The 5 level belongs to who?

[mike777]

I guess I was the only person who thought this was an interesting problem.

 

lets have a vote:

a. How many tricks do we expect them to take?  9 tricks or less? 10 tricks? 11 tricks? 12 tricks? (Give probabilities)

b. What distribution would you give on how many tricks we can take?

A sucker bet... on any given hand, anything could make from 5♥ for them to 5♠ to you, or nothing can make. Just depends upon where the cards are. From your Response, I would guess that one side makes 11 tricks and the other 10 so the "correct" bid is 5♠ no matter which side wins 11. So what? Should that be the case, it makes 5♠ "the winning bid" but that outcome doesn't make double or 5♠ the "correct bid". And even in that case, if you bid 5♠ you might get it wrong, maybe it was far better to double, (neither side can amke 11 tricks), but if you doulbe, you miss your 5♠ when you make or you play 5♥X when they make.

 

Without your follow up question, if I had to bet, I would think this is a 19 trick hand. or maybe a 20 trick hand. One thing seems clear, you will not run into a horrible spade split or they would have let you play 4♠. So partner likely has five, or if only four, they are spliting 3-2, and with five, no worse than 3-1.

 

Without your follow up, my expectation would be for them to win 10 tricks. I expect we can win 10 tricks. I could be off by one trick for either side (we win 11, they win 10, or vise versa, or we win 9 they win 10 or vice versa).

 

Bidding 5♠ wins if either side can make 11 tricks, loses if neither side can make 11 tricks, loses if it lets them bid 6♥ that makes, loses big if we can make only 8 tricks. Remember, you forced your partner to bid spades, how would you feel if he tabled four small spades to the Jack? (well you tabled your hand in spades and saw that).

I don't think the cards are randomly distributed here. I think you have a lot of information about all 3 players hands...

 

There has already been one VERY suprising turn of events here. You xed 4S, preying to god that if partner sits, that they are actually going down. Partner, thankfully bid 4S. And then passed 5H. I would have bet good money that partner was going to x 5H. This tells you a lot of information.

 

I believe on this auction they are making 5H over 80% of the time and probably over 90% of the time. The main risk of bidding again, is not a phanton sac going for a number. It is pushing them to a making 6H.

 

My matrix would have been:

Making 6: 15%

Making 5: 75%

Making 4: 10%

Making 3 or less, close to 0

 

This is based on partner not xing 5H when I have shown a LOT more defense than I actually have.

 

As to what we are making. I find it hard to beleive that partner would not have xed even with a 42(43) 7 count. I expect most of the time partner has a 5'th spade, and usually some shape. So the question is: are we close to making? If I think they are [probably] making and we are close to making its clearing a good save at imps, unless it pushed them to 6H which is also making.

 

Anyway, those were my thoughts when I gambled a 5S "save". Which part of the argument do you guys disagree with?

 

As to the events matrix:

5S wins BIG if either side (or both) can make 5.

It loses BIG if it pushes them to a making 6

It loses big if it goes down 2 xed when they weren't making

It loses just a little if both sides were down 1.

Note that the consequences assocaited with each of these combinations are different and I don't think the relative probability of each of these are anywhere close to equal....

Ok you bid 5s...what hands did you play partner for with this bid?

I would have guessed the odds against 5s being the winning bid at a bit under 3:1.

Lots of hands. You make up a hand with Hxxxx of spades, nothing in hearts and a 6-7 count and I felt it to be a good bet at imps. But this was an interesting problem in my mind because 5S is clearly a bad bid at mps, since you have already pushed them 1 level higher than some of the field...

Axxxx..xx...Kxxx..xx is one of the possible hands I talked about :) 7 whcp and one less club. This hand is in the set of possible hands I have guessed for partner.

With one less club I add one more trick and guess we can make 10 tricks in spades.