[Jlall]

You are playing at the club and you hold AKQx Axxx xx KQx. Your auction goes:

1S 2N
3C 3D
3S 3N
4C 4N
5H 5N
6H ?

2N=GF spade raise
3C=minimum (typically a max of 14)
3D=asks
3S=some 5422
3N=asks
4C=5224
4N=keycard
5H=2 without the queen
5N=kings?
6H= HK, no minor suit king

Do you bid 7? Partner is me and will open aggressively including with what he has already shown so far and nothing else.

[Phil]

Probably not. While we can reverse the dummy easily enough we can only count 4 spades, AK of hearts, two heart ruffs, one diamond and three clubs. This assume partner has Jxxxx Kx Ax Axxx which is a normal opening call. The QH / JC gives us 13 and the 10C gives us close to it. The QD also gives us reasonable chances. Much more than these and this isn't a minimum.

7 feels top and bottom to me. The other players in the club cannot narrow down partner's shape this closely, so I'm not worried about others bidding 7 unless they just blast.

6 feels like a normal board and unless I really needed a top I wouldn't bid it.

[maggieb]

I can make some loose estimates. Our major sources of making 7 come from:

If clubs break, we make. (~35%)
If they don't break, but partner has the club jack, we make. (1/3 * .65)
If partner doesn't have the club jack, and clubs don't break, but he has the club ten, we can try to drop the club jack or hook it onside if 5-1 (~13% * .43).

The above is about 62%.

If partner has the heart queen (1/8) we are cold, so this is an extra 4.75%.
We're on a hook if he has the heart jack (1/8), so this is an extra 2%.
Also on a hook if he has the diam queen (1/10), so this is an extra 1.5%.
If partner is allowed to have both the heart jack and the diamond queen, there's a little bit extra there too.

So our chance of making 7 seems to be about 70%.

There are some other small things (diamond-club squeeze, picking up KQx opp A9xx, contending with a 4-0 spade break), but they aren't really important to the estimate.

[jdonn]

Maggie in many of those cases (pretty much all the ones depending on clubs) you don't (automatically) make if spades are 4-0 either way, so you probably have to reduce your estimate by 10%.

Also I think you overestimate the chances partner has all these honors. Essentially partner is less likely than just his distribution would suggest to hold any particular missing honors since he is already near his maximum, there isn't the high card room for much more.

I think it's wrong to risk 7 here. It will be an awful board if it goes down. Nothing will be wrong with our score in 6♠ whether we make 12 or 13 tricks.

[maggieb]

jdonn, on Nov 20 2009, 06:37 PM, said:

Maggie in many of those cases (pretty much all the ones depending on clubs) you don't (automatically) make if spades are 4-0 either way, so you probably have to reduce your estimate by 10%.

Also I think you overestimate the chances partner has all these honors. Essentially partner is less likely than just his distribution would suggest to hold any particular missing honors since he is already near his maximum, there isn't the high card room for much more.

LOL

[jdonn]

maggieb, on Nov 20 2009, 06:40 PM, said:

jdonn, on Nov 20 2009, 06:37 PM, said:

Maggie in many of those cases (pretty much all the ones depending on clubs) you don't (automatically) make if spades are 4-0 either way, so you probably have to reduce your estimate by 10%.

Also I think you overestimate the chances partner has all these honors. Essentially partner is less likely than just his distribution would suggest to hold any particular missing honors since he is already near his maximum, there isn't the high card room for much more.

LOL

Strange thing for an old lady to say...

[Jlall]

maggieb, on Nov 20 2009, 06:16 PM, said:

There are some other small things (diamond-club squeeze, picking up KQx opp A9xx, contending with a 4-0 spade break), but they aren't really important to the estimate.

I don't think KQx opp A9xx is a small thing. You pick up JT doubleton anywhere, stiff honor on your left, and Hx on your left while losing to JTx on your left. According to my rough estimates, you pick up clubs 12 % more often when you have the 9 compared to Axxx.

I would classify A8xx as a small thing (picking up JT, J9, T9 on your left, losing to JT9 now).

[Jlall]

jdonn, on Nov 20 2009, 06:50 PM, said:

maggieb, on Nov 20 2009, 06:40 PM, said:

jdonn, on Nov 20 2009, 06:37 PM, said:

Maggie in many of those cases (pretty much all the ones depending on clubs) you don't (automatically) make if spades are 4-0 either way, so you probably have to reduce your estimate by 10%.

Also I think you overestimate the chances partner has all these honors. Essentially partner is less likely than just his distribution would suggest to hold any particular missing honors since he is already near his maximum, there isn't the high card room for much more.

LOL

Strange thing for an old lady to say...

I think you got LOLed because you suggested reducing the estimates by 10 % for a 4-0 break. Partner can have the jack! Or you can make sometimes if partner doesn't have the jack.

Also I think the calculations underestimate ATxx opp KQx. You will frequently get some count or some read on the hand to increase your odds from normal.

