FANTUNES REVEALED by Bill Jacobs

[paulg]

The estimate would have more validity if it were compared with a similar pair who played fairly natural methods and typically also had good team mates, such as Versace and Lauria. And then with a strong club pair, such as Meckwell.

[aguahombre]

... a strong club pair, such as Meckwell.

:rolleyes:

[Siegmund]

I am just irritated I didnt know about this book until the week after I placed a big book order, so I likely wont see it until late fall.

[Cyberyeti]

Got my copy now, reading it and comparing it to Gerben's version, trying to work out what I want to play.

[SteelWheel]

Just got my copy of this in today's mail. Looks very interesting. In the past, I've played some EHAA in not-so-serious events (fast pairs, one-session IMP pairs, etc) with quite amusing results. Some very normal "blah" games, some well below average scores, and some incredible 68%+ or +79 imps type sessions. From what little I could see from Bridge World articles, Fantunes at its core seemed to be a sort of saner EHAA combined with some strong club/multiple-meaning club systems.

 

A couple of questions for the ACBL bridge lawyers amongst us:

 

Could the writeup in this book pass muster in a GCC event? If not, what could be changed to make it more agreeable to a TD (without sacrificing too much in the process)?

 

If GCC-compatibility is a totally untenable goal, I assume that Mid-Chart presents few if any problems?

 

And for the BBO community in general: Who might like to try such a system on some semi-regular basis? If anyone in ACBL-land is up to it, perhaps some online practice and then try to roll it out at a NABC or large Regional? I split my time between NY and Las Vegas these days..

[laststandb]

Fantunes is not GCC Compliant because it uses Transfer Responses to it's opening 1C bid, and also it fits 4441 hands into the 1NT bid.

 

I'd imagine a GCC Compliant Fantunes system would move 4441 Bids to 1D and 1C, and either change the 1C bid to 15+, or simply remove the transfer responses.

 

I'm interested in the system and I'd be interested if we (the forum) had an effort to try to convert Fantunes to GCC

[SteelWheel]

Fantunes is not GCC Compliant because it uses Transfer Responses to it's opening 1C bid, and also it fits 4441 hands into the 1NT bid.

 

I'd imagine a GCC Compliant Fantunes system would move 4441 Bids to 1D and 1C, and either change the 1C bid to 15+, or simply remove the transfer responses.

 

I'm interested in the system and I'd be interested if we (the forum) had an effort to try to convert Fantunes to GCC

Transfer responses to a 1♣ open which promises 15+ are very definitely legal on GCC. Some Precision'ers use such a treatment. Millennium Club (a sort of Polish-like system with weak no-trump openings--and another system I'd love to try out in some real competition someday) also uses transfer responses, and is GCC-legal.

 

The 1NT opening obviously presents bigger problems--although I have trouble keeping up with ACBL regs on that one, since I play so little "live" bridge these days. Many times, I've overcalled (rather than opened) a one-level opening with a strong NT, having nothing but a stiff A or K in an unnamed side suit. Opponents generally call the cops, and the TDs are forced to admit that there is no rule about overcalling 1NT with a stiff; the insanity of the ACBL GCC never ceases to amaze me.

[Cyberyeti]

Fantunes is not GCC Compliant because it uses Transfer Responses to it's opening 1C bid, and also it fits 4441 hands into the 1NT bid.

 

I'd imagine a GCC Compliant Fantunes system would move 4441 Bids to 1D and 1C, and either change the 1C bid to 15+, or simply remove the transfer responses.

 

I'm interested in the system and I'd be interested if we (the forum) had an effort to try to convert Fantunes to GCC

My understanding is that it's legal at level 3 in the EBU, and could prove vaguely interesting in some of the clubs I play in.

[Free]

I'd imagine a GCC Compliant Fantunes system would move 4441 Bids to 1D and 1C, and either change the 1C bid to 15+, or simply remove the transfer responses.

