How high do you bid?

[FelicityR]

Oh my God! I'm reasonably new to this forum and I didn't realise that things can get as feisty as this on here!

 

I voted 'pass'. I gave my reason why, and I have been proved wrong. At the time of writing 12 votes for pass, and 32 votes for 4♥. I accept that there are far more better players on here than me, and the majority are in favour of a pre-empt. I graciously accept their decision. Thank you for enlightening me.

 

Bridge is a game where you will learn something new until the day you meet your maker. If you cannot accept that, then you will get nowhere in this game, or in life for that matter...

[RedSpawn]

It appears you want to teach EIGHT voters to drop out of the class.I have not seen even a single renowned book on bidding various systems advocating to open with s bid Of 4 H on the garbage hand.Perhaps your new book may change the face of bridge and I wish good luck to you.Your super champion intentions are meant only to obstruct opponents and also your partner.I follow what is given in the text books and my teacher ,who has international repute having won many events like the Reisinger et all.He just asked me to IGNORE your and others comments saying "They have the right to open 4H ,but at the same time they are not ENTTLED to ridicule others not agreeing with them".A very POLITE answer indeed ! So I shall just ignore the rebukes and continue to enjoy bridge in my own way by not opening on the garbage.Good Luck.

 

I regret I did not read this in its entirety early on. Jennifer and her teacher are right.

 

You can tell the measure of a gentleman by the way he treats the women around him. I am not sure why Jennifer was maligned and ridiculed for having a dissenting vote (not agreeing to 4 hearts), but when I reread these strings, I see she was spot on. This forum wasn't really about a passionate bridge discussion and building each other up as players even when we disagree. That's what camaraderie is.

 

Ah yes, this forum appears to be about sizing people up, tearing them apart and establishing who's top dog. It appears to be about arbitrarily determining who's " good" versus who's "bad" versus who's real versus who's fake according to each other's expert opinion.

 

I am assuming Jennifer didn't make the cut according to the experts here, so she got what she had coming.

 

No woman deserved the kind of treatment she received in this forum. Even if you think she somehow sullied your reputation, it did not warrant the cliquish attack and rebuke she received.

 

Gentlemen are held to a higher standard to our ladies even in the BBF. We should know better and do better because we are gentlemen. As I write this, I guarantee you that 100% of the gentlemanly men here did not even apologize to this lady after she signed off on this forum topic. You don't have to when you have a heart of stone and don't care about other people and the human condition.

 

I find it ironic that everyone championed Jeff's 4 ♥ vote but very few here demonstrate his world class humility, camaraderie, professionalism, and sportsmanship. And if you do, it certainly wasn't demonstrated in this forum on this topic to various users--especially Jennifer. The air was rife with condescension from almost everyone--man and woman, seasoned veteran forum members and newcomers (and me)--when our votes didn't match. Jennifer was just one of the first casualties.

 

If you are a gentleman who plays bridge, you respect people at the table and in the forum--especially the women. It's that simple. I'm sure Jeff would agree.

 

If I somehow offended any of the ladies here on the forum I apologize upfront.

 

I apologized to MsJennifer on behalf of the men here because she may never get an apology from her attackers. That's what we're supposed to do when we don't defend their honor from cruel, malicious attacks. I should have acted promptly when I saw the dog-eat-dog mentality. I, and a host of other gentlemen, failed to act. We neither condemned nor repudiated this type of behavior.

 

I wish all of you the very best and good luck in your games.

[jogs]

 

Probable Percentage Frequency of Distribution Patterns

 

