semeai

3% return in two months is pretty good

Is there arbitrage to be had, or is there a large gap (or fee) at Betfair between betting the two different ways?

Perhaps. I'm certainly not one of the people betting. I'm not sure how much stock [har har] to put in Intrade. The lifetime volume for Obama to win is just under $8 million (just under 800K shares). Is this big enough that it should be really reliable or not? There's also the problem that it's presumably good for a candidate to be doing well on Intrade (even independent of how well the candidate is really doing). If some wealthy would-be-donors just decide to go shift the market at Intrade, how much would that be worth compared to extra advertising?

Here's a big list of bridge books. There are multiple ones on opening leads (just search in the page for "opening lead"). Mike Lawrence has one, and it gets an enthusiastic blurb on that page, and his books are always really good, though I haven't read that one. It does seem like it's out of print, though.

I question your conclusions from this. Don't you often take 12 tricks in normal 4♥ contracts (even aside from the fact that these are presumably double dummy statistics)? Even when it really is a good slam, it'll often be hard to suss out over 1♥ or 2♣. Notice that the percentage that go down, 20%, and the percentage that make slam, 25%, are pretty close. I think these are probably just normal amounts (at least for this sort of hand) to be too low/high on.

It doesn't really matter who's to blame. If you were North, just take away from this that the default for most people you meet online is that 1C (1H) X shows 4 spades. Maybe South did something really stupid, partially because he was confused about everyone showing or bidding spades (or maybe not, as some are trying to argue). It doesn't matter: you don't need to interact with that person further; you just met him in a free individual apparently and won't necessarily play with him again. Added: Actually, maybe this wasn't from a free individual; I misread a comment above. It doesn't matter. Just get on the same page as your partner regarding negative doubles if you were North. (South may need advice too, but unless this is your regular partner I wouldn't worry too much about it.)

I played with it a bit just now. I can get it to go away just by tapping, by tapping on the red bar with the names at the top of the bidding panel as opposed to on the light blue bidding area itself (even with no bids with explanations). The red bar with the names is really small though, at least on my phone (it's a 4S in case that helps), so even knowing that now I'm not hitting it every time. I guess if you make tapping the light blue area make it go away, then there will be people who try tapping for an explanation and miss and have it go away. Whatever you do is fine, just thought I'd let you know.

Looks wonderful. Tournaments etc are a great addition. One really minor note (this might have been present in the previous version too): I clicked the arrow in the upper right and selected "review the bidding" and got the bidding review. It covered some cards for North and East (I was kibitzing), so after reviewing the bidding I tried to tap it to get it to go away, but it wouldn't leave. Eventually I realized maybe I had to click the arrow again and select "review the bidding" again, and this did get it to go away, but it was fairly unintuitive.

Nate Silver has all these at 74 or 75 except Florida, at 65. Two comments: 1) They'll move together to some extent, so the win percentage for a likely tipping point state should probably be close to the overall win percentage. 2) Intrade often has little inefficiencies/irrationalities (at least when I've looked closely at things in the past; maybe it's gotten better, though by what you say, I guess not). I suppose the market lacks some liquidity due to their cut, small volume, and the wait for the payoff.

Another point here is that you shouldn't imagine yourself choosing between 2000 against 8000 or 8000 against 2000. You should at least instead imagine yourself choosing between 2000 against 8000 for Romney or 2000 against 500 for Obama. Your aversion to losing 6000 or 8000 is going to come into it otherwise. Not that I'm claiming he's necessarily 80% to win, just that in imagining this scenario, you've set yourself up to be irrational (besides the "gun to the head" bit etc).

Yes, sorry. I added my note that I meant for the suit in isolation right about when you made this reply. As for what's best if we don't want to cross back to dummy: What if when we play A, LHO drops J/T from Jx or Tx? That loses us quite a lot of positions if we then won't cross. If LHO will do that more than 1/4 the time (or even very slightly less, because you're suggesting cashing A then crossing back if you don't see an honor), then we should just play low to the Queen from the get go, which never requires crossing.

Ah, you're right, I was hasty rejecting cashing A. Cash A then run 9, covering if they cover, is (theoretically) best. It loses only to JT-Kxx and Kx-JTx. (This is for the suit in isolation.)

Sometimes nice. Here, though, even if you always get Kx-JTx, you'll lose Kxx-JT, which is just almost as likely (since 3-2 is twice 1.75 times as likely as 2-3 given the distribution). Maybe it will help you tell the difference between KH-Hxx and Hx-KHx the next round, though (by the speed with which LHO plays that J/T)?

