scary

[aguahombre]

2♥ or Pass, depending on the day.

I agree. I would pass on any day ending in a "y," and bid 2♥ on all of the other days.

like April Fools or Christmas.

[mikeh]

I earlier posted a criticism of any action but pass, and I remain of the view that pass is (clearly) the best call.

 

However, if I were forced to bid, I would double....

 

Double can succeed in virtually all circumstances where 2♥ works except for those hands on which we have a playable 5-3 heart fit....and with this hand, a lot of 5-3 fits will not play well. In the meantime, 2♥ loses almost all of the diamond fits we may have as well as reducing the chances to play in clubs when that is best. I concede that 2♥ also improves the chances of reaching notrump when that is right, since advancer will be more optimistic about our having a spade card after 2♥ than after a double.

 

But in the meantime, 2♥ risks anything from a moderate loss to catastrophe.

 

We are red/white. If partner can't raise 2♥... and it gets passed out.... I suspect most of us, before dummy hits, would predict that we are going down...on such a sequence, LHO has short spades and rho some heart length...unless we are lucky, we have to play everything from our hand and LHO will shortly be leading high spades through us while LHO still has a trump or two.

 

What makes this even worse is that we probably won't like the hand much if partner raises....unless he has 4 card support, in which case double would usually have found the fit anyway.

 

And of course a bad day could see us going 800 or 1100 at the 2-level when we had a much safer minor suit contract...either undoubleable or only 200-500 against their game.

 

Double risks a 4-2 club fit, which could be catastrophic but that is only one, low frequency, possibility.

[aguahombre]

I would think that a 4-2 club contract is more likely than "low frequency". And I don't get to ELC into a four-card diamond suit. Hence, "scary" is correct for all non-pass actions.

 

As Josh said, though, this hand might play well in a 4-2 club fit. I don't have as much practice playing that kind of fit, and would probably screw it up. So, maybe the answer is to double if it is me doubling --but ask partner not to if she has this hand.

[jdonn]

Double risks a 4-2 club fit, which could be catastrophic but that is only one, low frequency, possibility.

You said it yourself. So then why is pass "clearly" the best call?

[ArtK78]

2♥ or Pass, depending on the day.

I agree. I would pass on any day ending in a "y," and bid 2♥ on all of the other days.

like April Fools or Christmas.

April Fools DAY and Christmas DAY.

 

:)

[mikeh]

I just finished a 30 deal simulation....and I don't do double dummy simulations...which would be particularly misleading in this kind of scenario since it would entail not only dd play but also dd bidding. As it is, my simulation is to some degree subjective since I have to assess how I think the bidding and play would likely go...and I am sure that some would disagree with my views on most hands.

 

Subject to that, my simulation, leaning over backwards to avoid my pre-judgment that pass was best, showed that on 30 hands:

 

Pass worked out best on 12.

Either pass or double would lead to a good outcome, but 2♥ would not on 3

Either double or 2♥ would lead to a good outcome but pass would not on 4

double was the only winning call on 1

2♥ was the only winning call on 2

Any action would lead to the same outcome on 8

 

The latter category included hands on which partner had a good hand and LHO passed 1♠ or hands on which E-W bid successfully to a high spade contract regardless of what we did....altho on one that outcome required that partner with a 2=5=2=4 hand with KQJxx in hearts not take the phantom red/white save.

 

To the extent that this is reasonably accurate, this suggests that pass is indeed the safest choice...being the only winning call 12/30 times and being a winning call on 15/22....omitting the 8 on which any action breaks even. In addition, there is the problem that when action is better, we sometimes need to guess the right action.

 

I did not try to analyze the size of losses arising from action, but it was clear that on several hands 2♥ led to large losses....altho in fairness, on one of the poor hands for 2♥, we avoided double because hearts were 4=3 and opener wouldn't, in my view, have dreamt of reopening with a 14 count with KJ9 in hearts.

 

FWIW, my constraints were dealer 12-21 hcp, 5-7 spades, and no side suit longer than spades. I could have said 10 or 11 as the low end but then expected that this would result in my having to choose which 10 or 11 counts were opening bids....I suspect that few would pass very many 12 counts with 5 spades...and my simulation didn't generate anything that resembled even an aggressive 2♣ opener.

