[cherdano]

bid_em_up, on May 21 2007, 04:32 PM, said:

Jlall, on May 21 2007, 05:06 PM, said:

Quote

I also think you are mistaken about 5D being unanimous in a Master Solvers bidding panel.  If it was 100%, then it should be renamed to Master Minders instead. 

But you are entitled to your opinion, just as I am entitled to mine.

Yes but some opinions are wrong. That is the point of a message board where you discuss things, to figure out which opinion is right, or more right.

You know, originally I was going to write,

"But you are entitled to your opinion, no matter how wrong it may be, just as I am entitled to mine."

But then I thought better of it and tried to let it go with a simple statement. But that couldn't satisfy you.

Just because you think you are right and I am wrong, does not make it so. In this case, I am as equally certain that I am correct in 5D is a bad bid as you are that it is the correct bid. So we will just have to agree to disagree.

Of course you are entitled to your opinion but when ALL of the good or better players in this forum, including a few world class players, agree on this bid, and one of them claims this would be 100% unanimous in MSC, then maybe it should cause you to rethink your opinion (and there is also little point in discussing this further when pretty much everybody has already given his opinion and you don't bring up new issues).

Regarding your alert question, you are simply misunderstanding what alerts are to be used for. If you need to know s.th. about opponent's style, it is your responsibility to ask. You can't assume that opponent's would make a natural bid on the same set of hands as you, and you can't assume that they will alert whenever they bid it with some hands that you would not expect. On the same grounds they could expect you to alert when you bid 5♦ only when you have almost a make in your hand.


(Of course in real life most opponents you find in a club will have no idea on which kind of hands partner would bid 5♦.)

[foo]

foo, on May 19 2007, 02:32 PM, said:

GOP needs 4 cover cards for me to make 5D.
We may belong in 4S.  For which he needs 3 good cards opposite my hand.
Worse, =I'm in front of GOP=.  He may take me seriously and put me in 6.

Being aggressive about finding red games at IMPs does not mean one should make "Marie Antoinette" bids (those that put our head in the guillotine.).

There are too many minuses and too high a risk in bidding.
Pass.

1= My 1st post on this topic, 2 days ago mentioned the dangers of bidding on this in front of GOP. IIRC, I was the 1st person in this thread to do so.


2= No one who is talking about passing here is saying to do it just because it might be disaster. We're saying it because it is =highly likely= to be a disaster.
A direct 5D overcall of a 4H preempt with this hand at these colors is simply not the percentage action. IOW, it's a bad call and pass is a better call; not a "conservative" or "fearful" call.

Good bidding is about taking the percentage call, and although I've posted multiple evidence and logic chains that passing here is the percentage call, I have yet to see anyone from the other camp post equivalent or similar analysis.

Attempts at empty Arguments from Authority like claiming what would happen if this board was submitted to MSC are !not! evidence or logical arguments.
If you are advocating a Direct overcall of 5D here, =POST SOME D@MN LOGIC OR ANALYSIS= already.


3= The Active Ethics question. Your opponents are entitled to know your systemic agreements. That means if you use a bid or sequence in a non-Standard manner, you have the obligation to Alert. For example, NFBs are Alertable.

IMHO, if you =systemically= (not just by occasional judgment) overcall 4M with 5m this light in the Direct Seat when GOP is an unpassed hand, whether by implicit or explicit agreement, you are effectively playing a NFB style overcall here and should Alert.

IANAL, and I'd want a National TD or the equivalent to weigh in here for an authoritative opinion (is D Stephenson around?), but that's my $.02
If my partnership was regularly making direct 5m overcalls of 4M in front of partner on hands this light, I'd be alerting.


4= To Josh and Justin: I will post my analysis in full when it is done. That means I will "show my work". At that time you can judge if I have shown bias in my analysis or not.
To suggest or state a prejudice that I can not or will not do an objective analysis smacks of an Ad Hominem attack. You are both better people than that.

Frankly, I won't learn anything from biased analysis or discussion, and my primary goal at bridge is to always get better. Situations like this are potentially great learning experiences for all involved.

