BBO Discussion Forums: FANTUNES REVEALED by Bill Jacobs - BBO Discussion Forums

Thanks for all the constructive comments, especially data by bridgebrowser analysis.

Here is a comment from the book to confound any conclusions or analysis:

When opening 1NT, Fantoni sometimes passes 11 or 12 hcp hands when vulnerable while Nunes will open the same hands 1NT. {pg. 99-100). [8/9/12 Paraphrased]

PrecisionL, on 2012-August-08, 10:03, said:

This is not uncommon, playing a weak no trump now, I open a lot more 11s than partner does.

The stats from when one of them opens the bidding are interesting, be very interested to see the relative stats when one of them opens 1N vul.

semeai, on 2012-August-08, 09:39, said:

Yes, that was the URL, thanks for pointing out my sloppy reading.

han, on 2012-August-08, 05:19, said:

That's not a verbatim quote from the book.

I really only did one "interesting" thing with the collected data. I totalled imps swung and won/lost on boards where the final contract was the same, in order to make an approximate calibration of card-play aspects. (Clearly approximate, as there would be some deals where the auction affects the card play, particularly the opening lead.)

It still seems to me to be a valid device.

Cheers ... Bill

I agree that it is useful and smart idea, I wouldn't know how to test the effectiveness of their bidding any better than that.

However, doing this does not tell you how good their system is, it only tells you how good their bidding is. That's the point that semeai was making on page 1 and I don't see any way around this. As long as you are only concluding that Fantunes do well in the bidding, what you are doing is good and interesting. But it doesn't tell you anything about their system, and unfortunately you seem to be using this as an argument for the strength of their system.

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Oh good, that proves that opening balanced 11-counts is a massive IMP-winner. I knew I was right.

han, on 2012-August-09, 05:49, said:

New category for Posties? Best clarification of issue.

OK Math majors and Statistical savy posters and conscientious objectors:

DESIGN AN EXPERIMENT THAT ALLOWS ONE TO DISCERN STATISTICALLY THE SIGNIFICANCE OF BIDDING, DECLARER PLAY, DEFENSE, LUCk and OPENING LEAD and whatever else you want to ascertain (and maybe System).

I assume you are familiar with the Book this thread is based on and Richard Pavlicek's web page: http://www.rpbridge.net/rpme.htm

JLOGIC, on 2012-August-04, 08:42, said:

Would you accept the following premise as likely to be right:

Bidding and Bidding judgement play on average a bigger role when the contract is different in a team match.
and as a corollary that card play will play on average a bigger role when the contract is the same?

Rainer Herrmann

PrecisionL, on 2012-August-09, 11:36, said:

I am not a math major, nor nearly as statistically savy as some other posters, and I was born too late to be a conscientious objector. However I would suggest these tests:


For bidding:


Let different pairs bid 1000 randomly dealt hands (the same hands for each pair) playing against two computers. Then let 4 computers play the contract that was reached. Compare the results.

Defense:

Put different pairs into a room and let them defend 1000 randomly dealt hands against a computer program. Then compare scores.

For declarer play:

Let 4 computers bid 1000 hands. Then let different players declare the hands against the remaining 3 computers. Compare the results.


As long as your computer programs and hands dealt remain the same for different participants, you get a reasonable test. 1000 hands is enough for my taste, but more is better.

Alternatively, you could check whether a pair has won any European championships or Spingolds lately. If so, that should be a reasonable indication of their strength.

PrecisionL, on 2012-August-09, 11:36, said:

I didn't answer to your "(and maybe System)". In response I have a riddle for you.

A big vase contains a large number of cubes, some small and some large, some red and some green. It is unknown how many of each kind there are.

A blind man randomly draws a cubes from the vase and determines whether it is small or large. Then he puts it back, and repeats. You are convinced that the vase contains more red cubes than green. How many cubes should you let the man draw before you can be 95% certain of your conviction?