 

BTW, in response to Josh's last comment....the reason that I felt and now feel even more strongly that pass is best is because while playing a 4-2 club fit will be rare and will even less frequently be catastrophic...not all bad outcomes are because we go for a number. Going -200 against air, or even against 110 or 140 is not a catastrophe, but making a habit of it will lead to the loser's bracket with consistency. My simulation suggests that this issue is as much a problem as the -800 or 1100 disasters.

[jdonn]

That seems like a very good method for you to convince yourself what is the best action, and a very bad method for you to convince anyone else what is the best action. Now my expected criticisms (even in the context of how unscientific the method is):

 

Sample size is too small.

 

Of course pass works better than it really would when your opponents never open with less than 12! I'm not sure why you are willing to analyze an entire made up hand in detail regarding how the bidding and play will go, but unwilling to decide whether someone is likely to open the bidding.

 

Does "winning call" mean it led to the best score on the hand? So if we run two hands and they go like this:

Pass = +150, Double = +100, 2♥ = -500

Pass = -500, Double = +100, 2♥ = +150

Then since pass was the 'winning call' once and double never was, pass is the winner? I don't think so, I just lost 2 imps to you then gained 12 imps! My point being that your yardstick for drawing conclusions is fatally flawed.

 

I think you should reconsider whether your study should even convince you of what is the best action...

[whereagles]

Sample size is too small.

Why?

 

n = 30 is the point where the student t distribution starts to get very close to a standardized normal, i.e. the point where small sample size effects start to dissipate.

[rogerclee]

Sample size is too small.

Why?

 

n = 30 is the point where the student t distribution starts to get very close to a standardized normal, i.e. the point where small sample size effects start to dissipate.

30 is also the atomic number of Zinc.

[mikeh]

1. I can assure you that in looking at the hands, I did not ignore the relative size of gaim/loss issue.... in fact, I find it strange that you would assume that I did. No post is going to contain a full recitation of all of the details. The hands on which pass lost (and there were 7 out of the 30) did not all result in game swings....5 of them were part-score pickups...1 was pushing the opps too high (I could have assumed that the opps would defend at the 3-level with 9 spades and go plus, making pass a winner, but it looked to me that the opps would take the push much of the time, and I wanted to avoid allowing my bias in favour of pass to persuade me to chalk this one up on my side of the issue) and only one of the hands resulted in a game pickup. This should, I think, make sense since we have a crap hand and game will usually require that partner have values and that LHO lacks them....which means, unless he bounces in spades, we are likely to get into the auction after a pass. And, to offset this one game swing, there were several hands on which a telephone number was either a certainty, against most opps, or at least a significant risk. In the meantime, many of the losses from action were 5-7 imps: not insignificant.

 

2. of course the sample size is small, and I conceded that. I gave the constraints so that anyone concerned with this issue could run their own simulation and render the results somewhat more meaningful. I wasn't running a study intended for review in a scientific journal :)

 

3. As for convincing myself....lol.... I have posted enough admissions that the opinions of others have persuaded me that my views were wrong that I would have hoped that you would recognize that I don't always twist facts to meet my biases. As it is, since I actually did some work...and you didn't....it seems to me that it is you who is letting your notions influence your perception of the results. I did not say and do not say that this simulation is conclusive...nor that it is objective....I even specified the reasons why these results should be viewed with caution! What part of that didn't you understand?

 

4. As for the 11 point idea....I told you why I didn't do it...it is the same reason I didn't analyze all 100 hands I generated....it was too time consuming relative to the importance of the issue to me. But I think you;d agree that for a substantial part of the bridge playing population, many 11 counts don't get opened in 1st chair..while many do. In a 30 deal simulation encompassing a 11 point hcp range for the opening bid, the reality is that one might expect maybe 1 or 2 additional hands where the consensus, even on this forum whuch is generally aggressive in terms of opening requirements, is that the hand is an opener. Assume that there were 2 such...assume that on both of them, action was demonstrably better than pass....the overall inferences to be drawn from the simulation would still be that pass was the best action.

