[Bende]

I want to find a topic I remember seeing but can't find through the search functionality.

It was about a situation such as 1♥ - 3♥, where 3♥ was bid with a hesitation. The presupposition was that the hesitation as equally likely to mean that partner was choosing between 2♥/3♥ as between 3♥/4♥ (or 2NT or whatever game forcing bid was available).

Someone reasoned that although that might be true, the imp scale (I think given a situation where the contract was assumed to be 3♥ at the other table) could still favour bidding on based on the UI where it might be a bad bet to do so if partner was assumed to have a normal invite.

Anyone remember that topic?

[gwnn]

http://forums.bridge...showtopic=39045

in particular

http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?sho...ndpost&p=459781

[Bende]

Thank you!

[OleBerg]

Bende, on Jun 7 2010, 02:42 PM, said:

I want to find a topic I remember seeing but can't find through the search functionality.

It was about a situation such as 1♥ - 3♥, where 3♥ was bid with a hesitation. The presupposition was that the hesitation as equally likely to mean that partner was choosing between 2♥/3♥ as between 3♥/4♥ (or 2NT or whatever game forcing bid was available).

Someone reasoned that although that might be true, the imp scale (I think given a situation where the contract was assumed to be 3♥ at the other table) could still favour bidding on based on the UI where it might be a bad bet to do so if partner was assumed to have a normal invite.

Anyone remember that topic?

Not really. the non-linear nature of the IMP-scale is oncooperated in partners decision too. (Unless of course, my math is off as usual.)

[gwnn]

the assumptions were:
-partner has either a slightly worse or a slightly better hand than a limit raise
-opposite the "bad" hand you can get 9 tricks, opposite the "good hand" 10 tricks
-the two cases are exactly equally probable

now assumptions 2 and 3 are unclear, but if you accept them both then partner's dim-witted analysis of the imp expectancy are irrelevant.

[awm]

But the weaker hand is a priori more common and partner knows it's IMPs and pushes too...

I thought the reasoning was more along the lines of, say you have a hand that will normally make nine tricks opposite a normal limit raise. You know that partner's slow limit raise is either a lousy hand (good chance of only eight tricks) or a really good hand (good chance of ten tricks). Since there is a big difference between 4M= and 3M+1, and not so big a difference between 4M-2 and 3M-1, the IMP table favors bidding on (huge win if partner has the heavy limit raise, small loss if partner has the light limit raise).

[dburn]

awm, on Jun 7 2010, 08:17 PM, said:

But the weaker hand is a priori more common and partner knows it's IMPs and pushes too...

I thought the reasoning was more along the lines of, say you have a hand that will normally make nine tricks opposite a normal limit raise. You know that partner's slow limit raise is either a lousy hand (good chance of only eight tricks) or a really good hand (good chance of ten tricks). Since there is a big difference between 4M= and 3M+1, and not so big a difference between 4M-2 and 3M-1, the IMP table favors bidding on (huge win if partner has the heavy limit raise, small loss if partner has the light limit raise).

Not "more along the lines of" but "precisely along the lines of". Moreover, it does not matter whether or not the raiser has already included the IMP factor in his calculations or not - the problem remains the same.

The general principle is this:

the slower a call that might end the auction, the less happy the caller is that the call will end the auction, and this level of unhappiness is UI to the caller's partner.

Whereas this is conclusive in cases involving most slow doubles and almost all slow passes, it is not conclusive in the case of slow limit raises. But if one has to start from somewhere, one might as well start from here as anywhere else.