[foo]

bid_em_up, on May 21 2007, 05:32 PM, said:

... 5D here is a bad bid ...

When someone who calls themselves "bid_em_up" thinks bidding is a bad idea...

LOL

[bid_em_up]

foo, on May 21 2007, 05:51 PM, said:

bid_em_up, on May 21 2007, 05:32 PM, said:

... 5D here is a bad bid ...

When someone who calls themselves "bid_em_up" thinks bidding is a bad idea...

LOL

The original name was "bid_em_up_pard". It was too long for a BBO handle.

It also meant that partners never were bidding their cards to their fullest potential on the site it was originally derived on.

It really had nothing to do with my own personal bidding philosophy.

[keylime]

I couldn't in good faith, go back to my teammates and hear -16 because I didn't suck it up and bid 5♦. Pard will not hang me for bidding here unless he/she has a pretty good hand to try slam on (and should be aware of LHO's 4M tendencies).

[foo]

keylime, on May 21 2007, 05:56 PM, said:

I couldn't in good faith, go back to my teammates and hear -16 because I didn't suck it up and bid 5♦. Pard will not hang me for bidding here unless he/she has a pretty good hand to try slam on (and should be aware of LHO's 4M tendencies).

So basically Dwayne, you are bidding out of fear.

That's just as illogical as passing out of fear.

Whether you bid or pass, the action you take should be based on nothing else other than that it has the best odds of being the correct action.

[awm]

I'll agree with the many 5♦ bidders.

One point people seem to be neglecting is that the 5♦ bid doesn't have to be right for it to work. After I bid 5♦, opponents will also be put to a guess. In particular:

(1) It could be that 4♥ was making and 5♦ is down two or three. So I can go for 500 or 800 when passing would've been better. But the opponents have to find a double or else I've actually improved my result (-200 or -300 instead of -420). This is particularly problematic for opponents playing a "wide-ranging" 4♥ opening, because there are many situations where LHO has two tricks but doesn't double because opener could have zero, and opener also has two tricks (and doesn't double because partner could have anything) and I'm two off.

(2) It could be that neither 4♥ nor 5♦ was making. So I've just turned +50 into -100 or even worse when 5♦ gets doubled or goes down multiple tricks. But again, this situation may not be obvious to the opponents, and they might bid 5♥ and go down extras (possibly doubled by partner).

The passers insist that "partner is still there" but keep in mind that we have zero hearts. It is quite likely that partner has some hearts. The more hearts partner has, the less likely it is that we will see partner balancing even holding some values. The auction so far suggests that we have 11 points and zero hearts and RHO has something like 5-9 points and 7-8 hearts. So it would be quite unsurprising to find partner with the expected 9-13 points and 2-3 hearts, which is a hand that's going to pass 4♥ out. Assuming partner's hand approximately meets the expected strength (and not a lot of the values are in hearts) odds of our making 5♦ seem to be pretty good.

It would be interesting to look at a sample set of hands (although perhaps difficult because it will depend on your parameters for a 4♥ opening). But keep in mind that even if bidding 5♦ is a small expected negative on a double-dummy basis, real life opponents will probably "do the wrong thing" enough to make the bid work well in practice.

As an interesting point, change the actual set of four hands slightly, giving north the spade king. Will west even find a double now? He has two pretty sure tricks (♠A, ♦K) but he has so many hearts that he knows his side will score no heart tricks. If partner has a typical 4♥ preempt like AQJxxxxx of hearts and out, 5♦ could easily be making. It would not surprise me if LHO passed or bid 5♥ here, leading to a good result for the 5♦ bid even though it can still be set for 800 on best defense.

[mike777]

To attempt a summary:
1) Reasons to bid are we may make a double game swing or they may forget to double if we are going down.
2) Reasons not to bid, they may misplace key cards or overbid themselves. Going for 1100 vs 420 on bd 2 may be discouraging to partner for the rest of the bds, partner is flesh and blood not a robot. If we bid with a bad hand or borderline bad hand partner may make the final poor bid. Don't press and begin forcing the issue simply because you are holding borderline or bad cards. Be patient.