Fantunes used to open 2m with 4441's (10-13HCP).

[PrecisionL]

Transfer responses to a 1♣ open which promises 15+ are very definitely legal on GCC. Some Precision'ers use such a treatment. Millennium Club (a sort of Polish-like system with weak no-trump openings--and another system I'd love to try out in some real competition someday) also uses transfer responses, and is GCC-legal.

 

 

Hi SteelWheel,

 

I have been playing a version of Millennium Club for 3 years now locally and we are quite happy with it. 15+ hcp and transfer responses and a weak NT and parts of Miles Unbalanced Diamond. Don't get to Vegas much anymore, do visit New York state a few times a year.

 

Gerben's version of Fantunes is called E2HAA: Every 2nd Hand an Adventure:

 

http://web.archive.o...idge/mosca.html

[mycroft]

I would also look at the artificial responses to the 1 bids in case they are relays per the GCC definition.

If you find them, I would look to see if they are not 100% GF, in which case they are not Mid-Chart legal either.

[JLOGIC]

 

 

CONCLUSION: Superior card play [both by declarer and the defenders] accounted for just over 57 % of the IMPs won, while superior bidding (bidding judgment & system) accounted for 42 % of the IMP gains.

 

Grunching, but huge lol as no doubt many people have said.

 

Nothing against Bill Jacobs, I like his commentary on vugraph, but this "conclusion" from this data is completely absurd and is not based on math or logic.

[PrecisionL]

Grunching, but huge lol as no doubt many people have said.

 

Nothing against Bill Jacobs, I like his commentary on vugraph, but this "conclusion" from this data is completely absurd and is not based on math or logic.

 

So Justin, it is easy to criticize, but have you read the book?

 

What light can you shed on the topic?

 

I presume you have played against Fantunes, care to share how you have done against them?

 

And what about the book: WHY THEY WIN by Stephen Cashmore & Justin Corfield, Scotland, 2008. Their conclusion based on three 24 board IMP matches is that Bidding Judgment was responsible for the majority of the IMPs exchanged. One team involved Zia & Robson.

 

P.S. Jacobs has analyzed 2723 hands played on BBO vu-graph by Fantunes and he has played a similar system with over 1400 hands analyzed. So I don't understand how you can state his conclusion is not based on math and logic.

 

PP.SS. Even C.C. Wei in his analysis of world championship hands 1953 - 1965 concluded that 70% of the IMPs were won or lost in the bidding.

[kupi007]

I didnt read a book, but I watch fantunes a lot on vugraph, as well as I tried to play it for short period of time and in 1 partnership i play system that have a lot fantunes elements. Some things stroke me.

1. Its true that 2-bids are high variance and are entirely dependent on opps bidding jugment, if they treat it as just weak 2's, they will gain a lot, but against prepered opps i dont think its so great, i use to play weak 2's on same shapes but with more std 8-11 range, and it work for me, true you often force yourself to play in inferior partscore, but most of the time opps come to rescue and play in wrong strain or level. But i must disagree that 10-13 range is narrow, its not because with shapes ranging from 6332 or 5431 to 6520 and similar makes diffrance in playing huge, and imo bigger than std weak 2's 6 card 6-11.

2. Weak NT on shapes like 5M422, 6m322 or 4441. i think its gain, weak NT is great preempt, and having good playing strength allow easy escape if doubled, its also difficult to defend, and i dont think there is magic way to find 44 major fits on 24 or so HCP after weak NT, most of the time if opps have 44M game they are stuck after weak NT, and chances are bigger they have game in majors if you have some 6332 or 5422.

3. Biggest gains for Fantunes are in competition after 1x openings, knowing partner have extra shape or strength allows for more aggressive X-ing by responder, but i dont think their slam bidding is so great i found they often face known 2/1 problem, right strain, but wrong level(but can survive given excellent card play), most of their bidding focus on shape showing than point showing, so its innevitable, grands missing 1 ace happens to them a lot more often than what we may expect from WC pair.