Sorry, I was just expressing camaraderie with aguahombre, who was pointing out posts we agreed on (that was the second one he pointed out), after our heated discussion over Drury in another thread. Maybe that wasn't the best way to go about it, but it wasn't supposed to be sarcastic, just fun.

Okay, with the fixed spade suit of 9854 opposite AQ32 (was T954 opposite AQ32), now I can't pick up any 1-4 or 4-1. Possible starts are cash A, low to Q, run 9. Cashing A is bad [Added: Oops, no it isn't. See PhilKing's post below]. Let's compare the others: Possible holdings to pick up: JTx-Kx (2, counts [almost] double) Kxx-JT (1, counts [almost] double) Hxx-KH (2, counts [almost] double) These are picked up by low to Q or run 9 [cover if covered]. [the 3-2 count for twice 1.75 times 2-3; see earlier post] JT-Kxx (1) Picked up by low to Q. Run 9 has to then lead low to Q (when RHO shows x) to pick this up. KH-Hxx (2) Low to Q fails. Run 9 has to then play Ace (even if RHO pops with H). Hx-KHx (4) Low to Q works. Run 9 has to then play low to Q when RHO shows H. Kx-JTx (2) Both fail. xx-KJT (1) Both work. So low to the Queen and low to 9 then lead low to Q are the same. Low to 9 can't pick up both Hx-KHx and KHx-Hxx if your opponent knows to pop H with the latter on the 2nd round. If your opponent doesn't know to do this, then low to 9 and then low, playing A if x shows and Q if J/T show is better than original low to Q (but if you try this and opp does know, you're worse off because you then lose KH-Hxx and JT-Kxx). [Added: Oops. Actually, as PhilKing points out, cash A then run 9, covering if they cover, only loses to Kx-JTx and JT-Kxx, so it's best, and just as good as the "if your opponent doesn't know" line above even when the opp doesn't know.]

Low to Q, then lead 10. This picks up: Hxxx-H (2), Hxx-Hx (6), xxx-KJ (1), Hx-Hxx (6), xx-KJx (3), J-Kxxx (1). The only holdings this is missing that you can pick up are KJ-xxx and K-Jxxx, but you'd have to give up more to pick up either of these. In case you're interested, though it doesn't matter because the above line is so good: Vacant spaces are 10 to 6 9 to 6 [thanks Cyberyeti]. This makes the ratio of the probability of a single specific holding of the shapes 4-1, 3-2, 2-3, 1-4 equal to 7/5 : 1 : 1/2 : 1/6 [sorry, wrong vacant spaces as pointed out by Cyberyeti] 6/5 : 1 : 4/7 : 12/56. Added: I see dwar is there before me. :)

Perhaps as far as vocabulary goes. It seems like it would standardize and preserve grammar though. I understand that some of these idioms mess with grammar, but I'd still guess the net effect would end up on the "preserve" side.

I might also dispute this claim that partner has at most one spade. Can't partner have a notrumpy hand with two spades?

Sure. :) I'd suggest this not depend on whether we agree on some bridge point, though. :D

Maybe this was more true prior to the 1990's or so.

I'd guess that language evolution has been slower this past century, due to radio and TV broadcasts.

I think I'll bid stayman and bid 2H over 2D, 3H over 2H, and pass over 2S. I'm not sure though, due to inexperience with 10-12 NT. Am I supposed to compare this to subtracting 5 points opposite a strong notrump? Say J109x K109xx x Q108. Or is it slightly better than that situation, because our points are more balanced between the two hands?

Actually, I guess it's 59% if all we know is partner has one spade: that one spade might be the ♠J (adding on 1/7 of the remaining 48%)!

You're right that it's not as clear cut at matchpoints. The logic still applies to some degree unless the other tables will all be in 2NT or 3NT. I don't have a great sense of the extent to which that will be true, but we don't know if partner's decision was clear cut or whether (s)he had other options, and we also don't know if some will insist on spades with our hand. Ouch.

1. I guess so. We're not even sure 2NT is making, so we might as well bid 3NT and have some upside when the spades run. It's also conceivable we make when the spades don't run if I still have my entry. 2. 3NT. I don't want to try for more tricks. 3. For 1 spade, 3-3 is approx 36% and 4-2 is approx 48% (remembered these). Jx-xxxx is 1/3 of all 4-2's (math or vacant spaces). So it's approx 36 + 48/3, so 52%. For 0 spades, 4-3 is approx 62% (looked this one up instead of remembering or calculating), and Jxx-xxxx is 3/7 of these (again, math or vacant spaces). So it's 3*62/7 which is approx 3*9, so 27%. Added: I see I left out J9-xxxxx, but Bbradley got there.