semeai

Several ways: 1. A common way to sort your hand is insertion sort with the total order induced by ♠ > ♥ > ♣ > ♦. Theoretically this gives no info about suit lengths, but there are some practical problems: a. It's natural to guess the spacing between different cards as you add them to your hand. Then, if your ethically-questionable opponent (EQO) is watching and you suddenly are wedging lots of cards into a smaller and smaller gap in your hand, EQO may guess you have a long suit. b. Hands with no clubs or hearts will often lead to the swapping of two suits to maintain alternating colors. If you usually just insert cards, but on one particular hand EQO sees you swap two suits, EQO may guess you have a void. 2. Some players sort their hand into suits and then rearrange the suits. EQO may be able to guess suit lengths by how big the piles being swapped past each other are. 3. Some players use a sort of selection sort: They fan out their hand and then pick out all the cards in one suit, then all the cards in the next suit, etc. If they just do this using a total order and pause every 3-4 cards this wouldn't give suit info, but if they are more likely to pause between suits, EQO may be able to guess suit lengths. And so on.

Welcome to the forums! Thanks for writing the book, and for your thoughts & anecdote here. It seems as though you've missed that the book and the OP are discussing net imps/board, not number of swings or total imps exchanged. The bidding for pair A and pair B have zero net effect on imps/board in the long run. I have to agree with helene_t that the data are somewhat interesting, if not particularly pure. Your (bluecalm) great thread from last year comparing declarer play, defense, and bidding + lead for various players to double dummy has statistics closer to the sort one would like to be looking at for the contribution of bidding vs card play, but these aren't nothing. I'll agree with various other posters that the data likely don't have much to do with the superiority of the system, but rather that the best one should hope for from this data is some sense of the value of the whole of their bidding (system & judgement). Justin's good point that bidding and cardplay can't be separated this simply (and other similar concerns) does prevent easy access to this "value of the whole of their bidding." However, if we can make some guess about how revealing their auctions are compared to their peers (and other things), maybe we can draw some conclusion, if only an (approximate) inequality of the form "the value of their bidding as a whole is likely [greater than / roughly equal to / less than] such-and-such imps/board."

It certainly is inconvenient, but it's hard to fault Antrax too much. I guess I would hope that a better pairing method is possible. Maybe a compromise is that if you play zero hands at a table, it doesn't count as table hopping. Then all that happened in Antrax's story is that he played three hands at a table, found it incompatible, and left. Hardly a pattern of table hopping.

Two comments: 1. Sounds like you should consider the "list interesting tables" option under HMFAG instead of the "take me to the first seat available" option, at least on a trial basis. 2. I agree that what you're doing doesn't seem destructive. The only sort of hopping that seems actively destructive is (frequently) leaving mid hand when not dummy.

And here's the link

What's your goal? A) Impress the better players B) Slightly increase your odds of winning If A, just play your best and take your normal actions. A low scoring match will be impressive itself. If B, mostly just play your best and take your normal actions. If you see a chance to do something abnormal that really is (emphasis on really) just about zero expected value, feel free to do it. If you can or already do play an active style without any (emphasis on any) detriment to your game, feel free to do so. The trick is not to over do it: you'll look silly and wild (bad for secondary goal A) and likely also have silly, wild, poor results. The problem is that unless you've thought carefully about it, you're likely bad at only taking unusual actions that really are close enough to zero EV. Also, even if you have thought carefully about it, spending too much time thinking about such things during the match may detract from more useful normal bridge thinking.