[JLOGIC]

I do not know why you are so defensive. You can argue with emotion and appeals to non-relevant authorities all you want. You can even attempt to discredit me by pointing out directly or indirectly that I am not as good as fantunes, and thus rate to lose to them. That would be relevant if I was like LOL FANTUNES SUCK.

 

However, your op was very clear:

 

The chapter: Fantunes by the numbers, summarizes the results of 2723 deals played by Fantunes on BBO's vu-graph.

 

2723 deals, net IMPs won = 1817, or 0.67 IMPs per deal on deals Fantunes opened the bidding.

1676 deals, net IMPs won = 645, or 0.38 IMPs per deal where the contract was the same at both tables.

 

CONCLUSION: Superior card play [both by declarer and the defenders] accounted for just over 57 % of the IMPs won, while superior bidding (bidding judgment & system) accounted for 42 % of the IMP gains.

 

You even wrote CONCLUSION so I assume it was clear what I was talking about with my "criticism" I offered, that the conclusion was not based on math or logic. It is basically one big logical fallacy.

 

You see people attempt to use numbers in this way, but there is often a problem with causation. This is very common in many books, studies, etc where people try to analyze data.

 

I realize that the conclusion might have been your conclusion from data that bill jacobs offered in his book, but I took it to mean that it was a conclusion bill jacobs drew in his book. Whoever drew that conclusion, specifically that 42 % of bidding accounted for their gains is obviously wrong. Here is an example:

 

If my style is to bid scientifically, carefully catering to all possible slams etc, then I will sometimes find a good slam that the other table missed. Ok, great, I won the board with my bidding system/judgement, and that is factored in. However, how about the times that I do the same thing, and I give them lots of information to make the killing lead, or the winning defense. This is the tradeoff you make for bidding carefully rather than blasting when slam is unlikely. So now I got to the same game as the other table, but I went down and they made it. By the conclusion above, this would mean that my cardplay was inferior, but really it was my bidding that caused me to lose that swing, despite ending up in the same contract.

 

So the fallacy here is that if we get to the same contract, our system/judgement in the auction was irrelevant, and imps won or lost are based solely on the cardplay. See, that wasn't so hard! There are more things like that where the conclusion drawn does not logically follow from the data given. Ergo, the premise that because they win .67 imps/bd on hands where they open, and .38 imps/bd when they play the same contract, they win 57 % of their imps from superior cardplay and 42 % from bidding is just wrong. It is based on underlying bad logic/math, which is what I said.

 

For what it's worth, it's possible that fantunes are winning more than 42 % of their imps from bidding. It is possible they win less from bidding. I have no idea from the data provided, and I would not attempt to draw that conclusion from that data. I did not draw any conclusions from it, or offer whether the book was good or not, or whether fantunes were good or not, or whether I think their system is good or not, and what % of imps they win from bidding. I do not know those things. I do know that the conclusion given in the OP was ridiculous, which was the only thing I commented on.

 

The rest of your last post was pretty amazing and also filled with bad logic, but I'll just end it here.

[PrecisionL]

I do not know why you are so defensive. You can argue with emotion and appeals to non-relevant authorities all you want. You can even attempt to discredit me by pointing out directly or indirectly that I am not as good as fantunes, and thus rate to lose to them. That would be relevant if I was like LOL FANTUNES SUCK.

 

However, your op was very clear:

 

 

 

You even wrote CONCLUSION so I assume it was clear what I was talking about with my "criticism" I offered, that the conclusion was not based on math or logic. It is basically one big logical fallacy.

 

You see people attempt to use numbers in this way, but there is often a problem with causation. This is very common in many books, studies, etc where people try to analyze data.