BTW I note every decent partner I emailed this problem to bid 5D! I passed.

[the hog]

This has been a most interesting and entertaing thread. While I would still bid 5D, I now think that bid is not nearly as obvious as I originally thought. I think by far the most telling arguments in favour of that bid are presented in Adam's post above.

[mikegill]

Guess I was late to the party here. 5♦, and it's really not close. adam summed it up very well. Passing hands like this will make life far too easy for your opponents. Partner just isn't going to be able to find a bid. Stretch to bid when you are short in the opponents' suit, particularly when you are void.

[foo]

awm, on May 21 2007, 06:16 PM, said:

I'll agree with the many 5♦ bidders.

It would be interesting to look at a sample set of hands (although perhaps difficult because it will depend on your parameters for a 4♥ opening). But keep in mind that even if bidding 5♦ is a small expected negative on a double-dummy basis, real life opponents will probably "do the wrong thing" enough to make the bid work well in practice.

I'm still cranking the math, but using the actual 4H hand and this hand, I can tell you that GOPs most likely shapes are
=5314, =6313, =6214, =6304 in that order.

Based on knowing 2 of the 4 hands, the most likely holdings for GOP are
HHxxx.xxx.x.Qxxx or HHxxx.Kxx.x.Qxxx (60*10*3*20)
HHxxx.xxx.x.xxxx or HHxxx.Kxx.x.xxxx (60*10*3*15)
HHHxx.xxx.x.Qxxx or HHHxx.Kxx.x.Qxxx (40*10*3*20)
HHHxxx.xxx.x.xxx or HHHxxx.Kxx.x.xxx (40*10*3*20)
HHHxxx.xx.x.Qxxx (40*10*3*20)
HHHxx.xxx.x.xxxx or HHHxx.Kxx.x.xxxx (40*10*3*15)
HHxxxx.xxx.x.xxx or HHxxxx.Kxx.x.xxx (30*10*3*20)
HHxxxx.xx.x.Qxxx (30*10*3*20)
HHxxxx.xx.x.xxxx (30*10*3*15)
Hxxxx.xxx.x.Qxxx or Hxxxx.Kxx.x.Qxxx (20*10*3*20)
Hxxxx.xxx.x.xxxx or Hxxxx.Kxx.x.xxxx (20*10*3*15)
where H is one of (A,K,Q,J)

Note that for any pattern, (say HHxxx.xxx.x.xxxx) any specific suit honor holding (AK,AQ,AJ,KQ,KJ,or QJ in this case) is equally likely.

THE ODDS FAVOR US BEING IN =4S=, not 5D;
and if you look at the actual board you can see that 4S or even 5S is a far better place to be than 5D.

In short, =on this board=, bidding 5D instead of passing loses because it keeps NS from considering or playing a S contract.

I want to emphasize that these are =preliminary= results based on the simpler analysis (2 known hands).

OTOH, the more complex analysis where I perturb the 4H hand across a few reasonable hand types (7-8 H's; 1-4 honors in H's; 3-S for sure and 2-S most of the time; 6-7 losers) is also returning the same result so far,
THE BIG LOSE WHEN BIDDING 5D WITH OUR HAND IS THAT WE RATE TO HAVE A S CONTRACT THAT IS BETTER.

More as I get more done.


(1) It could be that 4♥ was making and 5♦ is down two or three. So I can go for 500 or 800 when passing would've been better. But the opponents have to find a double or else I've actually improved my result (-200 or -300 instead of -420). This is particularly problematic for opponents playing a "wide-ranging" 4♥ opening, because there are many situations where LHO has two tricks but doesn't double because opener could have zero, and opener also has two tricks (and doesn't double because partner could have anything) and I'm two off.
X is =very= easy to find vs these sorts of auctions at these colors when playing IMPs.

For one thing, the scoring table is in favor of X'ing on any hint that you think you can set 5D. If the red game scores up X, you rate to only lose 1 more IMP than otherwise (750 vs 600 means -13 vs -12 and that's assuming it's not bid or X'd at the other table). OTOH, if you set it X'd, your potential gain is +5 instead of +3 if 5D is down one or +11 instead of +5 if 5D is down 2.