Pattern	 	 	 	Total	 	 	 	Specific
4-4-3-2                         21.5512	 	 	 	1.796
4-3-3-3	 	         	10.5361	                    	2.634
4-4-4-1	 	 	 	2.9932	 	 	 	0.748
	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 
5-3-3-2	 	 	 	15.5168	 	 	 	1.293
5-4-3-2	 	 	 	12.9307	 	 	 	0.539
5-4-2-2	 	 	 	10.5797	 	 	 	0.882
5-5-2-1	 	 	 	3.1739	 	 	 	0.264
5-4-4-0	 	 	 	1.2433	 	 	 	0.104
5-5-3-0	 	 	 	0.8952	 	 	 	0.075
	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 
6-3-2-2	 	 	 	5.6425	 	 	 	0.470
6-4-2-1	 	 	 	4.7021	 	 	 	0.196
6-3-3-1	 	 	 	3.4482	 	 	 	0.287
6-4-3-0	 	 	 	1.3262	 	 	 	0.055
6-5-1-1	 	 	 	0.7053	 	 	 	0.059
6-5-2-0	 	 	 	0.6511	 	 	 	0.027
6-6-1-0	 	 	 	0.0723	 	 	 	0.006
	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 
7-3-2-1	 	 	 	1.8808	 	 	 	0.078
7-2-2-2	 	 	 	0.5129	 	 	 	0.128
7-4-1-1	 	 	 	0.3918	 	 	 	0.033
7-4-2-0	 	 	 	0.3617	 	 	 	0.015
7-3-3-0	 	 	 	0.2652	 	 	 	0.022
7-5-1-0	 	 	 	0.1085	 	 	 	0.005
7-6-0-0	 	 	 	0.0056	 	 	 	0.0005
	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 
8-2-2-1	 	 	 	0.1924	 	 	 	0.016
8-3-1-1	 	 	 	0.1176	 	 	 	0.010
8-3-2-0	 	 	 	0.1085	 	 	 	0.005
8-4-1-0	 	 	 	0.052	 	 	 	0.002
8-5-0-0	 	 	 	0.0031	 	 	 	0.0003
	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 
9-2-1-1	 	 	 	0.0178	 	 	 	0.001
9-3-1-0	 	 	 	0.0100	 	 	 	0.0004
9-2-2-0	 	 	 	0.0082	 	 	 	0.0007
9-4-0-0	 	 	 	0.0010	 	 	 	0.00008
	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 
10-2-1-0	  	 	0.0011	 	 	 	0.00004
10-1-1-1	  	 	0.0004	 	 	 	0.0001
10-3-0-0	  	 	0.00015	 	 	 	0.00001
	 	  	 	 	 	 	 
11-1-1-0	  	 	0.00002	 	 	 	0.000002
11-2-0-0	  	 	0.00001	 	 	 	0.000001
	 	  	 	 	 	 	 
12-1-0-0	  	 	0.0000003	 	  	0.00000003
13-0-0-0	  	 	0.0000000006	 	  	0.0000000002

 

 

 

What the heck is specific?

[johnu]

I then present the mathematical probabilities tables showing the expected frequency of the various hand patterns. The tables show that the expected frequency of getting 9-2-1-1 shape or 9-card or 8 card or 7 card suits is exponentially lower than the common 4-4-3-2 and 4-3-3-3 hand shapes.

 

No response from Vampyr or you. No, "that's crazy. That's absurd." Nothing. . . Interesting.

 

I nominate this post for Post of the Year!

 

Who knew that 9 card suits hands happened exponentially less than 4432 and 4333 hands? This is the frontrunner for my fact of the day.

[johnu]

What the heck is specific?

 

Apparently the chance of any specific suit distribution happening.

 

e.g. For 4-4-4-1, the overall probability for any 4-4-4-1 hand is 2.9932. The singleton can be in any of 4 suits, so any specific 4-4-4-1 distribution is 2.9932/4 = .7483.

 

Why is this important to the discussion? I have no idea.

[masse24]

I nominate this post for Post of the Year!

 

Who knew that 9 card suits hands happened exponentially less than 4432 and 4333 hands? This is the frontrunner for my fact of the day.

 

Groundbreaking stuff, this. Who knew?

 

http://i65.tinypic.com/2cde9w6.png

[Vampyr]

RedSpawn, you may not be aware that Diana is a mod and can ban you.

[MrAce]

I regret I did not read this in its entirety early on. Jennifer and her teacher are right.

 

You can tell the measure of a gentleman by the way he treats the women around him. I am not sure why Jennifer was maligned and ridiculed for having a dissenting vote (not agreeing to 4 hearts), but when I reread these strings, I see she was spot on. This forum wasn't really about a passionate bridge discussion and building each other up as players even when we disagree. That's what camaraderie is.