 

I realize that the conclusion might have been your conclusion from data that bill jacobs offered in his book, but I took it to mean that it was a conclusion bill jacobs drew in his book. Whoever drew that conclusion, specifically that 42 % of bidding accounted for their gains is obviously wrong. Here is an example:

 

If my style is to bid scientifically, carefully catering to all possible slams etc, then I will sometimes find a good slam that the other table missed. Ok, great, I won the board with my bidding system/judgement, and that is factored in. However, how about the times that I do the same thing, and I give them lots of information to make the killing lead, or the winning defense. This is the tradeoff you make for bidding carefully rather than blasting when slam is unlikely. So now I got to the same game as the other table, but I went down and they made it. By the conclusion above, this would mean that my cardplay was inferior, but really it was my bidding that caused me to lose that swing, despite ending up in the same contract.

 

So the fallacy here is that if we get to the same contract, our system/judgement in the auction was irrelevant, and imps won or lost are based solely on the cardplay. See, that wasn't so hard! There are more things like that where the conclusion drawn does not logically follow from the data given. Ergo, the premise that because they win .67 imps/bd on hands where they open, and .38 imps/bd when they play the same contract, they win 57 % of their imps from superior cardplay and 42 % from bidding is just wrong. It is based on underlying bad logic/math, which is what I said.

 

For what it's worth, it's possible that fantunes are winning more than 42 % of their imps from bidding. It is possible they win less from bidding. I have no idea from the data provided, and I would not attempt to draw that conclusion from that data. I did not draw any conclusions from it, or offer whether the book was good or not, or whether fantunes were good or not, or whether I think their system is good or not, and what % of imps they win from bidding. I do not know those things. I do know that the conclusion given in the OP was ridiculous, which was the only thing I commented on.

 

The rest of your last post was pretty amazing and also filled with bad logic, but I'll just end it here.

 

Wow, I don't know what is going on here, I just posted interesting summaries of two recent books that do more than provide anecdotal evidence to support their conclusions and you suggest I am defensive and emotional.

 

Justin, you are taking offense where none is intended. I was just pointing out that you dissed my posting and assumed what my intent was without providing any constructive criticism or data to discount Bill Jacobs book's conclusion. I did not present my own opinions and therefore there was no logic to criticize.

[bluecalm]

However, how about the times that I do the same thing, and I give them lots of information to make the killing lead, or the winning defense.

 

What I tried to do is to take all hands played by given pair and calculate double dummy result after the 1st lead and then compare it to minimax on given hand. This way you account for revealing bidding and it *SHOULD* more or less have similar EV as real level of bidding. Variance is obviously huge though and not all things are factored (ie first lead is, subsequent defense isn't).

I realize this method is far from perfect but at least it's a try as opposed to:

 

Ergo, the premise that because they win .67 imps/bd on hands where they open, and .38 imps/bd when they play the same contract, they win 57 % of their imps from superior cardplay and 42 % from bidding is just wrong. It is based on underlying bad logic/math, which is what I said.

 

Which I agree is just nonsense.

 

Also Fantunes played much more hands than 2700 on vugraph. I have 7119 hands right now on my computer and I guess that's not all of them as I haven't downloaded 2012 (and end of 2011) hands at all.

 

And what about the book: WHY THEY WIN by Stephen Cashmore & Justin Corfield, Scotland, 2008. Their conclusion based on three 24 board IMP matches is that Bidding Judgment was responsible for the majority of the IMPs exchanged. One team involved Zia & Robson.

 

Laughable sample size and probably bad methodology. Every argument like that I saw for bidding judgement being the most important thing at high level suffered from the author not understanding probability and being very result oriented ("uh-oh they bid 3NT here which is 50% contract but 4S is only 15% contract and 3NT maked so +12 for judgement!")

[PrecisionL]

 

 

Also Fantunes played much more hands than 2700 on vugraph. I have 7119 hands right now on my computer and I guess that's not all of them as I haven't downloaded 2012 (and end of 2011) hands at all.

