Hand Evaluation

[f0rdy]

[hv=pc=n&s=sakqj653hk6daj76c&w=s92hqt83dckqt9753&n=st84h9754dkt854c8&e=s7haj2dq932caj642&d=e&v=n&b=2&a=1cd3cp3s4s5cppp]399|300[/hv]

EBU, County A teams match, so teams of eight scored the illogical way (summing 4 scores and IMPing)

 

 

There was no alert of 3C; there may have been an alert of 3S. At South's (my) second turn to call, I asked about the 3C bid and was told "We keep it up to strength over the double, so 13-15". I had seen "Ranges include points for distribution" on their card, so assumed the discrepancy between my hand and the announced bidding meant W had a shapely 10 count, E a minimum opening, and my partner a bust. 3S was described as a stop ask. (5C made 11 tricks)

 

When we asked at the completion of the 8 board stanza about the agreement, EW were slightly unclear but seemed to claim that West's hand fitted within their agreement (ie that this wasn't a misbid). One statement included the lines "We count 3 points for a void, 1 point for a singleton,..." but it remained unclear how they were getting to 13-15 from that hand.

 

Several questions:

1. Has there been a failure to alert? If their agreement had genuinely been 13-15 HCP with support, is that sufficiently unexpected strength to require an alert?
    
   
2. If called upon to rule on the hand: do you feel there has been misinformation? And if so, do you feel NS have been damaged? At the time it was decided that the description of the bid was odd but sufficient, and that S should have worked out what was going on and/or had a clear 5S bid at his final call, so the table result was left to stand.
    
   
3. As a general point, even if it's disclosed that stated HCP ranges will 'include distribution', should they still average out to the stated range? I assumed that the convention card meant they would upgrade shapely or well-fitting hands, and downgrade ill-fitting hands, so that a 'reasonable' hand for the bidding would have the announced HCP; should this be a reasonable assumption to be able to make?
   

[campboy]

1. Yes, if their agreement were actually that it shows 13-15 HCP (and is presumably therefore forcing) it is alertable (OB5G2c5).

 

2. Certainly there has been MI if they agree that this hand should be bid this way, since it is 3 points short in their claimed method of valuation.

 

3. I would take points "including distribution", especially when raising, to be HCP plus (non-negative) bonuses for distribution. So I would expect the range to correspond to the HCP required for the worst shape, not the average shape.

[HighLow21]

I think West (or his business partner East) might have a camel or two to sell to you.

[c_corgi]

It sounds like inadequate disclosure, but I suspect the crux of the problem might be that West had a hand he did not know what to do with, decided to treat it as a GF raise and then tried to justify it afterwards.

 

I don't think that there is damage because North (not South as suggested in OP) has a clear 5S bid irrespective of the explanation.

[barmar]

I'm kind of with c_corgi on this. Freaks generally don't fit anywhere in most pairs' agreements.

 

I think West was just being extremely optimistic -- I'd probably just jump straight to 5♣. But if they play weak NT, partner's 1♣ opening could be a strong NT, and the right cards make a slam (e.g. AKx Axx xxx Axxx).

[ahydra]

In the B team match I had this hand :) I think it went 1C-X-4C-p-p-4S-5C-5S-out.

 

Why should North bid 5S here? Is 5C (let alone 5S) really making - NS might get a spade and the two red aces while EW can take a club and the two red kings against 5S. I suppose it's a reasonable-enough shot but with such rubbish I'd really feel like I'm turning a plus into a minus.

 

Anyway, wrt explaining things in values other than HCPs - I guess it counts as a sufficient description, but perhaps there ought to be a limit on how much one can obfuscate the bidding like that. Though certainly this pair's explanation of their pointcount system wouldn't come anywhere near such a limit.

 

ahydra

[HighLow21]

In the B team match I had this hand :) I think it went 1C-X-4C-p-p-4S-5C-5S-out.

 

Why should North bid 5S here? Is 5C (let alone 5S) really making - NS might get a spade and the two red aces while EW can take a club and the two red kings against 5S. I suppose it's a reasonable-enough shot but with such rubbish I'd really feel like I'm turning a plus into a minus.

 

Anyway, wrt explaining things in values other than HCPs - I guess it counts as a sufficient description, but perhaps there ought to be a limit on how much one can obfuscate the bidding like that. Though certainly this pair's explanation of their pointcount system wouldn't come anywhere near such a limit.

 

ahydra

 

Um, explain to me how EW can take 1♣ and K♥K♦ when you hold ♣ void and K♥?

 

The biggest danger is that EW can take A♥ and 2♦, but if that's the case, 5♣ is probably making.

[barmar]

Um, explain to me how EW can take 1♣ and K♥K♦ when you hold ♣ void and K♥?

North doesn't know about either of these features.

[HighLow21]

North doesn't know about either of these features.

 

It's amazing how easy it is to sound dumb here simply by misreading 1 word. SORRY!! I agree that North has no reason to shoot 5♠. I cannot see why South doesn't do so.