 

Ah yes, this forum appears to be about sizing people up, tearing them apart and establishing who's top dog. It appears to be about arbitrarily determining who's " good" versus who's "bad" versus who's real versus who's fake according to each other's expert opinion.

 

I am assuming Jennifer didn't make the cut according to the experts here, so she got what she had coming.

 

No woman deserved the kind of treatment she received in this forum. Even if you think she somehow sullied your reputation, it did not warrant the cliquish attack and rebuke she received.

 

Gentlemen are held to a higher standard to our ladies even in the BBF. We should know better and do better because we are gentlemen. As I write this, I guarantee you that 100% of the gentlemanly men here did not even apologize to this lady after she signed off on this forum topic. You don't have to when you have a heart of stone and don't care about other people and the human condition.

I find it ironic that everyone championed Jeff's 4 ♥ vote but very few here demonstrate his world class humility, camaraderie, professionalism, and sportsmanship. And if you do, it certainly wasn't demonstrated in this forum on this topic to various users--especially Jennifer. The air was rife with condescension from almost everyone--man and woman, seasoned veteran forum members and newcomers (and me)--when our votes didn't match. Jennifer was just one of the first casualties.

 

If you are a gentleman who plays bridge, you respect people at the table and in the forum--especially the women. It's that simple. I'm sure Jeff would agree.

 

If I somehow offended any of the ladies here on the forum I apologize upfront.

 

I apologized to MsJennifer on behalf of the men here because she may never get an apology from her attackers. That's what we're supposed to do when we don't defend their honor from cruel, malicious attacks. I should have acted promptly when I saw the dog-eat-dog mentality. I, and a host of other gentlemen, failed to act. We neither condemned nor repudiated this type of behavior.

 

I wish all of you the very best and good luck in your games.

 

Can you please explain who mistreated Msjennifer?

Which particular reply/post in this topic sounded inappropriate for a man to say to a lady, that made you write such a long dramatic reply out of it?

Were there posts that are deleted and I did not see?

[RedSpawn]

Can you please explain who mistreated Msjennifer?

Which particular reply/post in this topic sounded inappropriate for a man to say to a lady, that made you write such a long dramatic reply out of it?

Were there posts that are deleted and I did not see?

I answered all of these questions on the other posts with the dubious email signatures included. Apparently we can include profanity (offensive language) in our email signatures attached to the posts that are already filled with veiled suggestions about lack of bridge skills and it is fair game.

 

The receiver of such messages is to take all of it as a harmless joke with no ill intent.

 

Before we declare a clearcut victory for 4 hearts, the author of the bridge winners poll should supply the breakout of votes by each voting category block. For reasons unknownst to me, the hearts bid votes at the 2,3,& 4 level were aggregated to compete against one category (PASS) for presentation of final results. That is too skewed to even be acknowledged as legitimate or balanced or democratic.

 

We don't have an election of individual Republican and Democratic candidates and then aggregate the results by party--the final election results are reported at the candidate level because that's the way it was asked on the ballot.

 

We should remain consistent and give each voting block the opportunity to stand on its own two feet without aggregation (skewing).

 

Please present the final voting results for the 1098765432♥ hand by each level of bid from PASS up to 5♥ and let the results speak for themselves without questionable aggregation. Thanks.

[Nabooba]

2♥: 1 vote (1%)

3♥: 18 votes (17%)

4♥: 53 votes (49%)

5♥: 1 vote (1%)

Pass: 36 votes (33%)

[RedSpawn]

2♥: 1 vote (1%)

3♥: 18 votes (17%)

4♥: 53 votes (49%)

5♥: 1 vote (1%)

Pass: 36 votes (33%)

 

Tyvm. At the bid level the forerunners are 4hearts and pass. This polls presents more questions than it resolves.

 

And to aggegrate 2,3,4,& 5 hearts against pass is neither democratic nor intellectually honest. It just muddies the fair results and distribution you presented.

 

The arguments here have basically been 4 hearts versus pass and pass did not get a butt whipping. It is 2nd place in the total voting population. And out of 109 people 36 voted pass thats about 33%. About 49% voted 4♥. I would say that warrants further review. Pass is not as insane as it appears. That is a fair statement given these results.

