" possibilities, such as K or KQ.)

Wow. You have it all backwards. It is I who believe a lone honor is twice as likely a prioi to win a double finesse. Restricted Choice tries to have it both ways by first asserting they are of equal frequency (lone vs from combined) BUT FOR their claim that plays from combined equals can be expected to occur at only half the frequency of their expectation. That is what restricted choice is all about. So by dividing by two, they come up with the right answer (which is coincidentally my answer). And I have never said that a double finesse is as likely to lose to a lone honor as a combined honor. Again, that is restricted choice's first of contradicting positions. (They say odds should be 50% but then chop it down to 1/3 because, you know.. Lone and combined honors first plays in open play come equally in frequency and can be in either hand. A finesse targets ONE hand which is half as likely, or 50%. That seems to be ignored in RC but dividing the hands by 2 might be a clue. Your apparently not a teacher with your ** "If your argument is right, and RC agrees with same answer, then either both are right or both are wrong!" So you think if I say 2+2=4, and RC says no it's because it's actually 2 cubed divided by the number of integers being added, also giving 4, that both are right or wrong? I see...