[HighLow21]

 

Anyway, wrt explaining things in values other than HCPs - I guess it counts as a sufficient description, but perhaps there ought to be a limit on how much one can obfuscate the bidding like that. Though certainly this pair's explanation of their pointcount system wouldn't come anywhere near such a limit.

 

ahydra

 

One way to do so is a way I like to think of it--> the number of points to add for a void is equal to the number of trumps you hold. This can be modified various ways but just on the surface, this makes the club suit alone worth 12 points. Even with various modifications to this, it's still at least 10.

[c_corgi]

In the B team match I had this hand :) I think it went 1C-X-4C-p-p-4S-5C-5S-out.

 

Why should North bid 5S here? Is 5C (let alone 5S) really making - NS might get a spade and the two red aces while EW can take a club and the two red kings against 5S. I suppose it's a reasonable-enough shot but with such rubbish I'd really feel like I'm turning a plus into a minus.

 

ahydra

 

I suppose the 5S bid is less clear in your auction than in OP, because in OP either/both 5C and 5S were likely to make, whereas in your auction 5C is unlikely to. Nevertheless, South has already shown great playing strength and North should cooperate with minimal values.

 

 

Anyway, wrt explaining things in values other than HCPs - I guess it counts as a sufficient description, but perhaps there ought to be a limit on how much one can obfuscate the bidding like that. Though certainly this pair's explanation of their pointcount system wouldn't come anywhere near such a limit.

ahydra

 

Surely the amount you can obfuscate the bidding by giving misleading explanations is zero. If E/W really do have an agreement to add 3 points for a void or whatever in situations like this, as opposed to adding or subtracting a point or so depending on judgement, then it should be part of the explanation.

[bluejak]

EBU, County A teams match, so teams of eight scored the illogical way (summing 4 scores and IMPing)

Why illogical?

 

"We keep it up to strength over the double, so 13-15".

Yeah, right. :angry:

[f0rdy]

Why illogical?

 

Because it misuses the non-linear IMP scale, which is designed for comparing the scores at two tables (which is why Butler pairs is an even bigger abuse of the scale); in particular it tends to devalue large score differences, and make slams much less important, than any normal teams scoring.

Eg: If you IMP -50 against 140 in an ordinary teams of four match, you lose 5 IMPs. The next board, you bid slam and score 980 against 480, and win back 10 IMPs.

If instead you're playing a teams of eight match and the scores are duplicated at the other tables, the partscores cost you 10 IMPs, but you only gain 14 IMPs when both your NS pairs bid slam and the opponents' pairs stay in game.

 

It could be that you want teams of eight to be a different form of scoring to all other teams/crossimped pairs games, halfway between IMPs and matchpoints/BAM, but it seems more likely that the system used in (at least) Eastern Counties League matches is there because nobody thought about the consequences.

 

If you're convinced that adding up the 4 scores is what you want to do, you should probably play with a different IMP scale where the big jumps that start after 500 are reduced and big jumps only come in somewhat later. The best way to score up teams of eight is probably to consider it as 4 teams of four matches, with each NS compared against both EW pairs to give 4 IMP scores on each board which you can add up or average to provide an IMP score for the board. This requires 4 sums for each board rather than one, but doesn't seem a prohibitive amount of hassle. I've seen teams of eight scored as two completely disjoint (other than the hands) teams of four matches, which at least made sense.

[dwilliams9]

Pete's left out that a different pair of the A team who hadn't heard this ruling then got done in the next set by EXACTLY the same sequence, and it still wasn't up to strength (flat 10 count or some garbage) even though we'd talked to the offending pair about the hand Pete has described above. This time our guys assumed 3C was pre-emptive and ended up going for 800 because they thought they'd been pre-empted out of game.

[bluejak]

Because it misuses the non-linear IMP scale, which is designed for comparing the scores at two tables (which is why Butler pairs is an even bigger abuse of the scale); in particular it tends to devalue large score differences, and make slams much less important, than any normal teams scoring.

Eg: If you IMP -50 against 140 in an ordinary teams of four match, you lose 5 IMPs. The next board, you bid slam and score 980 against 480, and win back 10 IMPs.

If instead you're playing a teams of eight match and the scores are duplicated at the other tables, the partscores cost you 10 IMPs, but you only gain 14 IMPs when both your NS pairs bid slam and the opponents' pairs stay in game.

 

It could be that you want teams of eight to be a different form of scoring to all other teams/crossimped pairs games, halfway between IMPs and matchpoints/BAM, but it seems more likely that the system used in (at least) Eastern Counties League matches is there because nobody thought about the consequences.

 

If you're convinced that adding up the 4 scores is what you want to do, you should probably play with a different IMP scale where the big jumps that start after 500 are reduced and big jumps only come in somewhat later. The best way to score up teams of eight is probably to consider it as 4 teams of four matches, with each NS compared against both EW pairs to give 4 IMP scores on each board which you can add up or average to provide an IMP score for the board. This requires 4 sums for each board rather than one, but doesn't seem a prohibitive amount of hassle. I've seen teams of eight scored as two completely disjoint (other than the hands) teams of four matches, which at least made sense.

