[gwnn]

P_Marlowe, on Nov 18 2007, 01:15 PM, said:

And even if you loose, you may earn their respect,
because you demonstrated, that you know about restricted
choice.

Or maybe you earn their "look at this dufus who fell for it" thought.

[P_Marlowe]

gwnn, on Nov 18 2007, 06:23 AM, said:

P_Marlowe, on Nov 18 2007, 01:15 PM, said:

And even if you loose, you may earn their respect,
because you demonstrated, that you know about restricted
choice.

Or maybe you earn their "look at this dufus who fell for it" thought.

this may help as well ...

With kind regards
Marlowe

[Fluffy]

falsecard percentage with mathematical proof?, sounds like military inteligence

[gwnn]

Fluffy, on Nov 18 2007, 02:58 PM, said:

falsecard percentage with mathematical proof?, sounds like military inteligence

with the patriot act in action, you can't tell the TD if LHO peeks into your cards I think

[whereagles]

Fluffy, on Nov 18 2007, 12:58 PM, said:

falsecard percentage with mathematical proof?, sounds like military inteligence

the kind that sent 300 000 troops to eye-rak

and which might send more into eye-ran

[manudude03]

If you desperately needed it played for no losers, then I would cash the K as well. If both opps follow then the Q will drop the remaining trump. If it splits 4-1 offside, there's nothing you can do apart from maybe endplay them assuming you haven't lost a trick already. If it splits 4-1 onside, then cashing the K will find that out and then you will have to hope you can force them to ruff under you (ruff winners if you have to)

[foo]

Fluffy, on Nov 18 2007, 07:58 AM, said:

falsecard percentage with mathematical proof?, sounds like military inteligence

It really is very simple. Say you are playing the 1st board vs. a total stranger when this situation comes up. What is the right thing to do?

The math shows that apriori there is a 23% chance that LHO Falsecarded.
Thus playing LHO to have Falsecarded is not the percentage action.

Therefore, get a better count on the hand before commiting oneself if you can, but the evidence =at this point= is that you should play for split honors.

Any plan of play that differs from this is not based on Bridge logic. It is based on table feel and other such psychological considerations.

Why Justin calls this elementary exercse in mathematical logic "hopeless" is beyond me.

[jdonn]

foo, on Nov 18 2007, 01:18 PM, said:

Why Justin calls this elementary exercse in mathematical logic "hopeless" is beyond me.

And that's what makes this so funny lol.

[han]

Sadly enough, it is the mathematical abuse by people who don't have a clue that gives mathematicians a bad name. I hope dburn isn't reading foo's "mathematics".

[Stephen Tu]

Quote

And even if you loose, you may earn their respect

No, I just laugh at them in my head for insulting me. Same when they play Axxx opposite Q9xx by ace then ducking after I follow low 2nd hand from KTx/KJx (which I'll do whenever I don't think I need the tempo or need to avoid endplay, after being pissed off too many times when their theoretically flawed play picked off my JTx).

And BTW Marlowe it's spelled "lose"; "loose" is a word with a different meaning (opposite of tight) that would rarely be used in a bridge context. I know English isn't your first tongue, but it seems 90% of the native English speakers get this wrong also online, it drives me nuts. Please be better than them .

Quote

The math shows that apriori there is a 23% chance that LHO Falsecarded.
Thus playing LHO to have Falsecarded is not the percentage action.

Foo, your math is hopeless. You are counting Jx as a losing case for the drop. The drop doesn't lose there! It only matters what you do if LHO has JT, J, or JTx. Jx/Jxx doesn't matter as both lines win. JTxx doesn't matter since both lines lose. So the only thing that matters is whether LHO will play J from JTx/JT often enough to be > stiff J, which depends on your estimate of opponent's tendencies. Counting irrelevant cases is stupid, it just adds the same success/fail percentages to both sides, which won't change the comparison.

If you want to insist that 23% is the number you should use as justification against the drop (actually should be half that, since supposedly the falsecard should be the T half the time), I'll counter with "LHO only has stiff J 6.25% of the time so you shouldn't hook against someone who can falsecard", since 6.25% < 0.5(23). And I haven't even yet counted the JT case which makes it even better for the drop.
Hooking only wins if LHO has stiff J! It's only better than the drop when the opponent doesn't know to falsecard from JTx, so that the "23%" estimate drops down to say < 2%.

[Halo]

Weird post.

Maybe everyone inclduing Stephen and Jlall can just respond to the question.

Jack falls.

Drop = A
Finesse = B

A or B

Let's forget all the words and the 'wtp'. Leave foo alone. Answer the question.

[Stephen Tu]

The answer's been stated clearly many times already in this thread. Just we've had to deal with foo injecting his nonsensical arguments.

Again:
- against an opponent who you think knows that he is supposed to play J or T from JTx and will play one of the honors at least 23% * the 10.17% of time he has this holding, play for the drop.
- against someone who can't even think of why one would want to play J or T from JTx, and would always play x, play for the hook.

That's clear. What's not clear in my mind, since I have insufficient sample size, is what percentage of people fall into category 1, can falsecard, vs. category 2, can't falsecard, in :
- typical club game
- typical sectional/regional
- typical NABC+ event 1st/2nd/3rd day

Anybody have ballpark estimates? One problem with going for the hook is that your edge is fairly small vs. what you lose if you are wrong about your man, so if dealing with an unknown opp you have to feel like he is 85% in category 2 before it's +EV to hook.