(Just don't X on utter trash since then "Big Blue" AKA "The Beaver" AKA XX will hit the table.)

The profitable save is also relatively easy to find at Favorable...


(2) It could be that neither 4♥ nor 5♦ was making. So I've just turned +50 into -100 or even worse when 5♦ gets doubled or goes down multiple tricks. But again, this situation may not be obvious to the opponents, and they might bid 5♥ and go down extras (possibly doubled by partner).
...and some of these are going to be problems for =everyone= ATT. OTOH, whichever side has better judgment and more discipline is going to have an advantage in decision making here.


As an interesting point, change the actual set of four hands slightly, giving north the spade king. Will west even find a double now? He has two pretty sure tricks (♠A, ♦K) but he has so many hearts that he knows his side will score no heart tricks. If partner has a typical 4♥ preempt like AQJxxxxx of hearts and out, 5♦ could easily be making. It would not surprise me if LHO passed or bid 5♥ here, leading to a good result for the 5♦ bid even though it can still be set for 800 on best defense.
Most of the time the X or bid 5H decision is going to be relatively easy at these colors when holding long H support for pard and short D's. And it's going to rate to be right.

OTOH, If W doesn't like the prospect of 5H and thinks there's 2 defensive tricks in hand, they should X at these colors at IMPs almost automatically, As I said, most of the time you are potentially risking 1 IMP to potentially gain 2 or 6 under these circumstances.

[mikeh]

foo, on May 21 2007, 11:12 PM, said:

THE BIG LOSE WHEN BIDDING 5D WITH OUR HAND IS THAT WE RATE TO HAVE A S CONTRACT THAT IS BETTER.

I find it interesting that you need to shout about this 'finding'.

I have not bothered to do a simulation on this, primarily becaue of the problematic constraints for the 4♥ bid and the subjective element of deciding what the other two players would do.

I find the suggeston that a ♠ contract will be 'better' to be virtually content-free.

It becomes meaningful only once you cater to the following factors:

1. Will partner actually reopen with 4♠ on all of the relevant hands, or will he, due to ♥ length (amongst other factors) decide to defend? This is an impossible question to answer objectively when you already 'know' all the other hands involved.

2. What will the big ♦ hand do if partner reopens 4♠? I defy any pair to both reach and stop in 4♠. The big ♦ hand will drive to slam. So, if 4♠ makes but both 5♦ and 5 or 6♠ fail, at approximately the same cost, then 5♦ will be as good as any reachable spade contract (except when partner raises to a worse ♦ slam)

3. I hope you are factoring in hands on which 5♦ is better than pass when partner cannot reopen, as well as hands on which 5♦ pushes the opps to an unmakeable 5♥, when 4♥ was making

4. Factor in hands on which 6♦ makes and partner cannot reopen

And so on: simply put, no matter how careful you are in setting constraints, your analysis will have to be incredibly detailed to be worth anything at all...and even then, I strongly suspect....heck, having done many simulations, I KNOW... that your results will be unique to you.... no two good players will agree with all of your choices of action if you have a sample large enough to be meaningful. And I doubt that anyone would or should just accept the 'results' of your analysis without a posting of all of your hands.

This is NOT a knock on you or your integrity. It reflects that, imo, this is a very, very poor situation for any simulation.

[jdonn]

foo, on May 21 2007, 05:48 PM, said:

Good bidding is about taking the percentage call, and although I've posted multiple evidence and logic chains that passing here is the percentage call, I have yet to see anyone from the other camp post equivalent or similar analysis.

Attempts at empty Arguments from Authority like claiming what would happen if this board was submitted to MSC are !not! evidence or logical arguments.
If you are advocating a Direct overcall of 5D here, =POST SOME D@MN LOGIC OR ANALYSIS= already.

Frankly Foo, the "logic" and "analysis" you posted in this thread is based on completely faulty assumptions, and used to reach conclusions that would not follow even if given your assumptions (MikeH's post is an excellent example of an instance of this, that just because 4♠ may be the right contract is not a point in favor of pass since it would be an impossible contract to reach anyway). I didn't do a point by point breakdown of any of your analyses for two reasons. One is that you never change your mind about anything despite overwhelming contrary evidence, so it would be a fruitless effort. The other is that frankly it would be impossible for me to do so accurately without coming across as extremely rude.