I think you have convinced us that you think two teams-of-four scoring is better, with which I would not disagree anyway. But that does not mean I see why it is illogical to play team-of-eight scoring. Teams of eight is a different game from teams of four.

[campboy]

I think you have convinced us that you think two teams-of-four scoring is better, with which I would not disagree anyway. But that does not mean I see why it is illogical to play team-of-eight scoring. Teams of eight is a different game from teams of four.

What is illogical is to think that the right scale to use for comparing four scores is one designed for comparing two scores. It is like using the same VP scale for 48-board matches as for 24-board matches.

[Vampyr]

What is illogical is to think that the right scale to use for comparing four scores is one designed for comparing two scores. It is like using the same VP scale for 48-board matches as for 24-board matches.

 

Again, there are reasons you might want to do this.

[Xiaolongnu]

I rule that the result stands in all probability.

 

This is an unusual case of MI and possibly UI associated with MI. The classical MI case is one of the following outline. Opp bids something, his partner explains it as something else, the explanation is grossly different from the bidder's hand, and it is the explanation that is wrong, which in turn affected your judgment and made a losing decision (damage, in our terms), whether or not it was intentional.

 

Where, trivially, failure to alert an alertable bid is MI because not alerting is logically equivalent to alerting the bid and explaining it as natural (without being asked, so UI could result as well). At least this is how I remember the logic behind it.

 

In this situation, however, the explanation is actually "correct" in a warped sense, in that the west hand does qualify as a 1♣ (X) 3♣ hand. As the OP mentioned, by hand evaluation, this hand is not exactly strong enough to GF immediately.

[Trinidad]

Again, there are reasons you might want to do this.

And they might be?

 

Rik

[Vampyr]

And they might be?

 

Rik

 

Perhaps the players involved want it that way.

[bluejak]

And they might be?

Players find it easiest and reasonable.

 

Customer service is important in running this game.

 

I direct and used to run a major inter-County team of eight. Last time we tried feedback, one of the questions was whether we should change the form of scoring from teams-of-eight to two teams-of four. No change was nearly unanimous.

[Trinidad]

Nobody says that you have to score it as two team of four matches. That would be a bad idea, because it is complicated for the players. (Not to mention that the result depends on what tables are combined into the two matches.)

 

But it is very easy to come up with an IMP scale for teams of 8: Take the standard IMP scale and multiply the results by the square root of 2 (= sqrt (8/4) ).

 

The start of such an IMP scale would then be:

IMPs   Old scale   New scale

   0       0-10        0-10    (10*sqrt(2)=14 -> 10)

   1      20-40       20-50    (40*sqrt(2)=57 -> 60)

   2      50-80      60-110    (80*sqrt(2)=113 -> 110)

   3     90-120     120-170    (120*sqrt(2)=170 -> 170)

 

etc.

 

If you would like to play teams of 6, you just adjust by sqrt(1.5)

 

This method is just as easy, and more reasonable if your aim is to mimic team of four scoring.

 

Rik

[bluejak]

Now that's a way to really upset the customers. No-one wants a different imp scale. :(

[mjj29]

Now that's a way to really upset the customers. No-one wants a different imp scale. :(

Oh, I don't doubt that lots of the players are happy with the method of scoring. That has no bearing on whether or not it's illogical :P

[Trinidad]

Now that's a way to really upset the customers. No-one wants a different imp scale. :(

I get the idea that you don't understand the point.

 

F0rdy and campboy clearly showed that, by applying the team of four IMP table to teams of 8, you are changing the IMP scale. They showed that the scoring gets "warped" when you use the team of four IMP scale for team of eight games. The team of four IMP table was never meant for teams of eight. (Just think what this would do if someone would organize a "team of 400" match: On each board 24 IMPs are exchanged.)

 

My post was showing that it is very easy to adapt the existing IMP scale for teams of 6, 8, 10 or 400, in such a way that this "warp" is compensated for. This doesn't make it a different IMP scale. It is the exact same IMP scale, but now for another number of participants on the team.

 

And don't tell me that everyone wants to stick to the numbers on the IMP scale because they know these numbers by heart.

 

Mathematicians, statisticians and engineers know these kind of methods as "scaling". Statisticians use scaling by averages and standard deviations to make complicated things fit in simple models; engineers use scaling to extrapolate what happens in a 100 ml beaker to what happens in a 10 m3 reactor. It means that you create rules that are independent of the scale of what you are doing. These rules are constructed in such a way that the underlying basic principles (rather than the actual numbers) are kept intact.

 

I can see that scaling in such an abstract thing as bridge scoring may appear confusing, but it is simply a question of doing things right. You could think about scaling in everyday life and how silly it would be if you wouldn't scale properly. You wouldn't try to let a model train of scale HO ride on a track made for a full scale train, would you? And I don't think that you would feed your cats an antilope (even though their bigger sized cousins in Africa would be happy with one). Would you apply the recipe for 12 cup cakes if you would need to make 120?

 

Rik