Rotating hands to balance strenght between NS-EW

[Jlall]

LOL

[peachy]

I agree with Fluffy, I suggested something similar in a domestic discussion some time ago. My argument was that competitions would me more fair if all players would have about the same number of points to play around with. Especially in short tournaments the average number of points for a certain pair can vary a lot, and a pair with a low average on the hcp will obviously have less impact on its results. My interpretation of limiting the average is that is a sort of quality control of the set of the deal, one just discard the obviously unfair sets, with the aim of getting fairer results and more pleasant experiences at the bridge table.

 

The main counterargument in the domestic discussion was that hard contriants on the average hcp could enable people to estimate partners hand strength in the later deals. I countersuggested that the constraints should be random and thus unknown, and possibly even soft (that is just reducing the likelihood for averages lying outside the constraints). And I also tried to show that keeping track of ones average would be very rarely of any use, especially if one intruduced some randomness in the constraints as well.

 

PS. During the domestic discussion I estimated the standard deviation for hcp for pair in a 26 deal competition, it was about 0.91. So in 95% of the cases the average should stay between 18.2 and 21.8, in a 26 deal tournament. Two sigmas was my first suggestion as constraints, but I think that could be slightly too narrow constraints. Due to that people could then with a reasonable frequency use the constraints for some information about partners strength in the last deals. With some information I mean that maybe 1/20 of the sets one can on the last five deals know that our sides expected average hcp is about 19 and not 20. It was much more unlikely that one could judge on the last deal that the other side has 30+ points, but it was possible. So introducing constraints is somewhat problematic, but I think it could be done, using random and unknown limits. And it would for sure increase fairness, on average at least...

Disagree with any attempt to manipulate the hands. Besides, it is against the rules of the game wherethe rules say the hands are to be random. But as said in another response here, cooked deals are fine in a private game were no masterpoints are awarded.

[Fluffy]

sorry to be #@%& peachy, but there is a outside world from the US, masterpoints only exist in the US.

 

I dunno the laws, and have no clue if the laws you are referring to are ACBL ones or WBF ones. I still don't care, on our local clubs we do a ton of things against the rules and we don't complain.

 

People seem to think that getting advantage of the prior strenght you've got is fairly easy, and I think it is almost impossible, specially if you don't play the full set of hands.

 

A risk I am willing to pay on an evening in the local to avoid people getting upset having no bid on most hands. If 90% of the time it won't change anything, but the 10% extra it makes it more fair and enjoyable to everyone, it looks like a good thing to me.

[bluecalm]

LOL

 

QFT. Please stop this topic. Anything bu truly random hands is ridiculous.

People are building their methods and bridge judgment based on the assumption that deals are random. If you change it it will pay off to have skewed judgement in direction you skew the deals.

People who are like : "well i got my share of 3NT's now, gotta be careful" will benefit while sane players who think : "it doesnt matter that I wont 5 games so far, gotta play normally" will lose.

[jdonn]

sorry to be #@%& peachy, but there is a outside world from the US, masterpoints only exist in the US.

Um, so you will be returning your 130 masterpoints to the World Bridge Federation then? :P

Fluffy! B)

[peachy]

sorry to be #@%& peachy, but there is a outside world from the US, masterpoints only exist in the US.

 

I dunno the laws, and have no clue if the laws you are referring to are ACBL ones or WBF ones. I still don't care, on our local clubs we do a ton of things against the rules and we don't complain.

 

People seem to think that getting advantage of the prior strenght you've got is fairly easy, and I think it is almost impossible, specially if you don't play the full set of hands.

 

A risk I am willing to pay on an evening in the local to avoid people getting upset having no bid on most hands. If 90% of the time it won't change anything, but the 10% extra it makes it more fair and enjoyable to everyone, it looks like a good thing to me.

Masterpoints exist in most if not all national organizations and also the WBF. I said nothing about ACBL and did not intend my comments that way.

 

What is this? http://www.aebridge.com/aebdynamic/dyncont...asp?submenu=314

 

Respect for the game requires that the rules of the game are followed; unless it is a private function for whatever purpose, in which case manipulating the deals is fine, but that is a no-no in real bridge. The Laws are the same everywhere (with one or too optional rules to choose among them). The are not ACBL or any country-specific.

[xcurt]

It happens. My personal record for atrocious holding over 24 boards is about 7.2 HCP. If you don't like it don't play pairs.

 

Howie Weinstein once told me "you're dealt one in four pair games." That's probably about right.