You say things like how your primary goal is just to get better, yet ignore better players and never let them convince you that you may have been wrong about something. I'm both as stubborn and as confident as they come, but on a number of occasions I have openly admitted that either I was wrong or that someone on the forums changed my initial view about something. And I have played and seen more hands of bridge over the last 5 years than probably almost any person who posts here but Justin.

It is not irrelevant that a majority of all players and an overwhelming majority of the best and most experienced players here feel bidding 5♦ is right. Those opinions are based on personal experience (the only accurate way to guage a situation like this), and I will take a large group of those experiences over a 2 day simulation that you perform any day of the week.

[han]

foo, on May 21 2007, 11:12 PM, said:

I'm still cranking the math, but using the actual 4H hand and this hand, I can tell you that GOPs most likely shapes are
=5314, =6313, =6214, =6304 in that order.

If you are as literate with simple probabilities as you are with computer programming then you must have noticed that these claims are way off. A simple computation shows that partner is more than 6 times as likely (45/7) to be 2-2 in the red suits than 3-0.

I'm not going to check the rest of your numbers.

[han]

In case somebody is interested, here is the calculation for 45/7. I'm going to write C(n,m) for the number of ways to choose m cards from n. If you are not familiar with this then I can't help you here.

There are 4 diamonds out, 6 hearts and 16 black cards for a total of 26.

The number of ways to get exactly 3 hearts and 0 diamonds (and 10 black cards) is therefore C(6,3)*C(16,10), while the number of ways to get 2 hearts and 2 diamonds (and 9 black cards) is C(6,2)*C(4,2)*C(16,9). When you write this out in terms of factorials and divide the second fraction by the first almost all terms cancel and you get 45/7.

[han]

mikeh, on May 22 2007, 12:00 AM, said:

It reflects that, imo, this is a very, very poor situation for any simulation.

I agree with everything you said but I do think that a simulation could be useful. Just the double dummy results (if correct) for 5D vs 4H would already tell us something more than we know now. While this will not tell us what we should bid, it will be meaningful information.

[foo]

Hannie, on May 22 2007, 01:07 AM, said:

foo, on May 21 2007, 11:12 PM, said:

I'm still cranking the math, but using the actual 4H hand and this hand, I can tell you that GOPs most likely shapes are
=5314, =6313, =6214, =6304 in that order.

If you are as literate with simple probabilities as you are with computer programming then you must have noticed that these claims are way off. A simple computation shows that partner is more than 6 times as likely (45/7) to be 2-2 in the red suits than 3-0.

I'm not going to check the rest of your numbers.

I'm not sure where you are getting your numbers, but they certainly are not taking into account that conditional probability is at work here.

For example, the simpler analysis that starts with two known hands
Given the two known hands
x.AQJTxxx.Tx.Axx and xxx..AQJ98xx.KJ9
What are GOPs most likely shapes?

S's: x.xxx.?.? (AKQJT98xx) 9/26 unused
H's: AQJTxxx..?.? (K98xxx) 6/26 unused
D's: Tx.AQJ98xx.?.? (Kxxx) 4/26 unused
C's: Axx.KJ9.?.? (QT8xxxx) 7/26 unused

Now let's say we want to create the most likely shapes for a 3rd hand given the above.
A simple procedure to do so would be to iteratively "pull" a card from the most likely suit until we have taken 13 cards.
So the 1st card would be a S (8+6+4+7= 25 left).
So would the 2nd. (7+6+4+7= 24 left)
Then a S+C (6+6+4+6= 22 left)
Then a S+H+C (5+5+4+5= 19 left)
and again S+H+C (4+4+4+4= 16 left)
We have only 3 spaces left and 4 equally probable suits they can come from, so
the last 3 cards can be any of (S+H+D, S+H+C, S+D+C, H+D+C)

A shorthand for describing the most likely "pulls" of cards for GOP is
9, 8, 7|7, 7, 6|6|6, 6|6, 6, 5|5|5, 5|5, 5, 4|4|4|4, 4|4|4, 4|4
ssscshcshc + (hdc =5314, or shd =6313 or sdc =6214 or shc =6304)

Once we know the most likely shapes, straight combinatorics gives us the likelihood of a specific pattern of honors and "x" 's in each suit.