I bought the e-book. It's 173 pages long. The book mixes together friendly discussions of the logic of the system, definitions of bids, and frequent example hands. The bidding trees are roughly the complexity of (and very similar to, though cleaned up, and with more explanation) Dan Neill's bidding tree for Fantunes, which the author cites as one of his sources. The goal of the book is not to describe exactly what Fantoni and Nunes play, so the author has made occasional modifications (which it appears the author plays in a partnership of his), usually commenting thereon. For example, over 2♦-2♥ (artificial relay), the responses are modified slightly to make them a bit more symmetric, hence potentially easier to remember. The author also does not describe slam methods used by Fantoni and Nunes (e.g. Turbo), except in passing by way of suggesting that the reader instead use his/her own, and also leaves most of the system over 1NT and 2NT to the reader, with hints on key points to include to deal with the distributionally wide-ranging 1NT opening, for example. The system is quite detailed and complicated. The opening is of course quite natural, and the responses are mostly straightforward, but thereafter many specialized conventional bids show up. There are occasional hints for simplifying the system where possible, but they're not very frequent. The reader can work on paring away more to come up with a bare-bones version, but it would take a lot of work to separate the truly-necessary from the very-nice-to-have from the fairly-useful and to come up with workable simpler alternatives. Toward the end, there is a seven page summary bidding tree, as well as quite a few quiz questions, including a separate page of problems just on the Fantunes version of Gazzilli. *** To add my $.02 to the discussion of imps per deal: It's quite difficult to separate system wins from bidding judgement wins. It seems entirely possible, even likely, that the .29 imps/board Fantoni and Nunes apparently win in the bidding comes largely or entirely from their bidding judgement. Fantunes seems like a fun system, and I enjoy fun/different systems. I do think however that card play and bidding judgement are each quite a bit more important than system, at least once your system is reasonably well fleshed out.

How experienced was the doubler? I can see two situations in which there could be UI: 1) Doubler thought they had an agreement about this auction or at least some sort of mutual understanding about doubles in general. 2) Doubler has never heard of the possibility that this double could be something other than penalty. This would require doubler to be relatively inexperienced. If neither of these is true, I'm not sure what the UI is. *** How about this: if you think you've received UI, and you act on it (!), but you really haven't received any UI, have you committed an infraction?

1. Why do we care if Best Hand Bridge is "Bridge" or not? The ACBL has decided to give out masterpoints for it. Seems like a good move for their business and for popularization of the game. If you want to argue against this, please do so directly; I'm not seeing how the semantics of the situation imply this to be undesirable. 2. The fact you have the best hand should certainly be treated as AI. 3. It's quite fun and highly related to many, if not all, bridge skills. 4. A par contest as a side event at a tournament would be fun, and this certainly won't fit any strict definition of bridge. So would a monitored Best Hand side event (more fun/worthwhile as the computer players get better of course). [This is in not in any way to suggest that declarer play against GiB is at all similar to a par contest.]

I've never heard of this meaning for a double unless spades have been agreed beforehand. This is a possible meaning on the auction 1C-1S-2H*-2S;3H-X (*NF), but I just don't see it here.

A nice well-thought-out discussion. Let's say we haven't discussed it further, so we'll go with this "default" meaning. Would you ever bid this? What hands would you bid it on? <thinks> I suppose if you don't have a spade splinter in your NT followups, you might well try it on such a hand (if you expect partner to reason similarly). Maybe you'd bid this on a 1-3-(54) sort of hand, in particular. A vote for D!

I've got four diamonds, so I bid four diamonds. On second thought, what does my partner's profile say? If it's "STAYMEN BLKWD 1N16-18 2C19+," I may have to reconsider. More seriously, I think/hope it's some combination of takeout/cards/transfer-to-3N. I don't think we're making 3N, and 4♦ is pretty likely to be at least an okay place to play.

Come to the friendly natural bidding forum for a thread on how you'd take the 2♥ bid here if your regular partner perpetrated it opposite you. Please leave all laws discussions at the door; you may pick them back up on the way out. :)

(1♠) 1N (P) 2♥ What does it (or should it) mean? A) It really is a transfer to spades (hey, maybe you have ♠QJ10987) B) Some sort of stopper ask (with what responses?) C) Game forcing stayman D) It shows hearts. And a desire to hog the hand. At the two level. E) Other F) Get a new partner I'm looking mostly for the oh-****-my-regular-partner-just-bid-this answer (and this regular partner is not the sort to just forget about transfers opposite 1NT, and knows you play systems-on). Theoretical answers aimed at "what it should be" are also welcome. [This thread inspired by, but otherwise unrelated to, the laws & rulings thread with this auction. Go there for any legal discussion.]

If neither pair has played the board, it does look like you just score up the board. In this case, the board has likely been spoiled for EW and their future NS opponents against whom they're scheduled to play the board. The director should apply a procedural penalty I imagine. Caveat: IANAL

You might also have intended to mention it and then forgotten. That seemed more likely than a double on this hand in a natural auction somehow! I guess whoever I am I've doubled 1♥ as a penalty double then. The rest of what I said arguing for pass still stands (I've shown ♥).