 

I am deeply disappointed by the aggregation maneuver of the author. It leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. It may have been unintentional but it just paints the worst possible picture to group 4 categories and % numbers against 1. 67% to 33%. That result is markedly different than pass coming in 2nd place among 5 categories carrying 33% of the vote.

 

But of course, the author will get a "hall pass" because the aggregation maneuver produced the results that supported his narrative even more. If I were to aggregate data like this...the collective would ask me to explain the need and validity of the action and poke holes at it with snarky comments.

[Nabooba]

You posted

MORAL OF THE STORY:

 

Play your position;

Stop bidding your partner's hand;

Pre-empt with decent suit quality; and

Engage PASS button with bust hands containing 0-3 HCP!

 

This means you disagree with 2/3/4/ H

Personally I disagree with all but 4H, however all are far better than pass. Incidentally pass is not a bid, but rather a call.

[Phil]

Don't know how I stayed out of this cesspool of a thread.

 

More straw men here than a week at Burning Man.

[RedSpawn]

You posted

MORAL OF THE STORY:

 

Play your position;

Stop bidding your partner's hand;

Pre-empt with decent suit quality; and

Engage PASS button with bust hands containing 0-3 HCP!

 

This means you disagree with 2/3/4/ H

Personally I disagree with all but 4H, however all are far better than pass. Incidentally pass is not a bid, but rather a call.

 

I also posted the following the EXACT SAME POST:

 

West has the same predicament but for some reason almost everyone on BBO is saying bid 4♥ in 2nd seat with a very QUESTIONABLE ♥ suit. The best answer is PASS because your partner: 1) has a better bid if you will only let him make it and 2) has a more accurate assessment of where asset values lay in auction as the 4th seat bidder. . . but you must PASS with a bust hand containing 2 HCP.

 

Hard to do, isn't it?

 

Can you honestly justify taking out your partner's 4♠ overcall of a 2♣ open? Your partner has a good 8 card ♠ suit containing 3 of 5 honors. He has the goods to place the partnership in a relatively safe place - West DOES NOT!

 

....

 

The opposition does NOT have a slam and bidding 4♥ is down 3 which is NOT good bridge. And your team has 4♠ cold as the cards lay. A player should not make executive decisions about the partnership's future while sitting in 2nd seat and holding a bust hand.

 

Please note that I maintain intently focused on 4♥ in this post and talking about the attendant risks. I am not getting on board with the 4♥ bid. And I honestly thought each bid or call was going to be mutually exclusive and stand on its own two feet. Thus, no aggregation.

 

Unfortunately one was born an expert(?) One was never ever a beginner. Those who open 4H have not answered my question that what will they open on x,AKxxxxxx,xx,xx ? They can't open 4H ,as that bid is reserved for the garbage hand,so Pass,1/2/3 H are left.Judge for yourself !

 

 

Jennifer that is an UNFAIR question. Once you are in the Advanced and Expert level, the range for bids increases exponentially. That means that 1-of-a-suit opening bids and preemptive bids can mean WHATEVER YOU WANT IT TO BE.

 

In second seat with both teams vulnerable, 4♥ could range from a textbook classic of x♠,AKxxxxxx♥,xx♦,xx♣ to gourmet goulash garbage 9♠ 10987645432♥ Q3♦ 9♣ .

 

It is YOUR responsibility to be amazingly clairvoyant about your partner's suit quality and to know from looking at your hand if your partner is bidding the former or the latter (even if you are void of ♥). :unsure:

 

Of course I am kidding, but sadly, I think this is the unwritten "rider clause" in most partnership agreements on BBO.

 

We are not going to argue over semantics--bid versus call. But I will post all of the 4 heart statements I made. I don't mention 2 hearts or 3 hearts in the string because the discussion focused on the 4 ♥ commandeering the auction. That bid effectively places a gag order on the partner across the table as presented to alok c.