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This actually could be arranged if there was some decent bridge program with API. I tried to approximate this with just double dummy result (after 1st lead) but having decent program to actually play the hands (possibly many times over) would be better.

han, on 2012-August-09, 05:49, said:

My main objection is different:
I think when you play a different system you have the advantage that your opponents are unfamiliar with the scenarios, which will crop up in different flavors and frequencies.
At the top level, I do not mean that opponents do not understand the meaning of the bids or their implications and inferences. They will, at least in long team matches.
But at the table you face a concrete bidding decision with a specific hand in a certain bidding scenario like after LHO has opened with a two-bid.
Opponents, no matter how well they have prepared, will face unfamiliar decisions for which they will have less experience to draw on than the creators of a system, who play it all the time.
This increases the chance that opponents will misjudge more frequently when playing against such new systems.
I have no problem with that advantage for innovation and creativity.
It is a bit like in chess, where top level players search for new moves in tried and tested opening variants to catch their unsuspecting opponent by surprise.

When Precision was new, an unknown Taiwanese team only lost in the final of the Bermuda Bowl to the Blue team.
Was stone age Wei Precision really so much better than the other bidding system played at that time?
When the convention Multi was new it had a lot of spectacular success in top level play. Is this still true today?
The same for Kamikaze notrump etc.

The system is surely interesting and with an innovative approach. It is apparently good enough for top level play. So it looks competitive.
But only time will tell of any real superiority.

Rainer Herrmann

PrecisionL, on 2012-August-09, 11:36, said:

Here’s how I’d proceed

Start with eight computers playing the identical baseline system. Synchronize the seeds of the RNGs. Have the computers play a 1,000 board team match against one another. (Hopefully, the match is perfectly tied). Repeat having al of your machines playing the system that you are testing.

Repeat this same exercise, only lobotomize the teams. Allow them to understand the opponent’s bidding system during the bidding portion of the match. However, deprive them of this same information during the declarer play / defense. Once again, baseline the two teams.

Next, repeat the same exercise a dozen or so time, varying the seeds of the RNGs. Here, you should start observing some variance in the results. The point of this part of the exercise is to understand how much naturally occurs when two teams playing 2/1 GF or MOSCITO or whatever compete against one another.

At this point in time, you can probably start doing some reasonable comparisons. In particular, you can contrast the following situations

1. Two teams playing the same system
2. Two teams playing different systems with information about the bidding systems impacting declarer play and defense
3. Two teams playing different systems with zero information about bidding

rhm, on 2012-August-10, 06:30, said:

YES! Precision is relatively similar to Neapolitan / BTC , so it wasn't like people were (or should have been) unfamiliar with defending against it. What made it better was that it was simpler than both, and it used a basic tenet of bidding theory that the others didn't that shape is at least as important, if not more important, than strength. Being able to set an immediate GF was also very nice. In fact, when the Blue Team came out of retirement, ALL 3 PAIRS PLAYED PRECISION!

Of course, we now know that Precision has an advantage over 2/1, but if you spend enough time on your system, most/all of those gaps can be plugged up and the difference is minute. Back in the 60's and 70's, bidding was still pretty bad; they were just beginning to understand how to build better systems. Precision was simple, streamlined, and yes, probably frustrating to deal with.

After looking at the Fantunes system and watching it be played, I don't think their system is that great. What helps it is the fact that THEY know their system (except they occasionally forget whether a bid in competition is a FSJ or a splinter), other people don't have experience in defending against it, and the system has a tendency to grind opponents down, especially non-WC opponents. Even WC opponents can get run over by the Fantunes system.

chasetb, on 2012-August-10, 12:42, said:

This is laughable

I will readily admit that Blue Club and Precision both use a strong club opening, however, the two systems are light years apart

Blue Club uses

4 card majors
Canape
A strong Roman 2D opening
A wide ranging NT opening that shows either 16-17 HCP balanced OR 13-15 with 3=3=2=5 / 3=3=3=4 shape

Precision uses

5 card majors
a forcing NT response
a 13-15 point weak NT opening
A convention 2♦ opening showing short Diamonds

Oh yeah, about that "strong" club opening. The Blue Club opening is 2 HCP stronger than precision and uses control showing responses.

