[AAr]

Say, I bid to take the game avoid bidding a slam that only has a 33% chance of making. Because of the nature of the textbook bidding of the level of the field and the hands, you expect that most of the field will be in the slam. On the lie of the cards, the lucky slam makes. But, you know that the slam only had about a 35% chance or so to make (needed a finesse to win in one suit AND either a winning finesse or a successful endplay to avoid a loser in another suit, and both finesses won).

Questions:

1. What kind of IMP result should I expect (The tourney in question is IMP Pairs.)?
2. Should my partner be happy about the expected result?
3. Should my partner be happy about my bidding?
4. Would I have gotten a better board if I went with the book and bid with the field on this particular hand?
5. Should the actual result I'm expecting help me move up in the placings, stay about the same, or hurt me as opposed if I actually bid the slam?
6. In the LONG run (not in this particular hand), would my decision I taken on this hand be a winner?
7. Would I have a valid argument that I made the correct bid (Meaning, I owe my partner an apology), or is my partner right in saying that I should have bid the slam (meaning, he owes me an apology)?
8. Would the answers to any or all of the above questions be any different if this were Matchpoints instead of IMP Pairs?


If this is any help needed to answer the question #7, I did get a poor board on this hand (Most of the field did bid the slam and made it, only a very few went down at the slam, and I only scored game, so I had a huge minus IMP score (-8, IIRC) on this one, which hurt me), but I still think my action is correct, as I would have had a good board had the slam gone down. But still, should I apologize or should my partner? And, was the poor board supposed to be any surprise or expected?

Also, the tourney in question was IMP Pairs, but would the answers to any of the above questions be different if this was instead Matchpoints?

PS: I know using the phrase "would have" weakens any argument, but it still doesn't invalidate it, does it?

[Mbodell]

All your questions boil down to the same 2 things:

1. Should you bid what has the highest expectation of scoring or should you bid what the field bids?

2. Should you bid what has the highest expectation of scoring or should you bid what turned out after the fact to have been the best bid?

I'd say it is pretty clear that with 1 you should bid what has the highest expectation of scoring EXCEPT if you are in some match position where you know going with the field will lock it up for you.

I'd say it is pretty clear with 2 that you should bid what turned out to be best if you had that knowledge at the time, but since barring psychic powers or cheating, that is impossible analyzing things like this is stupid.

This comes up all the time in poker and gambling and people who are results-oriented (meaning thinking the right play is whatever, on this board, resulted in the best result even if it was anti-percentage) after the fact are not thinking about things in the right way.

[MFA]

No matter how complicated you put things, the highest expectation follows the highest percentages.

If it's a simple game/slam decision, in the long run you will profit from the 50%+ slams and lose from the 50%- slams. So bidding the good ones is what it's all about.

Of course, at the conclusion of a tournament or a match, you might wish to either swing or go with the field. IMO however, people tend to overestimate grossly how often these considerations are called for, and to worry far too much about what is happening at the other table(s).

[gwnn]

This is the 193rd thread like this. And since the past 192 have had this calculation posted in it, this one would feel unfairly discriminated in case it would not be.

Let's consider a simple example, where we're dealing with hearts as trump and we either bid 6 or 4♥. Let's assume, for simplicity's sake, that the only question is whether we make 11 or 12 tricks and opps will never double us.

a) 11 tricks.
we bid 6: we score -50 or -100
we bid 4: we score +450 or +650

b) 12 tricks
we bid 6: we score +980 or +1430
we bid 4: we score +480 or +680

the expected score is

p*980-(1-p)*50 or p*1430-(1-p)*100
if we bid 6

or

p*450+(1-p)*480 or p*650+(1-p)*680
if we bid 4

We need the expected score of bidding slam to be larger than the expected score of not bidding slam.

After a few elementary transformations, we get the absolutely unexpected and unheard of value of p>0.5 or p>50%.

[bid_em_up]

gwnn, on Oct 22 2007, 07:17 AM, said:

After a few elementary transformations, we get the absolutely unexpected and unheard of value of p>0.5 or p>50%.

You still didnt answer his question.

Should he bid a 35% slam or not?

[bid_em_up]

I'm not going to bother to answer your questions.

This is like the umpteenth post of the same nature that you have posted asking the same thing in which you are going to get the same answers you have received in the past.

I would ask you to post the hands (along with the auction) so that others could verify your hand/percentage estimates though. It is entirely possible that what you are claiming is only a 35% slam is really 60-70%.

Somehow, I just have a hard time believing that your abilities in estimating percentages during the auction are good enough for you to "know" its only a 35% slam and yet, according to you, everyone else is bidding it.

