[Cascade]

mike777, on Jan 11 2008, 01:40 PM, said:

I thought slam tries in a major fit at the two level are common in 2/1?

1h=2c
2d=2h or

1s=2c=2h=2s

I thought these were frequent auctions.

Its all relative.

Disclaimer: I do not usually play 2/1 but I did in three events last year.

In those three events - about 17 sessions (first event 4-session pairs, second 6-session pairs, third actually a pairs and teams 7-sessions over three days) - 2/1 only came up a handful or so times. In the first event 4-sessions we never had a 2/1 auction.

2/1 auctions where you agree a suit and make a slam try at the two-level will be much more infrequent.

[fred]

kenrexford, on Jan 11 2008, 01:25 AM, said:

fred, on Jan 10 2008, 08:01 PM, said:

cherdano, on Jan 11 2008, 12:36 AM, said:

As another example, if bridge was only played in Italy I could well imagine that all experts would agree that in a 2/1-style 5-card major system, 1M 1N 2♣ has to be artificial, including some strong hands, and that it is definitely inferior to just play it as natural.

OK good example, let's assume these facts.

Now assume one day that some unknown Italian player who has never won any major championships claims "I know a better use of 2C". When he tells his idea to the experts, the typical response is:

"I have thought about this before but not in depth because intuitively it seems very wrong to me".

Is it possible the unknown player is right? Of course.

Is it likely he is right? No.

That is all I have been saying. However, I will add:

- the more experts that agree, the better the odds that they are right
- the more experience these experts have playing and thinking about the system in question, the better the odds that they are right
- if the system inventor happens to be an A1 player himself (as opposed to an unknown player) the odds of him being right go up

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

I'm sorry. I did not know that we were placing bets on this.

WTF?

I love this argument.

I ran this through a simulator. We take the known variables, which include the following:

1. I have no idea who Ken Rexford is. We'll call him A.
2. His book has been out X number of days.
3. Y number of people probably have read his book.
4. The number of people I think probably agree with his idea is B.

Then, we run it through the machine. Chunk, chunk, ching. And, bazooie! It appears that the odds of his idea being better than standard practice are (Y)(X/-A to 1.

Now, the odds of the standard idea being best is (Z)(1-X/A)+A to 1.

Therefore, I win the argument. Tada!

I am not trying to win a bidding theory argument. I am actually trying to avoid a bidding theory argument.

I am trying to offer advice to people who are not 2/1 experts and need some guidance as to how to handle these auctions. That was the original purpose of this thread, right?

And yes, it is like a bet for these people. I am claiming that in the long run they will do better by betting on methods that are universal among the best players rather than those that were invented by a random non-famous guy.

The experts could easily be wrong, but they are probably right.

For sure there are some random non-famous guys out there who are truly geniuses when it comes to bidding theory. I sincerely hope you are one of those, Ken. Also for sure there are plenty of accomplished players who are not especially good (and/or not especially interested) in such things.

Still, for less experienced players who have to choose between listening to all the leading players and some random guy, I think the choice should be easy.

In fact, I would go as far as to say that aspiring players will be much better off if they completely ignore all of the bidding theory ideas made by random non-famous guys that they encounter. For every one genius there are a lot of non-geniuses who are, intentionally or not, selling snake oil.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[jtfanclub]

fred, on Jan 10 2008, 08:01 PM, said:

- the more experts that agree, the better the odds that they are right
- the more experience these experts have playing and thinking about the system in question, the better the odds that they are right
- if the system inventor happens to be an A1 player himself (as opposed to an unknown player) the odds of him being right go up

First one is good.
Second one is good.
Third one...not so good.

Think about it for other sports:
"The more runners agree that a shoes is bad, the better odds that they are right".
Sure.
"The more experience these experts have with a shoe, the better odds they are right."
Sounds good.
"If the system inventer happens to be a great runner, the odds of it being a great shoe go up".
Ummmm, no.

Do the same thing with golfers and golf clubs, NASCAR drivers and cars, etc.

If you want to build a great system, being able to play cards well at the table, decipher when opponents are bluffing, and so forth is completley useless. Most 1A bridge players don't design their own system from scratch, and yet they seem to do all right. If I was looking for a great bridge system, I'd start with mathematicians who know bridge. Bidding can be mapped- what's important to know, what isn't, what's thrown into 'default' bids, what can be interfered with, etc. This is all just math, set theory, and flow charts. You need experts to test it out, see if it's playable, etc. But only to test it.

To think that experts in one field will therefore be experts in another field is just an inflated ego about that field. Yes, experts tinker with their systems a bit (just as drivers tinker with their cars), but just the fact that experts play a variety of systems implies that the tinkering doesn't improve it much. If it did, everybody would play the new and improved version. The reason that the changes we do see are mostly by experts is not because experts are particularly good at modifying systems, but because experts aren't willing to test systems created by non-experts. The fact that there's better people out there to do it doesn't matter if they can't get tested.

