[han]

Why does opening light argue against 2/1? Does your argument against opening light and playing 2/1 as gameforcing also hold when playing precision?

Why is hand 4 more offensive? By offensive I assume you mean that its expected number of tricks on offense is higher, if my assumption is incorrect let me know.

[Winstonm]

han, on Dec 6 2008, 01:51 PM, said:

Why does opening light argue against 2/1? Does your argument against opening light and playing 2/1 as gameforcing also hold when playing precision?

Why is hand 4 more offensive? By offensive I assume you mean that its expected number of tricks on offense is higher, if my assumption is incorrect let me know.

Let me take these in order

Q: Why does opening light argue against 2/1?
A: It doesn't. I believe at MPs being able to stop at 2 or 3 after a 2/1 is helpful. So my statement concerns form of scoring rather than opening style and system.

Q: Does your argument against opening light and playing 2/1 as gameforcing also hold when playing precision?
A: See first answer. I don't make the argument you infer. As for Precision, 2/1, and opening light I think it doesn't much matter. If you decide to open light, you simply have to beef up the 2/1 responses to compensate. BTW, I have played "Power Precision" which combined precision, strong NTs, and 2/1. It had no real bearing on the lower limits of opening, for me. I saw the benefit as restriction on the upper limits of the 1-bid. (And still do. This goes all the way back to Shenken's thinking on the value of strong clubs.)

Q: Why is hand 4 more offensive?
A: It has its high-card strength working in pairs and also has all of its high-card strength in its long suits.

[FrancesHinden]

Recently I've started taking more account of vulnerability when deciding whether to open light or not. Interesting that your poll doesn't mention the vul...

[han]

Winstonm, on Dec 6 2008, 02:10 PM, said:

Q: Why does opening light argue against 2/1?
A: It doesn't.  I believe at MPs being able to stop at 2 or 3 after a 2/1 is helpful.  So my statement concerns form of scoring rather than opening style and system.

I would argue that your initial statement was complete gibberish written in unintelligible language, which is why I asked you to clarify it. I still don't follow why A follows rom B the way you state that A follows from B.

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Q: Why is hand 4 more offensive?
A: It has its high-card strength working in pairs and also has all of its high-card strength in its long suits.

Yes I can see that. Unfortunately you did not answer my question about what the word offensive means so as I cannot be sure how you meant it.

One possible interpretation is that hand 4 is more offensive than hand 3 if the expected number of tricks opposite a random dummy is higher. To test this I dealt 300 deals for each hand and let dealmaster pro determine the number of double dummy tricks for each deal with hearts as trump. For hand 3 had the total number of tricks was 1412 and for hand 4 the total number of tricks was 1413. Clearly I should run a larger test if I wanted to be absolutely sure which hand is more "offensive", but it is already clear that if the expected number for hand 4 is indeed larger, it will only be larger by a very small amount.

I suggest that the matter is not as simple as you make it seem.

[han]

I wasn't quite happy with my simulation because obviously we are only interested in the number of tricks in hearts when we have a heart fit. Who cares how many tricks we take with hearts as trump when partner has short hearts, as in that case we would never declare hearts. And maybe winstonm was right that hand 4 does indeed play better when a fit is found.

The truth is it doesn't. This time I dealt 400 hands for each and I gave partner 3-4 hearts. The total number of tricks for hand 3 was 3560 and the total number of tricks for hand 4 was 3539, again a very small difference but this time in favor of hand 3.

So no, I am not convinced that the offensive potential of hand 4 is larger.

[han]

Well, of course it is also possible that the offensive potential is larger in case partner has a diamond fit so I had to check that.

I gave partner 1-2 hearts and 4-5 diamonds. In 400 deals hand 3 produced a total of 3726 tricks with diamonds as trump and hand 4 produced 3556. This is perhaps the first stattistically significant result and suggests that hand 3 is more offensive than hand 4.

[Winstonm]

Han,

That seems an awful lot of effort.

I, on the other hand, simply pulled some answers out of my ass and handed them over, confident that you would never know the difference.

You are quite right that the statment was gibberish - however, as it was made in "Authentic Frontier Gibberish" it carries the weight of law.

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I suggest that the matter is not as simple as you make it seem.

On the other han(d), I am confident that if anyone would know simple, it would be you.

[han]

Winstonm, on Dec 6 2008, 08:24 PM, said:

That seems an awful lot of effort.

Fortunately the computer was doing most of the work.

[Winstonm]

han, on Dec 6 2008, 08:40 PM, said:

Winstonm, on Dec 6 2008, 08:24 PM, said:

That seems an awful lot of effort.

Fortunately the computer was doing most of the work.

In truth, there isn't a lot of difference between #3 and #4 becasue of the change in types of high cards, rather than only position of high cards.

[awm]

I'd think the real advantage of hand four would be if you end up actually not having a good fit. If you have to play a 5-2 heart fit for example, having the extra heart honor could be quite valuable.

However, I think hands three and four are roughly equivalent in strength. I was curious whether people would be more likely to open with "honors together in suits" or with "a lot of controls" and I guess I didn't pick good examples.