[EricK]

I played some rubber bridge with some work colleagues during our lunch break yesterday. I pointed out to them beforehand that I always held terrible cards but they didn't believe me.

Of the twenty five or so hands we played, my strongest hand had 11 points. In terms of length I had two hands with 6 card suits, and no hands with voids.

Would anyone care to estimate the probability of holding such uninspiring cards?

In fact my overall strongest hand taking into account strength and length was ♠Qx ♥JTxxxx ♦xx ♣AKx. The bidding went
CHO RHO Me LHO
1♠ 2♣ 2♥ 3♣
4♥ AP
Partner came down with ♠AKJTx ♥AKxx ♦Axxx ♣---- so naturally I made 3 overtricks. Not, when all is said and done, my most enjoyable bridge session ever.

[655321]

EricK, on Apr 18 2008, 08:15 AM, said:

I played some rubber bridge with some work colleagues during our lunch break yesterday. I pointed out to them beforehand that I always held terrible cards but they didn't believe me.

Of the twenty five or so hands we played, my strongest hand had 11 points. In terms of length I had two hands with 6 card suits, and no hands with voids.

Would anyone care to estimate the probability of holding such uninspiring cards?

I am not a mathematician, but I will give it a shot:

P(X|Y) = 100%

Where:
X = the chance that Person A has (unconsciously) exaggerated their bad luck.
Y = Person A has complained about holding bad cards.

For example

If my formula is incorrect, no doubt some kind mathematician will fix it for me.

[manudude03]

After checking some website for percentages (playbridge.com - see shuffle project) and some computer work, the chances of getting a hand with 11 HCP or less is 65.18%. The chance of getting a shape with at most a 6 card suit, and no voids is 91.78% per hand. Over 25 hands, that puts your chances right down to close to 0 (0.00026%). So my guess is you've exaggerated slightly, especially since that percentage doesn't consider that only 2 hands did have 6 card suits (so that miniscule percentage could even have been 25 hands with 6 card suits). Either that or I've messed up somewhere.

[EricK]

I might have exaggerated slightly the number of hands (I did try to count them from the scoring paper but I may have accidentally counted some overtrick scores or slam bonuses as hands in their own right).

[CSGibson]

A good player never has bad cards. His queens are worth as much as other people's kings and aces, and the kings and aces are worth more still.

[jdonn]

I think on the hand your partner bid 4♥, I would have simply bid 7♥ directly. Slight difference in evaluation!

[jchiu]

EricK, on Apr 18 2008, 05:02 PM, said:

I might have exaggerated slightly the number of hands (I did try to count them from the scoring paper but I may have accidentally counted some overtrick scores or slam bonuses as hands in their own right).

Unless your company's lunch break is longer than two hours, I find it hard to imagine that you could play twenty-five hands at a comfortable pace during that time. On the other hand, if it is actually that long, is the company stock ticker SUNW?

[cherdano]

EricK, on Apr 18 2008, 07:15 AM, said:

I played some rubber bridge with some work colleagues during our lunch break yesterday. I pointed out to them beforehand that I always held terrible cards but they didn't believe me.

And you thought we would believe you? I, for my part, don't. ♥

[matmat]

ehehe

and here i was thinking this was a thread about the mechanical devices some people use to hold their cards