[foo]

Halo, on Nov 18 2007, 05:08 PM, said:

Weird post.

Maybe everyone inclduing Stephen and Jlall can just respond to the question.

Jack falls.

Drop = A
Finesse = B

A or B

Let's forget all the words and the 'wtp'. Leave foo alone. Answer the question.

With no other information to go on; the percentage action in this situation to believe the J is an honest card and therefore to pursue plan B, to take the finesse.

It does not matter whether LHO is a stark novice or Paul Soloway.

If you make the decision to play for the drop here, line A, without any further information, you are not making that decision based on any form of probability or card logic. You are making that decision based on non mathematical factors like table feel or some other psychological factor.

There's nothing wrong with that, but it is not the technically correct play and no amount of noise to the contrary by people attempting to misuse math attempting to make it the technically correct play is going to make it so.

Deciding to play LHO to have Falsecarded here is simply not a decision based on technical grounds.

[Stephen Tu]

Foo, you are just completely out to lunch here.

It does matter if you are playing someone of the caliber of the late Paul Soloway.
Say you play the hand 1000 times and take the hook each time.
I on the other hand will play for the drop.

He will hold the stiff J about 28 times. you win here, I lose.
He will hold the JT doubleton 34 times, playing the J about 17 times. I win these while you lose.
He will hold the JTx 102 times, playing the J half or 51 times. I win these also, you lose.

Don't you see that 51 + 17 > 28?

If you want to throw in the Jx/Jxx combos (which won't happen in practice since those are silly plays if partner has Qxx/Qx), then fine, we both win those, they are irrelevant.

Quote

Deciding to play LHO to have Falsecarded here is simply not a decision based on technical grounds

It is absolutely the right mathematical play to play for the drop if you think a falsecard is possible. The hook only helps you if LHO started with a stiff J. It only hurts you if he held JT doubleton or JTx and he chose to play the J. The latter is mathematically more probable than the former as long as your opponent plays J from JTx an appreciable (11+% or so) amount of the time he is dealt that combo.

[Fluffy]

foo, on Nov 18 2007, 06:18 PM, said:

Fluffy, on Nov 18 2007, 07:58 AM, said:

falsecard percentage with mathematical proof?, sounds like military inteligence

It really is very simple. Say you are playing the 1st board vs. a total stranger when this situation comes up. What is the right thing to do?

The math shows that apriori there is a 23% chance that LHO Falsecarded.

I don't know how YOUR math works, I think you are guessing the opponent since its unknown, he will play a random card.

Well, by the time you realised that the opponent is cappable of talking the 23% is already wrong.

If he is capable of using bidding boxes then it changes again

If he had ordered a sandwich just before playing the card you might think he is not concentrated when he plays the card. It changes teh odds again.

Enuff to say humans are not predictable.

[Halo]

Stephen Tu, on Nov 18 2007, 06:06 PM, said:

The answer's been stated clearly many times already in this thread. Just we've had to deal with foo injecting his nonsensical arguments.

Again:
- against an opponent who you think knows that he is supposed to play J or T from JTx and will play one of the honors at least 23% * the 10.17% of time he has this holding, play for the drop.
- against someone who can't even think of why one would want to play J or T from JTx, and would always play x, play for the hook.

That's clear. What's not clear in my mind, since I have insufficient sample size, is what percentage of people fall into category 1, can falsecard, vs. category 2, can't falsecard, in :
- typical club game
- typical sectional/regional
- typical NABC+ event 1st/2nd/3rd day

Stephen

Glad to see you have taken up Bridge, and the behaviour of opponents is now unlcear to you.

But then that is the game.

[mikeh]

Jlall, on Nov 18 2007, 07:46 PM, said:

Hi Stephen,

You can also look for other factors such as:

Are they young? (I would be inclined to think they could falsecard)
Do they have a kibitzer?
Are they at a seeded table?
Do they play complicated methods (I think this increases the chance that they know about mandatory falsecards, though obviously it's a generalization)?
If it is not the first board of the round, did they play competently on the other round?
Are they watching whats happening or just playing their card and turning it over quickly?
Are they foreign?

These things are not foolproof but are clues at least.

If it was day 2 of an NABC or higher I would assume they could falsecard.

As an old fogey who probably knew and used this falsecard before you were born, Justin, I'd like to get morally indignant!

But I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt (that is the mellow wisdom of advanced years for you) and assume that your question 'Are they young?' is to be answered in an ACBL context, where, despite being firmly on the downhill side of life, I am still many, many years below the median/average age of the membership! So, beware.. with my balding, greying, grizzled looks, I still count as 'young' somewhere!

I have, however, found another reason to bar my kibitizer (note the singular)... for which I, and my kibitzer, are indebted to you.

I'm not sure what to do about being at a seeded table... I think I'll just ask for an EW assignment... I'll claim it's for health reasons.. at my age I need to move around a lot, and, besides, most everyone else is far older and want to remain seated.

As for complicated cards, my experience is that young players with complicated cards are so devoted to weird science that they don't learn how to actually play or defend: I remember one of Fred's posts about such a pair who self-destructed to the tune of more than 100 imps in one match. Now, I suspect that it depends what's on their card: most mad young scientists play silly stuff... I should know, I was once one of them in my infancy.

OTOH, maybe foo is right after all... at my age the ability to think critically is waning fast.......