Yes, Fantunes played more than 2700 hands on BBO, what I posted was 2723 hands that they opened the bidding on.

 

WHY THEY WIN as I understand the book did the analysis you propose - yes it is a small sample, and probably is not statistically significant, but both books present knowledge that is food for thought.

 

So, who has better information / data to present that would cause those of us who are mathematically / statistically minded to consider other explanations?

[bluecalm]

but both books present knowledge that is food for thought.

 

Imo the author's argument is weak total junk. I don't want to quote the whole chapter here but his reasoning isn't even a serious try to quantify anything. He makes an argument that on hands with the same contract "cardplay swing" is 1.76 on average while average swing on any hand is 4.1 so from that follows that cardplay accounts for less than 50% of swings.

What is worse he then goes from that to conclusion about how much bidding contribute to total edge of given pair.

 

I mean, can I have some of what the author is smoking ? :)

 

One fact which almost all authors ignore is this:

Just because something contribute to most of the swings doesn't mean it's significant part of pair strength. It might be just variance. Of course the biggest swings come from bidding but the difference in EV is often very low. If you bid 52% slam or not or if you bid thin game which happen to make opposite actual partner's hand (but wouldn't opposite many other possible hands) doesn't matter much.

Reasoning as: "average cardplay swing is 1.76 and average swing is 4.1 so bidding contribute to more than 50% of pair strength" isn't "food for thought" it's just nonsense. Misleading nonsense to be sure.

[Free]

CONCLUSION: Superior card play [both by declarer and the defenders] accounted for just over 57 % of the IMPs won, while superior bidding (bidding judgment & system) accounted for 42 % of the IMP gains.

From this, you might as well conclude that their opps' mistakes account for only 1% of the imps won. WOW!

[AdamL3]

Fantunes is not GCC Compliant because it uses Transfer Responses to it's opening 1C bid, and also it fits 4441 hands into the 1NT bid.

 

I'd imagine a GCC Compliant Fantunes system would move 4441 Bids to 1D and 1C, and either change the 1C bid to 15+, or simply remove the transfer responses.

 

I'm interested in the system and I'd be interested if we (the forum) had an effort to try to convert Fantunes to GCC

 

For a while now I've been playing a version of Fantunes that's modified for ACBL GCC, as follows:

 

- 1C must be 15+ (and 2C therefore is 11-14)

- Since 1N cannot include 4441, we open 1D unless the singleton is in diamonds. With the 4=4=1=4 we have to open 1H. (After a 2-level response, we play that 2N by opener shows the minimum 4441 with singleton in partner's suit) and is NF.

- 1M-2C non-GF is not permitted on less than three clubs, so we have to bid 2D on balanced or major suit raise hands with fewer than 3 clubs and at least 3 diamonds (and we use 1M-3N to cover GF raises without three in either minor). 1M-2D isn't a very comfortable auction as a result, but we manage.

 

Also their 1D-2D on a weak reverse-flannery shape isn't allowed, but that isn't really that important to the system as a whole.

[helene_t]

I think all this criticism of the stats is a bit over the top.

 

Sure, the figure 57% is not likely to be particularly accurate. It is biased by a lot of issues. For example, when Fantunes do not open the bidding in first seat, the negative inference available to both partner and opps is different from the inference available when a different pair fails to open in first seat. Also, there is a correlation between opening the bidding and declaring, and it could be that their declarer play is better than their defense. Etc etc etc.

 

But my feelings are that those biases are probably not so strong as to make the data completely useless. I still find it intriguing to look at such numbers even if is not not entirely clear what to make from them.

[bjacobs]

Hi,

 

The GCC restriction on transfer responses to 1C is a big problem for Fantunes. Without them, the whole system is thrown out of kilter. Given the growing popularity of transfers after 1C, one would hope this restriction will not last forever.