This leads to the single most likely hand pattern for GOP to have being
HHxxx.xxx.x.Qxxx or HHxxx.Kxx.x.Qxxx (with equal weight of 60*10*3*20)

As I said before "HH" is just as likely to be "AK" as "QJ" here from the set (A,K,Q,J)

I'm certainly fallible, but I believe the logic as to the conditional probabilities is correct here.

[han]

foo, on May 22 2007, 01:58 AM, said:

Hannie, on May 22 2007, 01:07 AM, said:

foo, on May 21 2007, 11:12 PM, said:

I'm still cranking the math, but using the actual 4H hand and this hand, I can tell you that GOPs most likely shapes are
=5314, =6313, =6214, =6304 in that order.

If you are as literate with simple probabilities as you are with computer programming then you must have noticed that these claims are way off. A simple computation shows that partner is more than 6 times as likely (45/7) to be 2-2 in the red suits than 3-0.

I'm not going to check the rest of your numbers.

I'm not sure where you are getting your numbers, but they certainly are not taking into account that conditional probability is at work here.

For example, the simpler analysis that starts with two known hands
Given the two known hands
x.AQJTxxx.Tx.Axx and xxx..AQJ98xx.KJ9
What are GOPs most likely shapes?

S's: x.xxx.?.? (AKQJT98xx) 9/26 unused
H's: AQJTxxx..?.? (K98xxx) 6/26 unused
D's: Tx.AQJ98xx.?.? (Kxxx) 4/26 unused
C's: Axx.KJ9.?.? (QT8xxxx) 7/26 unused

Now let's say we want to create the most likely shapes for a 3rd hand given the above.
A simple procedure to do so would be to iteratively "pull" a card from the most likely suit until we have taken 13 cards.
So the 1st card would be a S (8+6+4+7= 25 left).
So would the 2nd. (7+6+4+7= 24 left)
Then a S+C (6+6+4+6= 22 left)
Then a S+H+C (5+5+4+5= 19 left)
and again S+H+C (4+4+4+4= 16 left)
We have only 3 spaces left and 4 equally probable suits they can come from, so
the last 3 cards can be any of (S+H+D, S+H+C, S+D+C, H+D+C)

A shorthand for describing the most likely "pulls" of cards for GOP is
9, 8, 7|7, 7, 6|6|6, 6|6, 6, 5|5|5, 5|5, 5, 4|4|4|4, 4|4|4, 4|4
ssscshcshc + (hdc =5314, or shd =6313 or sdc =6214 or shc =6304)

Once we know the most likely shapes, straight combinatorics gives us the likelihood of a specific pattern of honors and "x" 's in each suit.

This leads to the single most likely hand pattern for GOP to have being
HHxxx.xxx.x.Qxxx or HHxxx.Kxx.x.Qxxx (with equal weight of 60*10*3*20)

As I said before "HH" is just as likely to be "AK" as "QJ" here from the set (A,K,Q,J)

I'm certainly fallible, but I believe the logic as to the conditional probabilities is correct here.

My calculation is posted above, yours is nonsense.

[foo]

mikeh,

answer to p1=
The most likely H holdings in GOPs hand are any of xxx, Kxx, or xx
If the rest of the hand is suitable for a balance, especially with 5+S, would you not always balance?

answer to p2=
Do you raise all your partner's balances? Do you expect your partner to raise all of yours? I'll bet not in either case. Why should this situation be any different?

answer to p3 and p4=
The nice thing about doing things based on what cards are likely to be dealt where rather than by attempting to simulate the circumstance of a specific question is that I don't have to explicitly ask any question in order to figure out what is most likely to happen. I just have to be careful and honest about putting the cards where they are most likely to go.