So I'm curious, Fred. Short of hiring an expert to play it, what would it take to convince you that Ken's system is superior, both in theory and in play? What if he could show over a large number of random hands that his system did a better job of telling you what you needed to know? What if he ran it against robots, and you looked at the results of the bidding (not play) against those robots? I mean, what he's discussing here isn't all that novel. He's completed ideas that to me look very similar to the old Blue Club 1♣-1M-2M auctions to me. He's just done the math to make it good in theory instead of a hodgepodge of what "seemed" good.

If you want a great sword, you don't go to a great swordsman, you go to a great blacksmith. But if all the great swordsmen refuse to try swords made by blacksmiths, it'll look like great swords come from great swordsmen.

Until a great swordsman actually gets a weapon from a great blacksmith.

Then watch out.

Quote

In fact, I would go as far as to say that aspiring players will be much better off if they completely ignore all of the bidding theory ideas made by random non-famous guys that they encounter. For every one genius there are a lot of non-geniuses who are, intentionally or not, selling snake oil.

Funny, I would say that aspiring players will be much better off if they completely ignore all of the bidding theory ideas made by random experts. They're much better off going with the advice of the Audrey Grants of the world. Of course, the experts know the Audrey Grant stuff well, and they do a much better job of describing and explaining it than, say, I would. But I notice that the random experts here tend to give advice based on

Their (the expert's) bidding judgement
Their (the expert's) play
The Standard bidding theory, regardless of what they play with regular partners (or believe is the best).

If I may be so bold, I think it's because they consider themselves experts in judgement, and play, and perhaps in what's standard, but they don't consider themselves experts in bidding theory.

[pclayton]

These discussions are very tough and emotional sometimes. We all have our 'pet' ideas that we all take psychological ownership of. To hear that they may not effective can be a real blow to our ego.

I don't have a strong feeling about patterning versus cue bidding but I do know that I don't want to reinvent the wheel every time I develop a partnership with a good player. Even if Ken is right about it, is it a clear advantage, or is it a slight advantage? And does trying to play something non-standard take priority in the hierarchy of other partnership agreements?

I think people really overemphasize the relevance of these uninterrupted auctions. You might have one per session on average. I've never truly tracked it, but in the 1st day of the Blues in San Francisco, Matt and I averaged 3 or 4 boards per session where we had the bidding to ourselves. The rest were competitive auctions or auctions the opponents were bidding. Many of the sequences we spent hours and hours on never came up.

As a result, I think all partnerships should really focus on their competitive bidding above all else. Why would you hit 5 irons all day long on the driving range (other than that its fun) when when you get out on the course you are going to be putting and chipping a lot more often?

As most of you know, I'm a big fan of Overcall Structure, and I seem to harbor some of the feelings Ken appears to have. While I hardly invented it, it seems to be one of those methods that a good player looks at and immediately dismisses as being a stupid idea. Yet it works, and it works against good players. I will admit it can work ridiculously well against weak players.

Brian and I played OS in the Spingold and we had some nice system pickups. Kokish liked it and I sent him my notes on it, so I can't help but feel it just hasn't caught on.

New ideas that are really good find their way into the expert community. Look at transfers to 1♣. Was anyone playing these 15 years ago?

[fred]

jtfanclub, on Jan 11 2008, 01:55 AM, said:

[Funny, I would say that aspiring players will be much better off if they completely ignore all of the bidding theory ideas made by random experts. They're much better off going with the advice of the Audrey Grants of the world. Of course, the experts know the Audrey Grant stuff well, and they do a much better job of describing and explaining it than, say, I would. But I notice that the random experts here tend to give advice based on

Their (the expert's) bidding judgement
Their (the expert's) play
The Standard bidding theory, regardless of what they play with regular partners (or believe is the best).

I think you have misunderstood what I meant by "aspiring players".

I meant the sort of people who have learned 2/1 and are interested enough to think about what they should do on the 3rd round of the bidding - people who are aspiring to be experts. Sorry if my terminology was confusing.

With all due respect to my dear friend Audrey, this is not the sort of question that she is qualified to answer. I would much rather get the opinion of her husband David who is one of Canada's most successful players (as well as a person who has played 2/1 for many years).

If one of Audrey's students asked her this question, I am certain her response would be the same: ask David.

For the group of players I call "beginners", I agree with you completely. These people would be very well served by paying attention to Audrey and ignoring everyone else.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[Stephen Tu]

I have to say that I am not a fan of Fred's frequent use of credential evaluation as a proxy for direct evaluation of ideas themselves.