 

We argued vehemently about 4♥ versus pass and when people posted about 2♥ and 3♥, I did not knock that down in the string. The disagreement was when a lot of people started saying 4 hearts for this hand in 2nd seat when vulnerable. 4 hearts leaves no room for your partner across the table to bid reasonably. So when alok c misquoted Benito, I even asked him how do you find your partners suit controls per his own quote if you open up 4 hearts.

 

I will post more examples of the 4 hearts discussion but it was over 4 hearts versus pass. Not against 2heart,3hearts,4hearts,5 hearts versus pass.

 

I am still shaking my head of the point of combining four categories of heart bids to compete against pass. How stacked can the results be if we were to do such a thing? Stay tuned for a whole lot of 4 heart quotes.

[RedSpawn]

.

[RedSpawn]

Don't know how I stayed out of this cesspool of a thread.

 

More straw men here than a week at Burning Man.

 

Sure. Let's group 4 categories of bids versus 1 call and look at the results. That sounds really fair upfront?

 

How often do you have elections at the candidate level but when final results are presented you sum up totals by party affiliation? None.

 

Leave the results at the candidate level because that is how the question was asked at the poll. All election results are presented at the way they were polled.

 

The aggregation maneuver just skews the results even more and hides the true distribution of results. The poll forerunners are pass and 4 hearts. So how does it look when the author is on record for saying pass is insane to him but it comes in a respectable 2nd place out of 5 categories?

 

Does that support his narrative? Nope. So let's combine. 2,3,4&5 hearts and compare them to pass and say hearts win 2 to 1. Nahhh, no straw man here.

 

The aggregation maneuver is false advertising. It tries to throw PASS to the back of the line when the results show it came in strong 2nd place among 5 available categories.

 

You don't see a discussion of its 2nd place standing but you see it was packaged as a 68 to 36 vote count. Very interesting switch out.

[Phil]

Bridgewinners has some great features. If you like, you can create a poll (and it lands on the front page) and select only 4H and pass as the choices.

 

The pass/3H/4H matrix is notable, but it's accepted in bridge literature that (in this case) that (along the 4H---pass spectrum) that the 3H bidders are not closer to a pass and partially support 4H! A moderator in The Bridge World would judge the poll results on a binary "action vs no action".

 

If this problem appeared, and based on Bridgewinners voting, Bridge World would score the problem something like:

 

4h 100

3h 80

Pass 60

2h 20

[Phil]

By the way, this hand has an element of deja vu. Look at board 13 from the first final session of the Silador Pairs, Reno 2016:

 

http://live.acbl.org/handrecords/NABC161/03181300

 

I opened 3H and it went x, p 3N (a little slow) 4N (!?!?) 6N.

[RedSpawn]

By the way, this hand has an element of deja vu. Look at board 13 from the first final session of the Silador Pairs, Reno 2016:

 

http://live.acbl.org/handrecords/NABC161/03181300

 

I opened 3H and it went x, p 3N (a little slow) 4N (!?!?) 6N.

the 4NT shows that East doesn't perform downgrades of hands. The dubious J♣ trapped in the doubleton and the excess number of Jacks and Queen's in East's hand should be an immediate red flag that a slam in not on the horizon.

 

By the way, I am tired of the cesspool. I am going to take my 2nd place (PASS) standing as a moral victory that the PASS call is not nearly as insane as MrAce alleged it to be. It's just not worth the time and energy. I had to fight tooth and nail to get the PASS vote to be recognized as 2nd place out of 5 categories!

 

When people don't respect you to begin with and attach your quotes and UserID to email signatures in a "high school" like fashion, you quickly realize their maturity level. They won't believe anything you say regardless of source because they don't like you. If they don't like you, they aren't gonna like any idea coming from you regardless of veracity or intellectual merit. ;)

 

That forum is a classic case of GroupThink in action. You either conform to the collective's entrenched beliefs or leave.

 

Groupthink

[Jinksy]

That forum is a classic case of GroupThink in action. You either conform to the collective's entrenched beliefs or leave.

 

Y'know, I voted for 2♥ on this hand. Various people have subsequently claimed this was idiocy. And yet, I'm still here - and slightly better placed to know what to open on such hands in future.

 

It's great how getting criticised by stronger players improves my game. It's almost like that's why I come here.

