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Suppose there's a Total Points tourney where the results of 4 boards are just added up and not compared to any other tables. The winner goes through, no carry over. So what percentage would you need for a

 

-NV game

-V game

-NV slam

-V slam

-Grand

 

to bid it, first board?

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Guest Jlall

Depends how many people in the field, whether or not the boards are duplicated, and how good you are relative to the field. Also depends on what % of the time you expect to be doubled, and how often you expect to go down several, and whether or not the options are stopping at the 1 level vs game, or the 2 level vs game, or the 3 level vs game.

 

Anyways this seems almost impossible to answer. Winner take all tournaments in bridge are very interesting though.

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Oh sorry, wasn't clear in the OP. You compete only against your opponents at your table. Exactly one pair will make it from you and your opps, the pair who gets a positive balance in the end.
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Guest Jlall
Oh sorry, wasn't clear in the OP. You compete only against your opponents at your table. Exactly one pair will make it from you and your opps, the pair who gets a positive balance in the end.

Oh, ok. Then it depends only on how likely you are to get doubled, how likely you are to go for multiple undertricks, and how likely you are to make whatever partscore you can be in before bidding game (for instance, bid more aggressively from 3M to 4M than 2M to 4M).

 

For some frame of reference, assuming always down 1 undoubled (which means you can always make whatever contract you were in before that) then here are the %ages:

 

NV game: 40.5 %

V game: 32.8 %

NV slam/V slam: 50 %

Grand: 67.5 %

 

You want to bid more aggressively than this if you are unlikely to get Xed and likely to either make a lot or a little depending on how a key suit breaks. For instance, 2N p ? and you have J sixth of a minor, and can't get out there, you should bid 3N because if you can run the suit you will make a lot of tricks, and if you can't 2N will go down anyways, and you are not going to get Xed on 2N p 3N.

 

You want to bid less aggressively if you are likely to get Xed when a suit breaks badly (for instance if you have an invitational auction), and can stop at a low level otherwise.

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Guest Jlall

Also, thinking about it more the format changes things a lot. For instance, you would not want to bid a 75 % grand (imo) even though it's highly +EV because your chance of winning the tournament having bid even a small slam is much higher than 75 %.

 

Similarly, you do not want to be in a 50 % slam, and very likely don't want to be in a 55 % slam, because you rate to win after putting a game on them. It seems like better math than mine is needed to determine this, but maybe a simulation of how likely you are to win after putting a NV game, Vul game, NV slam, or Vul slam is needed.

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Gwnn are you referring to the Total Point Bridge Club on BBO? That is exactly how it runs there. I find it very interesting but the format to make it very dependent on luck of the draw with the cards. If your opponents get a cold slam or cold game with overtricks in that 4 boards, it is very difficult to come back.
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Gwnn are you referring to the Total Point Bridge Club on BBO? That is exactly how it runs there. I find it very interesting but the format to make it very dependent on luck of the draw with the cards. If your opponents get a cold slam or cold game with overtricks in that 4 boards, it is very difficult to come back.

yep that's what I'm referring to.

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Guest Jlall
NV game: 40.5 %

V game: 32.8 %

NV slam/V slam: 50 %

Grand: 67.5 %

How did you arrive at these figures?

I just did it on the total points expectancy. I used NT/minors and ignored majors since it's twice the work with almost no difference (maybe no difference, I didn't try it). Also I just assumed vul for grands, since I am lazy and it makes almost no difference. I checked my work with this method, for instance for a vul game:

 

(600*.328)+(-100*.672)=129.6

(150*.328)+(120*.672)=129.8

 

Those numbers should be the same, but I rounded so that accounts for that (close enough). This means that if you are bidding 32.8 % games you are breaking even against not bidding 32.8 % games.

 

I just meant these numbers to be a base frame of reference, hopefully I made it clear that proper strategy given the strange tournament conditions would change these numbers. These numbers are relevant simply if you're playing any number of total points hands and trying to maximize your score, for instance if you were playing for money. I do think that the game numbers at least are probably very close to what they should be on board 1 of this tournament, and knowing these numbers is a reasonable frame of reference.

 

Also, I don't know how to express my math very well since I have no education so if this offends any math people sorry :) I think for instance I should have put ~ or something next to my percentages since I rounded. I am confident in my numbers though.

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I just did it on the total points expectancy.

The total points expectancy is not what you want here. Those would be the answer if you were playing a very long match. In a 4-board match it is a bit different, but it is very difficult to see in what way.

 

If it were a 1-board match then it would be easy: don't bid game because any plus is enough to win. This would still be the case if the score was even after 3 boards in the 4-board match.

 

The first board of a 2-board match would still be somewhat doable. You can compute the chance that you win if you score +140 vs -50 and the chance that you win if you score +170 vs +620. This would allow you to compute the probability you need to bid game. Same for slam. It is easy to see that the probability to bid a slam on the first board of a 2-board match would have to be very very high, since game+2 would already give you a very good chance to win the match (depending on the vulnerability, both of this board and the next).

 

It gets incredibly complicated for a 4-board match. I would guess that you should be a bit less aggressive than the total points expectancy suggests. The longer the match, the more aggressive you should be.

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Guest Jlall
I just did it on the total points expectancy.

The total points expectancy is not what you want here. Those would be the answer if you were playing a very long match. In a 4-board match it is a bit different, but it is very difficult to see in what way.

???????? DOES ANYONE READ WHAT I WROTE. I honestly do not think I could have been more clear. Let's see:

 

I just meant these numbers to be a base frame of reference, hopefully I made it clear that proper strategy given the strange tournament conditions would change these numbers. These numbers are relevant simply if you're playing any number of total points hands and trying to maximize your score, for instance if you were playing for money.

 

It gets incredibly complicated for a 4-board match. I would guess that you should be a bit less aggressive than the total points expectancy suggests.

 

O rly?!

 

For instance, you would not want to bid a 75 % grand (imo) even though it's highly +EV because your chance of winning the tournament having bid even a small slam is much higher than 75 %.

 

/RANT.

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