[jdonn]

Yes 10% was too much, but if trumps break 4-0 you can go down even if partner has the jack, or even the jack ten. You may have to ruff two hearts in hand, the first one low... So if the answer is what, 8%, and I say 10%, maggie wets her pants?

[Jlall]

jdonn, on Nov 20 2009, 06:58 PM, said:

Yes 10% was too much, but if trumps break 4-0 you can go down even if partner has the jack, or even the jack ten. You may have to ruff two hearts in hand, the first one low... So if the answer is what, 8%, and I say 10%, maggie wets her pants?

Trumps are 4-0 ~10 % of the time (I think it's slightly less?), so 10 % would imply you are down 100 % of the time trumps are 4-0. I know you admitted this was wrong, so not trying to badger you, but similarly your new estimate of 8 % implies you are down 80 % of the times trumps are 4-0. I think that amount is still way too high.

True you might need to ruff 2 hearts, but you might not (partner could have KJ or KQ, or partner could have AQ of diamonds and the D hook can be on etc).

Even if you do need to ruff 2 hearts, half the time it is RHO who has the 4 trumps. Now there is no danger on 4-0 spades even if hearts are 5-2 unless they have the T9 (or the jack where youre down on force obv).

Obv it would be very laborious to calculate how often you're down on 4-0 trumps and there are a lot of factors (the CJ/CT/C9/HQ/HJ/DQ are all still factors of course, but i think your initial subtract 10 % was pretty LOL worthy. 8% still seems much too high to me.

[Jlall]

Not to mention that you wouldn't subtract 10 % from maggies numbers even if you went down 100 % of the times on 4-0 trumps, because maggie suggested you're only making 70 % of the time. Wouldn't you subtract 10*.7 then?

So it would have been 7 %. Even 8 % is too much since it should be 5.6%. And if you think it's more like 50 % then you should subtract 3.5% etc.

[jdonn]

When I said 10%, I meant 10% of the time she was making, so the 10% of 70% you mention. I didn't mean bump it down to 60 total! Sorry that was evident to me lol didn't realize it wasn't clear, but I guess it wasn't.

Yes it's quite hard to calculate. Let's suppose the true answer is 6%. That means my estimate was off 4%. It also means maggie's estimate was off 6% of 70% = 4.2%. That means she deserves a LOL 105% (4.2/4) the size of the one I got. LOL at you maggie! Now everyone is even.

[Jlall]

jdonn, on Nov 20 2009, 07:13 PM, said:

That means she deserves a LOL 105% (4.2/4) the size of the one I got. LOL at you maggie! Now everyone is even.

She didn't forget or miscalculate, she just determined it was a small factor, and was offset by the fact that she didn't include anything extra for hitting A9xx or A8xx with partner, so that it probably was close to a wash (since it's something that is so hard to calculate this seems like a reasonable approach to me).

[jdonn]

Wow you know a lot about what goes on in maggie's brain!

[MFA]

7

Variance is the one thing, I don't care about. I care about
1) Will some stop in 4?
2) What are my odds in 7?

I'm not sure what to expect from a US club game, but unless it's terrible, I expect the field to be in slam. Maggie's ~70% seems about right. That's enough for me.

[Jlall]

jdonn, on Nov 20 2009, 07:20 PM, said:

Wow you know a lot about what goes on in maggie's brain!

I'm not maggie, she beat me in the world championship prediction pool costing me a bottle of wine!

[jdonn]

Lol that's true. And I know for a fact you aren't her (even though someone else who will remain nameless once told me they thought you were), didn't mean if it seemed like I implied that.

[maggieb]

Justin is right about me estimating 4-0's against the other stuff as a push. In retrospect it is not really fair and 4-0 is worth worrying about way more, but I'm not going to budge my estimate by more than 2.5% for it.

I also can confirm that I am not Jlall!

So can my husband!

[junyi_zhu]

Jlall, on Nov 20 2009, 10:40 PM, said:

You are playing at the club and you hold AKQx Axxx xx KQx. Your auction goes:

1S 2N
3C 3D
3S 3N
4C 4N
5H 5N
6H ?

2N=GF spade raise
3C=minimum (typically a max of 14)
3D=asks
3S=some 5422
3N=asks
4C=5224
4N=keycard
5H=2 without the queen
5N=kings?
6H= HK, no minor suit king

Do you bid 7? Partner is me and will open aggressively including with what he has already shown so far and nothing else.

This is a hand showing how difficult to find 7S....

[kenrexford]

Yes, of course you bid the grand. Several reasons.

1. There is probably some nuanced mathematical analysis that factors in the likelihood of the grand making on power and the like. That's BS. I'm in a club game. I'm hopefully drinking enough to make the math impossible to work out anyway.

2. We are at a club game. I'll add +25% to any odds by the opponents defending wrong or biting on some ruse or saving wrong.

3. A theme -- we are at a club game. I might not need to beat out other slam bids, because no one might find this slam. However, I might need to beat those who set 5♦ 1100 or 1400 or more. The grand MAY be needed; I also might need to rewind, for that matter.