[RedSpawn]

Y'know, I voted for 2♥ on this hand. Various people have subsequently claimed this was idiocy. And yet, I'm still here - and slightly better placed to know what to open on such hands in future.

 

It's great how getting criticised by stronger players improves my game. It's almost like that's why I come here.

 

What you call criticized, I call bar-be-qued. They even have a "secret marinade" for such occasions.

 

:D

[Vampyr]

That forum is a classic case of GroupThink in action. You either conform to the collective's entrenched beliefs or leave.

 

Groupthink

 

Do you really want to see this "groupthink" in action? I suggest you peruse a thread you have not participated in. You will see that the "collective" have a variety of viewpoints and constantly disagree with one another.

 

You remind me of a poster who came on to the forums intending to teach us all to play bridge. He whinged and said we were mean and cliquey when we gave more credence to the opinions of a Bermuda Bowl finalist than his own. He did not last long. Maybe you can do better.

 

PS ignore the sigs. They have been on there forever and are not directed at anyone.

[RedSpawn]

Do you really want to see this "groupthink" in action? I suggest you peruse a thread you have not participated in. You will see that the "collective" have a variety of viewpoints and constantly disagree with one another.

 

You remind me of a poster who came on to the forums intending to teach us all to play bridge. He whinged and said we were mean and cliquey when we gave more credence to the opinions of a Bermuda Bowl finalist than his own. He did not last long. Maybe you can do better.

 

PS ignore the sigs. They have been on there forever and are not directed at anyone.

 

Did you see the thread, involving the "other" candidate of entertainment value, which I unintentionally resurrected from the dung heap? It is in the Beginner/Novice group. While his position was not all founded on any bridge theory and was patently wrong, I think a reasonable case can be made for groupthink once an idea is clearly in the oddball, "you can't be serious" realm.

[Vampyr]

Did you see the thread, involving the "other" candidate of entertainment value, which I unintentionally resurrected from the dung heap? It is in the Beginner/Novice group. While his position was not all founded on any bridge theory and was patently wrong, I think a reasonable case can be made for groupthink once an idea is clearly in the oddball, "you can't be serious" realm.

 

Is that what you mean by "groupthink" - that nobody agrees with an idea that is, as you say, patently wrong? OK then.

[RedSpawn]

Is that what you mean by "groupthink" - that nobody agrees with an idea that is, as you say, patently wrong? OK then.

 

 

Let me make this clear what happened:

 

1) The thought of calling pass on T98765432♥ in 2nd seat was called insane.

2) Further tag-team comments corroborated the idea that passing on T98765432♥ in 2nd seat is insane.

3) Several group members recommended the bid of 4♥ from 2nd seat.

4) I called T98765432♥ "obscene garbage" and the bidding of 4♥ from 2nd seat "Texas Hold Em Poker"

5) Jennifer and I asked to differentiate how you bid/call AKXXXXXX♥ versus T98765432♥; I snarkily replied that it is the respondent's responsibility to be amazingly clairvoyant and know when partner is bidding which one (even if he is void in ♥).

6) So we take a vote on Brigewinners.com.

7) Bridge winner shows that 4♥ carried 49% of vote and PASS carried 33% of vote if each bid/call type is mutually exclusive as it should be.

8) So, the results are "aggregated" to show 67% ANY BID versus the call PASS 33% which was NOT the essence of the argument. 4♥ versus PASS was the main argument. :angry:

9) And finally, the author of the bridgewinner poll took efforts to discredit the large 33% showing for the call PASS by suggesting (indirectly) that the voters are chock full of amateur/non-experts ==> if this is the case, why even take the brigewinners poll in the 1st place?

 

I firmly believe that to discredit a 33% voting group (when compared to a 49% voting group) just because their vote does not conform to your bridge sensibilities or "insane" narrative is definitely groupthink or heavily misguided.

 

In groupthink, "group members try to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation of alternative viewpoints by actively suppressing dissenting viewpoints." Calling PASS was definitely an alternative viewpoint that was suppressed though "aggregation" of poll results AND by trying to suggest the 33% voting block is full of potentially rank amateurs.