What did my double on the first round show? Was 1♥ by RHO a transfer to spades or something? I'll assume my double either showed ♥ or ♥+♦-tolerance. I'll pass. I've shown my hand and we have no guarantee of a fit. Partner's 1N doesn't promise the world (she didn't overcall 1N).

Over a double, opener has the ability to: Penalty pass Bid Over a pass, opener has the ability to: Pass (not relevant if partner has values) Takeout double Bid I suppose the logic for double-with-a-bust and pass-with-values is that constructive bids like a takeout double are more valuable when partner has values, and the penalty pass is just as useful (if not more since you might not make a game) opposite a bust as opposite values. (And the added ability to pass out the deal if partner's pass shows a bust is not of much value.)

Indeed! Thanks for the tip. :)

I'm really excited about the app, and it's coming along great so far, with the ability now to be taken to a table to play humans (with a partner or solo) and other niceties that come with being logged in and having a friend list. The interface is well designed. The ability to choose whether to confirm cards and bids is great, and reviewing results works very nicely. Even just playing the robots is a great deal more fun than the other bridge programs for iOS, with the ability to compare against real people playing the same robots. A few comments: 1. In the iOS store, searching for "bridgebase" returns no results since the release of version 3.1 (previously it worked). You have to search for "bridge base" instead. Just a minor marketing issue. Maybe there's a way to add keywords to your app. 2. Landscape orientation would be great. Failing that, it'd be nice to be able to at least flip vertically, as I like holding the device with the power cord coming out the top when it's charging (as opposed to out the bottom into my lap). 3. It's not really a problem, but the whole thing seems very slightly sluggish. Is this just the non-native coding (which I understand you have to do) combined with the mobile processor, or is there something possibly to be done to make it more snappy?

Throwing out say one extreme result on each end in the cross imps wouldn't help with the 3 imps/game problem, but it would negate the 7ntxx-6 style of scores. For the 3 imp/game problem, you have to do something different. Some ideas: 1) Play a team match 2) Maybe BBO could implement "compare this table vs 4 GIB's" for people who've paid for GIB for that day/week? Can this already be done? This may be better, but would have its own annoyances too. 3) Maybe BBO could implement "compare this table vs par"? This would be interesting, but would again have its own annoyances such as when the other table bids and makes a slam requiring three finesses and a squeeze.

I would've taken double followed by a heart bid as simply a competitive hand with 5 good or 6 hearts, and 4 spades. What do others think is standard (or best)?

Do you also find it unacceptable that BBO indicates whether you're on lead?

Law 42B2 implies dummy can warn declarer if declarer seems about to lead from the wrong hand, in an attempt to prevent an irregularity. The question is how far does "preventing an irregularity" go? Can dummy answer declarer's question of which hand he's in under 42B2 (or is even this illegal, or is there some other law I've missed that does allow this)? If dummy can answer declarer's question under 42B2, it's only a small leap to allowing dummy to constantly indicate which hand declarer is in under 42B2. This wouldn't violate 43A1c if 42B2 is what's allowing it.

You've put just about all the invitational hands for responder into 2♣, so responder's hand is the most undefined after a 2♣ bid. Thus it makes sense for opener to keep the bidding low for him. This is similar to the logic in transfers over 1NT: responder's hand is the most undefined, so he needs two bids in a row. Other specific advantages here like stopping at the 2-level when invitational opposite minimum have been mentioned by Wyman. Compare the game forcing hands for responder: there's the nondescript 2♦ asking bid and then there are descriptive higher bids. It's fine for the 2♦ bid to ask for two reasons: 1) you don't mind going higher 2) you already have other bids for game forcing hands if responder wants to describe first. That said, if you really are never going to pass 2♦, you could of course make tweaks to improve it. You wouldn't want to give opener too much leeway, though, or you'd mess up the ability to stop at the 2-level. The simplest proof-of-concept of a tweak if we really don't care about a 2♦ contract over 1x-1♥;1z: have opener bid 2♥ if he has a minimum with 3 hearts, and 2♦ otherwise (after both it reverts to usual xyz rebids if responder bids anything further). This would give responder the ability to move over 2♥ if what he really needed was the heart support instead of strength plus heart support. Counterintuitively, you use the minimum here because the maximum with 3 hearts will be fine later on anyways. This might be a good tweak even if you do care about a 2♦ contract: when opener has a minimum with 3 hearts and responder was going to pass 2♦, you can just play the 4-3 heart fit.