[hrothgar]

Sorry if this sounds snarky but your sad tale of woe doesn't make any sense.

The questions that you are raising are fairly trivial. "Expected value" isn't rocket science. I'd expect any semi-serious player to understand basic issues of this type.

If your partner doesn't understand the basics, then how the hell can you expect to trust his bidding? More importantly, how is it that you are able to avoid the 35% slam that "textbook" bidding will reach time and time again?

I'd love to see the actual hand in question, along with a link to the traveller...

[Stephen Tu]

Post the actual hand & how you bid it. You are claiming that bad bidding led to a good theoretical contract (since single dummy you would not want to be in the slam), but a bad result (since double dummy it makes & the field bid it). It is quite unusual (though possible) that good "textbook" bidding would lead to an inferior contract, since good bidding is supposed to lead to good contracts. It is possible that the field all tends to bid badly on a certain type of hand, since most of the field avoid reading the bidding textbooks. Also there exist hands that hit theoretical weaknesses in standard methods. If this is truly what happened (doubtful considering your past posting history), then you don't necessarily want to follow the field. But it is also possible that both the field & you bid badly, the field by overbidding, you by choosing some weird bid that happened to work out this time but would backfire badly in the long run. It's impossible to evaluate without seeing the hand.

You'll get far more mileage by asking what you should have done on the actual hand rather than asking these silly questions about results expectations. The answer to that will never change. If you have a raw bridge score less than the field typical result, you will get a poor result on the board, period, always, and no you should not be surprised. And yes your partner will usually be upset if you took a non-std action in order to achieve this. Now, if your action actually turned out to be theoretically superior, and is the "right" bid, you should be happy you avoided the bad slam, just unhappy that the field found it & the right layout existed for it to make. That is just bad luck, and a truly good partner wouldn't be upset about you, they might be upset at the field for bidding such a bad slam.

[jdonn]

This guy sure gets a lot of attention from people who seem to be annoyed by his posts.

[ArtK78]

I am going to address this question in a non-bridge context: Specifically, poker.

Last night I played in a poker tournament. With 4 players remaining, I went all-in (bet all of my chips) on a hand which had an 83% of winning (after I found out what my opponent's cards were). My opponent called my bet. Based on my betting to that point in the hand, he should have known he was a significant underdog on the hand.

In any event, he found the 17% chance that he needed, and it knocked me out of the tournament.

Does that mean that I did the wrong thing? With 20-20 hindsight, sure. But with the odds that existed prior to the fall of the remaining cards? No. I did the right thing and lost.

You go with the odds. The fact that there is a percentage of the time that the likely result doesn't happen is why it is not a sure thing.

Stuff happens.

[AAr]

Maybe I should give up bridge and try poker. People seem to often applaud going "against the book" even when it's wrong in Poker, while in Bridge, you pretty much have to go "with the book" unless you're sure it's wrong (and even then, the opponents sometimes call you a cheat even when its right).

I don't know. I always find always playing by the book as boring, even though I would usually do better if I stick with the book.

Hand in question (So you know:)

My Hand: ♠ A52 ♥ KJ4 ♦ 1083 ♣ KQJ9
Partner's: ♠ J109 ♥ A10653 ♦ AJ65 ♣ A

Well, I did lie somewhat a little in my original post about the precise nature of the hand, but I did want to make a point. Here's how the bidding went.

Bidding (Opponents silent throughout)

Me Partner
1C 1H
1NT 3D
3NT

Most oher tables ended up in 6H and making it when both fineses won (The QH and the KQ of !Ds were all onside). My partner said we'd have ended up in 6H if I had bid the hand correctly, and we should have. I thought I bid correctly, and we would've gotten an excellent score had 6H gone down. And, as you can see, 6h was NOT a favorite to make here, but was a lucky contract.

I will admit to PLAYING the hand wrong (I did risk the contract for overtricks and got lucky the opponent misdefended for an exact make), but I thought I BID it correctly, and was unlucky that the field fixed me. I was really looking for a board where I'd make game and mostly everybody else would be down in slam.


So, who'se the blame?

[cherdano]

3N is masterminding, just bid 3H.
Sorry but I don't care about your result mongering, in a good field everybody would be in 4H, and your 3N contract would be a pretty bad score.

[BillHiggin]

AAr, on Oct 22 2007, 12:45 PM, said:

Maybe I should give up bridge and try poker. People seem to often applaud going "against the book" even when it's wrong in Poker, while in Bridge, you pretty much have to go "with the book" unless you're sure it's wrong (and even then, the opponents sometimes call you a cheat even when its right).

I don't know. I always find always playing by the book as boring, even though I would usually do better if I stick with the book.