[Vilgan]

Passing all 11 counts seems pretty strange. Seems safer to open them all imo for the simulation. Also, imps that change hands also seems to have relevance. Obviously gaining 2 imps for -50 vs -110 is not as important as -500 vs -140.

 

I think its hard to simulate pass vs double as there will be a lot of differences in how partnerships will work together after the X. I would personally suspect that pass is slightly superior but wouldn't be surprised to be wrong. I do think that just about any simulation will show 2♥ to be a crazy bid against decent opponents though. Also a bunch of partnership implications if you CAN overcall 2♥ on that hand that will make other auctions/defense/bidding sequences harder imo.

 

edit > oops, posted after you did. Sounds like imp implications were looked at :)

[jdonn]

1. I can assure you that in looking at the hands, I did not ignore the relative size of gaim/loss issue.... in fact, I find it strange that you would assume that I did.

I didn't assume anything. You talked about winning actions and losing actions, not how many imps were changing hands. What does that look like it means to you?

 

3. As for convincing myself....lol.... I have posted enough admissions that the opinions of others have persuaded me that my views were wrong that I would have hoped that you would recognize that I don't always twist facts to meet my biases.

I didn't mean that as a knock on you. It's a very general observation. If you generate hands using very broad specifications, analyze them in detail yourself, and don't show them to anyone else, then of course that will be very convincing to you. After all you just spent a long time examining them. But it will not be very convincing to anyone else, since it was totally unscientific and subjective and no one else even saw the hands.

[aguahombre]

I think Vilgan has coined a new word..."IMPlications".

[Jlall]

crack.

 

lol at simulating this

[MarkDean]

For me, this is an appropriate thread title. I find anything other than pass scary.

[Winstonm]

Sometimes one feels compelled to open a piece of crap in first seat because it has such and such points and everyone else will be opening it - so we dutifully do, too, and it almost always goes south from there. Next time, we say to ourselves, we'll listen to our inner voices and pass - but, of course, we never do. We are human, not Vulcan.

 

Such is not the case with this particular piece of crap. Because RHO opened, we do not have to open our mouths and thus do not feel required to announce to the world that once again we have been dealt a worthless piece of crap. (The big advantage of opening a piece of crap at the level of one - that we might get to play it at the 1-level - is gone. This baby is going to be at least at the 2-level if not higher.)

 

And therein lies the problem. It is not so much the trouble we may get into at the 2-level, but the trouble we may get into at the 3 or 4 level when partner mistakenly assumes for once in our miserable lives we might actually have a hand worthy of bidding and jacks up the ante accordingly with a penalty double or bid of his own.

 

But, of course, we never have that hand, partner....Live long and prosper....

[peaceman]

For handling this hand type I recommend the West Texas Overcall.

 

El Paso. Get it? (Runs and hides before the rotten vegetables start flying.)

u wld get more than vegetables fired at u for this pun in west texas : )

[peaceman]

I would think that a 4-2 club contract is more likely than "low frequency". And I don't get to ELC into a four-card diamond suit. Hence, "scary" is correct for all non-pass actions.

 

As Josh said, though, this hand might play well in a 4-2 club fit. I don't have as much practice playing that kind of fit, and would probably screw it up. So, maybe the answer is to double if it is me doubling --but ask partner not to if she has this hand.

u just reminded me of a vivid experience when i had to play 4 sp on a 4-2 fit, making it for a flat board because the rest of the field is in the cold 4 hrts. Wish i had written that one down : )

[jdonn]

Sometimes one feels compelled to open a piece of crap in first seat because it has such and such points and everyone else will be opening it - so we dutifully do, too, and it almost always goes south from there.

lol

oh wait, you were serious? .....

 

And therein lies the problem.  It is not so much the trouble we may get into at the 2-level, but the trouble we may get into at the 3 or 4 level when partner mistakenly assumes for once in our miserable lives we might actually have a hand worthy of bidding and jacks up the ante accordingly with a penalty double or bid of his own.