[Jlall]

It happens. My personal record for atrocious holding over 24 boards is about 7.2 HCP. If you don't like it don't play pairs.

 

Howie Weinstein once told me "you're dealt one in four pair games." That's probably about right.

Hmm... seems like he must have been talking about national pair games, or maybe about regionals when pairs were the premier event.

[Jboling]

Let me give you a counterexample, let us say all the deals in a tournament are distributed 40 points to N-S and 0 points to E-W. It is extremely unlikely, but it is possible. Would it be a fair and nice tournament, especially for the pairs that would sit E-W all the time? No, and the results would probably be close to 50% to everybody, and if a director would note this in advance he would redeal the hands without further thought. I asked directors about this, and yes they do look through the deals before the tournaments, and occasionally redeal the deals. So we actually have some kind of quality control of the deals already. And it could be automated, and it could be done so that nobody would notice the difference, except that the freak sets of deals would disappear, but nobody would miss those. For instance such that 99% of the deals have expected hcp for any pair is 20.0, and with the limits 0 and 40. And in the 1% of the deals where we have bias, one could do it such that in most cases this information would be uncertain to the players.

 

Yet another way of rephrasing it, the set of deals used in a tournament could be viewed as a test of bridge skill. The test should aim at testing all the players skill, and the more high cards you have the more your skill will be put to a test. Thus if a player gets significantly less points in a tournament, the players skill will have a smaller impact on his/her result. Bridge players are here the customers that buy these bridge skill tests called tournamanents, and they would deserve tests that are as fair as possible.

 

And yet another argument (I'll stop after this one), I am quite convinced that hand dealt deals are much more biased (towards balanced distributions) than deals that would go through a well designed hcp-limit test. And the bias from hand dealing concerns more or less every deal, but still we agree to play hand dealt deals.

[jdonn]

I asked directors about this, and yes they do look through the deals before the tournaments, and occasionally redeal the deals.

What? Where do you live? That's awful if it's true, I've never heard of such a thing happening.

[Fluffy]

I can believe anything from directors lol.

[hanp]

Let me give you a counterexample, let us say all the deals in a tournament are distributed 40 points to N-S and 0 points to E-W.

Roughly how likely do you think it is that this happens in the lifetime of planet earth, say?

[mich-b]

I understand Fluffy's point and his frustration, but I think his "solution" is very poor.

The better "solution" is simply for bridge tournaments to consist of more hands.

I think that in order to be considered "at least somewhat serious" a tournament needs to include around 70-80 hands for MP and more for IMPs.

 

Anything less than that , including the very popular around here lately "one session of 30 boards" tournaments , may be fun, and give some estimate of performance, but IMO the results should not be taken too seriously.

[Jboling]

I asked directors about this, and yes they do look through the deals before the tournaments, and occasionally redeal the deals.

What? Where do you live? That's awful if it's true, I've never heard of such a thing happening.

I think it had more to do with that people complain about computer generated hands that are too freakish (becouse they are used with balanced hand dealt ones), and earlier days when there actually were problems with computer generated deals. So my statement might not be accurate for todays situation. But still I'm not revealing where I'm from, I can tell that it's outside US, so Josh doesn't have to start mistrusting his TDs :). But do you really think that any TD with a instict for self-preservation would let through a set of deals with the 40-0 hcp-distribution on all deals? Of course not, the TD would (at least) be accused of manipulation of the deals, if he/she wouldn't manipulate the deals by redealing them! Of course the likelihood for such a set of deals is extremely small, I haven't even seen a single deal with all the points on one side.

[hrothgar]

But  still I'm not revealing where I'm from, I can tell that it's outside US, so Josh doesn't have to start mistrusting his TDs  :).

Could it be... Finland?

 

(If I met someone named "Jari", that would be my first guess...)

[hrothgar]

The simpliest way to understand why this is a terrible, terrible idea is to think about counting decks at Blackjack... Any decent Blackjack player is able to keep a running count of the deck(s) and then vary their betting style dramatically based on the 10's density.

 

If you start building "state" into bridge sessions bridge players are going to start adapting their bidding, card play, what have you in just the same way. I can see it now...

 

"Wow, we had a bunch of games in the first 18 boards... I should start psyching light crazy, loosening up my preempts, what have you"

 

"East had really crappy hands during the first 20 boards, guess I know which way to take that two way finesse."

 

Simply put:

 

1. If you build enough "state" into the system such that people can notice, they're going to start adapting their behaviour

 

2. If you don't build enough state into the system for people to notice, what's the point?

[hanp]

But  still I'm not revealing where I'm from, I can tell that it's outside US, so Josh doesn't have to start mistrusting his TDs  :).