 

I had some experience with this in the Akuba Cup, the Pairs event that is part of the NEC Cup. We were told not to use the transfer responses, and as it happened it cost us the event. We had one board where the auction started 1C-1H (natural, perforce), and the resulting 4H contract was played from the wrong hand. This cost many matchpoints, and we came second by about an eighth of a top.

 

The prohibition on the Fantunes 1major - 2C response is probably also a killer. The restrictions on the 4441 shape would be less of a concern (you improvise).

 

Cheers ... Bill Jacobs

[bluecalm]

But my feelings are that those biases are probably not so strong as to make the data completely useless. I still find it intriguing to look at such numbers even if is not not entirely clear what to make from them.

 

But those numbers have nothing to do at all with how much the system is worth.

Look at this situation:

Pair A never bids 50% slams and always bids 50% games. Their cardplay is perfect.

Pair B always bids 50% slams and never bids 50% games. Their cardplay is such that they lose makeable contract one time in 10 and it costs 10 imps every time.

 

Now if we play a lot of hands with 50% games and slams vast majority of swings will come from bidding not cardplay. In fact cardplay is as good 9 times out of 10. If you apply author's argument here you will end up with some non-sense like bidding contributing significant % to total pair A's edge. Still, cardplay is 100% of the edge of pair A.

 

The author just measures the wrong thing. When you try to approximate something at least give argument which makes some sense and works on simple example data.

[semeai]

Hi,

 

The GCC restriction on transfer responses to 1C is a big problem for Fantunes. Without them, the whole system is thrown out of kilter. Given the growing popularity of transfers after 1C, one would hope this restriction will not last forever.

 

I had some experience with this in the Akuba Cup, the Pairs event that is part of the NEC Cup. We were told not to use the transfer responses, and as it happened it cost us the event. We had one board where the auction started 1C-1H (natural, perforce), and the resulting 4H contract was played from the wrong hand. This cost many matchpoints, and we came second by about an eighth of a top.

 

The prohibition on the Fantunes 1major - 2C response is probably also a killer. The restrictions on the 4441 shape would be less of a concern (you improvise).

 

Cheers ... Bill Jacobs

 

Welcome to the forums! Thanks for writing the book, and for your thoughts & anecdote here.

 

But those numbers have nothing to do at all with how much the system is worth.

Look at this situation:

Pair A never bids 50% slams and always bids 50% games. Their cardplay is perfect.

Pair B always bids 50% slams and never bids 50% games. Their cardplay is such that they lose makeable contract one time in 10 and it costs 10 imps every time.

 

Now if we play a lot of hands with 50% games and slams vast majority of swings will come from bidding not cardplay. In fact cardplay is as good 9 times out of 10. If you apply author's argument here you will end up with some non-sense like bidding contributing significant % to total pair A's edge. Still, cardplay is 100% of the edge of pair A.

 

The author just measures the wrong thing. When you try to approximate something at least give argument which makes some sense and works on simple example data.

 

It seems as though you've missed that the book and the OP are discussing net imps/board, not number of swings or total imps exchanged. The bidding for pair A and pair B have zero net effect on imps/board in the long run.

 

I have to agree with helene_t that the data are somewhat interesting, if not particularly pure. Your (bluecalm) great thread from last year comparing declarer play, defense, and bidding + lead for various players to double dummy has statistics closer to the sort one would like to be looking at for the contribution of bidding vs card play, but these aren't nothing.

 

I'll agree with various other posters that the data likely don't have much to do with the superiority of the system, but rather that the best one should hope for from this data is some sense of the value of the whole of their bidding (system & judgement). Justin's good point that bidding and cardplay can't be separated this simply (and other similar concerns) does prevent easy access to this "value of the whole of their bidding." However, if we can make some guess about how revealing their auctions are compared to their peers (and other things), maybe we can draw some conclusion, if only an (approximate) inequality of the form "the value of their bidding as a whole is likely [greater than / roughly equal to / less than] such-and-such imps/board."