What in the world is wrong with partner making a penalty double of anything and we have this hand? That's like one of the best things that can happen. We have two aces and more stuff too!

[hanp]

crack.

 

lol at simulating this

Why is simulating this a bad idea? Mikeh's method does not seem unreasonable to me: deal a number of hands consistent with the auction and try to decide what might happen after a double or a pass.

 

I do think that the 12+ HCP requirement is unrealistic in today's world and creates a bias for pass. I tried to redo the simulation to see what I would get, but gave LHO only 10+ points. Out of 40 hands, I had to throw out 10 because they did not look like opening hands to me, so I also ended up with exactly 30 hands. Seven of these were 11-counts and there was one 10-count.

 

Hands where double will almost certainly do worse than pass: 1

 

Hands where double will almost certainly do better than pass: 0

 

Hands where double has the potential of working badly: 2

 

Hands where double has the potential of working well: 13

 

Others (irrelevant or too hard to say): 14

 

Amazing, while Mike found that pass works out best on 12 hands, I found it works best on 1 hand. On not a single hand was I able to say that double would do better than pass, partscore battles might still be won and games might still be found after a pass. On many deals however, I judged that double had a positive potential. On 1 deal you would definitely go for a number against air.

[Vilgan]

Also some partnership things here. If you double, and partner DOES land in a 4-2 fit and it goes badly.. will that have any long term negative effect? 2 top players probably not, but many people will not be in that category and for them the answer to this question is probably relevant.

[hanp]

I still find it very surprising that my results were so different from Mike's. I might do a new set later and post all the hands.

[helene_t]

Sample size is too small.

Why?

 

n = 30 is the point where the student t distribution starts to get very close to a standardized normal, i.e. the point where small sample size effects start to dissipate.

30 is also the atomic number of Zinc.

He-he very appropriate analogy. Also, if a sample size of 30 is always enough, why bother letting everyone vote in general elections. Just pick 30 citizens at random.

 

I agree with Josh's criticism of Mikeh's method but I also can't find of a better way of easily addressing the issue. If GIB or some similar software could be manipulated to chose either pass or dbl with this hand it would be better (and could also give a larger sample size). Using BridgeBrowser is also an option but then we have the problem of defining which hands are sufficiently similar to include, as the BB database probably won't include this exact hand.

 

But nice that Han did the same analysis.

[ArtK78]

Sample size is too small.

Why?

 

n = 30 is the point where the student t distribution starts to get very close to a standardized normal, i.e. the point where small sample size effects start to dissipate.

30 is also the atomic number of Zinc.

He-he very appropriate analogy. Also, if a sample size of 30 is always enough, why bother letting everyone vote in general elections. Just pick 30 citizens at random.

I am sure that Helene was not serious, but there is a big difference between sampling and actual results.

 

Why bother letting everyone vote in a general election when we can just sample 30 voters at random and arrive at the same result? For the obvious reasons (1) everyone is entitled to vote; (2) sampling provides results that are valid up to a certain level of assurance. Given a proper sample size (and 30 may very well be sufficient if the pool from which the sample is drawn is sufficiently random) you can obtain a result that is likely to be correct 95% of the time. But an election is not a 95% of the time type of thing. Elections are a 100% of the time type of thing. Anyone who has played enough bridge or poker or backgammon or any other game which involves probabilities can tell you that their 95% chances fail more than 20% of the time (they do - just ask them). So, every vote must be counted. Just ask Al Franken.

[Old York]

r/w imps

 

Ax AT432 QTxx Qx

 

(1S) ?

There are many threads like this, but what do they accomplish?

 

We are presented with a "borderline" hand and asked to decide what to do

 

Some players will pass, "we are Vul, the hand has weaknesses"

Some players prefer to show the 5cM, even if it is AT432

Some prefer to double, even tho one suit is Qx

Some will run simulations etc

 

We rarely, if ever, get to see the complete hand

 

My personal view is that pass might be safer than any bid, but that is my "style" and I do not expect others to be influenced by that. So what are we left with?

 

We might as well open a new Poll asking:-

"Do you always bid in borderline situations? Y/N"

I predict that the answers will be meaningless

 

Tony