Oh yeah, even the auctions over limited openings look nothing alike

Compare an auction like

1H - 2C
2H - 2S

in Precision and Blue Club

Better yet, compare

1H - 2C
2H - 4D

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I think that this is more a tribute to C.C. Wei's willingness to write large checks than any similarity between the various systems

rhm, on 2012-August-10, 04:11, said:

Yes, but you are forgetting randomness.

People often like to say that bidding swings X % of the imps in bridge, where x is very high. That is true, but it is often due to the randomness of system swings/bidding decisions in general. There is also randomness in cardplay like this (you could take a superior line and go down while they make, etc).

Playing weak NT will lead to a LOT of swings as opposed to strong NT for extremely random reasons. Not playing weak 2s when the field does will create a lot of swings randomly.

bjacobs, on 2012-August-08, 00:51, said:

Bill,

The fact that you are a good player that has played their system and think it is a good system is a good argument that it is a good system. The fact that fantoni/nunes play it to the success they have had is evidence supporting that it is a good system. I have not read your book, but I'm sure you make some arguments based on your own logic/experience on why it is good both theoretically and in practice.

The problem is, you will be unable to prove with the statistics you have shown that it is a good system (and probably without a bigger sample of every scenario, unable to do that with any statistics).

I am glad to hear that the quote from the OP in this thread is not verbatim, because that would be ridiculous. If you said "approximately" rather than use exact numbers like 42 % and 57 %, ok.

But from my own personal point of view, I agree with han that it just weakens your argument. Even ignoring that bidding is largely tied in to cardplay (bashing vs science on marginal game hands, aggressive lead directing bids, etc), we have no way of knowing how to break down how much is won due to superior system vs superior judgement vs the superiority of just having agreements.

Regarding the last point, one advantage that full time players who play all the time together have is more agreements. Even if those agreements are inferior, simply knowing what your agreements are in as many spots as possible is not only useful, it's a big advantage over pairs who would not know what bids meant in many auctions. I have no doubt that fantunes benefit from this, as do all the top pairs.

So even if you could make the case that fantoni/nunes are winning this amount of imps over their competition in bidding, it does not mean that they have a superior system. I personally would bet on them to win imps with any reasonable system where they had a ton of agreements (to the point that they almost always had an advantage over their competition in that department), as well as their obviously great bidding judgement. SAYC base, 2/1 base, polish club base, strong club base, fantunes, strong diamond... I would be shocked if they weren't + in the bidding by your metric playing any of these... wouldn't you? So the fact that they are plus with fantunes on your metric does not mean anything wrt it being a good system, or to the argument that if they played a better known system that they would win more imps.

So when I see numbers/claims like this used to support any kind of argument like their system is good, or part of the reason they are so good, etc it really turns me off.

Unfortunately, it is unproveable if one system is better than another, or if their system is very good and they are winning imps from it. If I read a book from a good player who has played the system and says that in his experience it really IS a good system, and then a theoretical argument was laid out as well as anecdotal evidence (but not cherry picked, unbiased), that would do a lot for me.

That said, I'm sure the numbers will do something to convince a lot of people (including the OP). I guess that is what really turns me off, numbers like this really do fool a lot of people into thinking they are more than they are, and that more solid conclusions can be drawn from them than what really can be. To me it is a cheap gimmick used by politicians, in commercials, in the news, etc to further a point. The authors can always claim that they did not mean them to be taken so solidly and were just included as a point of interest, but I think you were trying to use them to support your case that fantunes was winning some imps due to their system, when in reality they did not do anything to support your claim logically and it is possible based on those numbers that they are either winning or losing imps due to their system, especially compared to better known systems, and that is a shame since many people will think they did. Your word and experience is a much better argument.

han, on 2012-August-10, 05:33, said:

I would hope declarer can play his own cards from dummy.

Lost:


so in fact what are you saying?