Could it be... Finland?

 

(If I met someone named "Jari", that would be my first guess...)

Of course it is Finland, Josh should be ashamed of himself.

[RMB1]

What? Where do you live? That's awful if it's true, I've never heard of such a thing happening.

I know of one director in England who runs holiday bridge who will produce a new hand set if he thinks the customers will not like the first one. One reason would be a disparity of HCP N/S v. E/W.

 

Robin

[helene_t]

I wouldn't object to that practice at holiday bridge, as long as they don't award masterpoints.

[Fluffy]

The simpliest way to understand why this is a terrible, terrible idea is to think about counting decks at Blackjack... Any decent Blackjack player is able to keep a running count of the deck(s) and then vary their betting style dramatically based on the 10's density.

my father was black jack profeesional for many years, and I uunderstand a lot about counting it, and I know how little impact it makes, thats why I suggested it, I know the difference is very slim if you do it appropiatelly.

 

Maybe its because I am not good enough at that, but I cannot think of a way to take advantage of the fact that I know partner will have 12 HCP average on this deal instead of 10.

[jdonn]

The simpliest way to understand why this is a terrible, terrible idea is to think about counting decks at Blackjack...  Any decent Blackjack player is able to keep a running count of the deck(s) and then vary their betting style dramatically based on the 10's density.

my father was black jack profeesional for many years, and I uunderstand a lot about counting it, and I know how little impact it makes, thats why I suggested it, I know the difference is very slim if you do it appropiatelly.

The difference is slim in casinos because of betting limits. Like if you are betting $10 a hand then all of a sudden bet $50,000 you will get kicked out and you don't want to make yourself suspicious so you only bet $15 or $20 when the count is in your favor. However the edge it gives you in theory (if not for betting limits) is HUGE!

[kayin801]

I asked directors about this, and yes they do look through the deals before the tournaments, and occasionally redeal the deals.

What? Where do you live? That's awful if it's true, I've never heard of such a thing happening.

 

You know how on some (all?) of the automatic deal softwares they have printouts that not only have the hands and DD contracts but also the point distributions, suit distributions, etc. While I doubt you'd wanna specifically rotate some hands, why not throw out the entire set after seeing X pts in one direction in point count and deal a new one (subtly and don't tell anyone)? I think that kind of control isn't quite so bad... It's more work for directors, but it's not really tampering anymore. Not to mention this software will sometimes deal more hands than will be played, which are then included in the total statistics. Of course, going exactly 20 on average each way is ridiculous since anyone with a pencil and paper can predict the HCP count for the last hand ;P but maybe throw out 24+ in one direction or something (or there could be built in software control for this).

 

Btw, where are the sim people who can tell us the chances of having one side average X HCP over 30 or so randomly dealt boards

[Fluffy]

in spain they cannot kick you for counting <_<, that's something I never understood from america.

 

My father played in the low limit tables, because the difference between the minimum and the maximum was greater there than on the other tables.

[hrothgar]

The simpliest way to understand why this is a terrible, terrible idea is to think about counting decks at Blackjack...  Any decent Blackjack player is able to keep a running count of the deck(s) and then vary their betting style dramatically based on the 10's density.

my father was black jack profeesional for many years, and I uunderstand a lot about counting it, and I know how little impact it makes, thats why I suggested it, I know the difference is very slim if you do it appropiatelly.

 

Maybe its because I am not good enough at that, but I cannot think of a way to take advantage of the fact that I know partner will have 12 HCP average on this deal instead of 10.

This must be an English as a second language issue, because what you are saying is absolute rubbish...

 

The only way that you could be a Blackjack professional is if you have an edge on the house and the only way to get an edge on the house is to count out the deck. I readily admit that other skills like pot management are also very important. However, counting is the foundation on which this house is built.

 

It's been a while since I played any serious Blackjack. However, as I recall, a reasonable counting scheme could shift the expected value from about -1% to about +.7% and this makes ALL the difference.

 

All those enormous casinos in Vegas were BUILT on the profits from these types of miniscule spreads. Those same casinos invest an awful lot of time and money making sure that players aren't counting and that the spreads don't ever shift in the wrong direction.

[Fluffy]

thanks richard, those are the percentages I had in mind mroe or less.

 

now, try to apply them to bridge, and tell me what difference it makes to know aprtner has average 8 HCP after he passes in first sit, or when he opens the bidding.