Yes, give poker a whirl. At least your bad strategies will yield predictable results - your money will fly away from your possetion. Then, just maybe, the truth will sink in. Going against the odds has a negative expectation! You get occasional lucky results that are invariably overwhelmed by frequent poor results. Good news - at the poker table you will become very popular (this seems to be one of your concerns at bridge).

[pclayton]

Why in the world do you think the field would be climbing to 6♥ on these cards?

[AAr]

The thing is that this hand was IMP Pairs. I admit that 3NT would be a likely loser to 4H which would hurt my Matchpoint score. But, in IMP Pairs, the difference between +600 and +650 and such would be insignificent and the difference between the +600s and the -100s (12 IMPs), even if only bid in a few table would more than make up than the 2 IMP difference between 3Nt and 4H in those tables.

The problem was that most of the Field was scoring +1,430s on the actual hand, so I was losing big time even had I somehow managed to play better and score a +720. And, being in 4H for +680 wouldn't have saved me much (just 2 IMPs/table against the other game takers and nothing against anyone else).


ETA: Yeah, you don't have partners in Poker! Only opponents! That makes me want to try Poker even more!

I'm seriously wanting to try Poker (albeit free poker games, I don't want to gamble my money away on high-stakes games) give up bridge.

[bid_em_up]

cherdano, on Oct 22 2007, 12:52 PM, said:

3N is masterminding, just bid 3H.
Sorry but I don't care about your result mongering, in a good field everybody would be in 4H, and your 3N contract would be a pretty bad score.

3N may even go down...

Partner could easily hold something like xx AQ10xx AKxx xx and a spade lead will beat 3N.

No, you do not belong in 6H on these cards.

No, you did not bid your hand right. 3H is much preferable to 3N.

I don't think your partner bid his hand right either, 2D as NMF is a better choice, imo (assuming you are playing that).

If you bid 3H over 3D and partner continues any further than 4H, he needs his head adjusted. Even if partner were to cuebid 4C, you will not cooperate in the slam try and will bid 4H, he should respect this and pass 4H.

If the entire field (or even a majority of the field) is in 6H on these cards, then its a pretty bad field, imo. Either that, or there is more to the story than is being told.

[andy_h]

lol.
SA is a nice card for the red 2 suiter. KJx of hearts is also good, so I better tell partner that.

[Stephen Tu]

Quote

Most oher tables ended up in 6H and making it when both fineses won (The QH and the KQ of !Ds were all onside). My partner said we'd have ended up in 6H if I had bid the hand correctly, and we should have. I thought I bid correctly, and we would've gotten an excellent score had 6H gone down. And, as you can see, 6h was NOT a favorite to make here, but was a lucky contract.

In a good field, most pairs would not reach 6H. The field sucks if most people are getting to 6H. If you saw one or two reach it while most in 4H, well those pairs just got lucky, in the long run they will lose, just as you will lose in the long run bidding 3nt instead of 3h on these cards.

3nt, as the cards lie, is actually a good contract, but it was a sicko bid. Your partner could easily have stiff spade, 4h cold but 3nt down on spade leads. You got lucky to catch him with JT9 of spades. When you have KJx of hearts, partner wants to hear about them if he's shown a 2 suiter. Bidding 3nt concealing the heart support is just sick with the actual hand, you could justify it if your hand was instead something like AKJ xxx xxx KQJx.

Quote

I will admit to PLAYING the hand wrong (I did risk the contract for overtricks and got lucky the opponent misdefended for an exact make)

If your 3nt contract was ever at risk on these cards, you need to improve your play. This is a board where overtricks should be easy without ever putting the contract in jeopardy. In principle as the cards lie you should score 12 tricks in NT and pip the people in 4h by 10 pts, useless at IMPs but would be a good MP score.

Quote

I always find always playing by the book as boring

Maybe you have to learn to get gratification out of achieving good bridge scores (which is mainly done by avoiding mistakes), instead of gratification out of doing something weird & random. There is room for creativity in bridge but not on every board, not trying to do something different every time it's your turn. Most boards are simply about not doing something stupid. Most fields are pretty horrible, you will score well just by following the book since everyone else is often deviating from the book. Try getting pleasure out of scoring up 60+% MP sessions rather than by random triumphs on random boards by taking weird actions.

If you take up poker, for real money, you will find that you have to play by the book there also, at least at the low levels, or you will lose money at a rapid rate. "Fancy play syndrome" gets punished there also. You have to learn how to play ABC poker before you can learn when getting creative rates to help you rather than hurt you. Same as in bridge, learn how to play by the book first, then learn where you can deviate from the "field" action where the odds are with you instead of against you. Now you are trying to be different just for the sake of being different, not because it rates to increase your score. This is a partnership killer.