Just because someone isn't famous, isn't spectacularly good enough in enough areas of the game to become a top player, he can't come up with a decent bidding wrinkle in some sequence? He should be dismissed by everyone and his ideas not examined because people should automatically file them under "probably crackpot?", odds not good enough that he is right? Einstein was just an unknown patent clerk when he came up with special relativity, explained Brownian motion & photoelectric effect. His ideas were dismissed by many as well. But luckily science usually eventually gets around to evaluating ideas based on their intrinsic merit & tests their validity. (I by no means equate Ken w/ Einstein, nor do I yet have opinion on whether he is right on this auction, just I would strongly prefer to see his ideas attacked on their own intrinsic merit or lack thereof.)

Of course, a random person's new idea is more likely to lack merit than a well known expert's idea. But that does not mean that we should dismiss random person's idea out of hand, nor does it mean we should blindly accept expert's idea w/o logical backing & examination.

Now certainly I agree most players should stick with mainstream methods, and it's hugely more important to improve defense, bidding judgment, card play, concentration than to work on optimizing infrequent auctions such as this one. Playing the std way leaves you more time for such things, and will improve your results faster. But I don't agree that one should just randomly assume alternative approach is inferior, and call it such, based solely on lack of fame of the presenter.

Anyway, I am now sufficiently curious to get myself a copy of Ken's book.

[655321]

jtfanclub, on Jan 10 2008, 08:55 PM, said:

fred, on Jan 10 2008, 08:01 PM, said:

- the more experts that agree, the better the odds that they are right
- the more experience these experts have playing and thinking about the system in question, the better the odds that they are right
- if the system inventor happens to be an A1 player himself (as opposed to an unknown player) the odds of him being right go up

First one is good.
Second one is good.
Third one...not so good.

Think about it for other sports:
"The more runners agree that a shoes is bad, the better odds that they are right".
Sure.
"The more experience these experts have with a shoe, the better odds they are right."
Sounds good.
"If the system inventer happens to be a great runner, the odds of it being a great shoe go up".
Ummmm, no.

Do the same thing with golfers and golf clubs, NASCAR drivers and cars, etc.

Couple of things about your interesting analogy.

1) I could go up to Tiger Woods and say "Tige, old son, your putting stroke is all wrong. Sure, I never score less than 120 myself, but I really know all about putting." What would the reponse be? (And rightly so).

2) OK, Golf club design. Perhaps a keen hacker who does not know what good golfers look for in their clubs comes up with a club that is very good for XYZ. But the top golfers say "But I don't need to do XYZ, I need to do ABC". Not getting feedback from an expert golfer has contributed to the poor design.

Bridge is a game where some people put all their energies into designing bidding systems. Often these people are not winning players - perhaps because they spend their available bridge-self-improvement hours in an area which does not contribute to success at the table. If a top player designs a gadget, the chances are better (not in all case, definitely!) that the gadget is a direct response to an actual need.

Anyway, I am not trying to cause anyone offence, and I agree with an earlier poster that ideas which are good will be accepted in time.

[fred]

Stephen Tu, on Jan 11 2008, 02:38 AM, said:

I have to say that I am not a fan of Fred's frequent use of credential evaluation as a proxy for direct evaluation of ideas themselves.

I claim that listening to players who are much more successful then you tends to be a good thing to do. Of course you should use your brain, but if you are unable to come to any conclusions then surely it is smart to listen to the stars, especially when it comes to matters where they all agree.

I practiced this myself since long before I had any credentials and I still practice this now that I have some credentials - if a player with more credentials tells me "I am right", unless I am somehow certain he is wrong (most unlikely), I will believe him. If a group of such players unanimously express the same strong opinion, it is all but certain that I would believe them.

This is nothing more than a betting strategy which I think works: if it is impossible or impractical to use logic to get an answer and your own experience and judgment isn't conclusive, then the best you can do is ask some better players what they think.

I am not using this betting strategy to evaluate the quality of ideas. I am using it to evaluate the *likely* quality of ideas. That is the best you can do when it is not possible to evaluate the quality of the ideas themselves. I have been very clear about this, either you have not noticed or you don't understand that there is a difference (or maybe you are just frustrated because you are long on ideas but short on credentials).

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[kenrexford]

A lot of the focus has been ad hominem. Well, let us look into this topic for a second. I' sure that many here would agree with and relate to some of what my thoughts are on this issue.

How, precisely, does one accomplish acclaim at the bridge table?

Some folks dedicate an amazing amount of time to the game, often even establishing careers in bridge. These folks often rise up in circles with peers who are professional players, and establish partnerships with these folks. Learn the expert standard, advance, prove the card play and skill, get the right partnerships, have success.

Others, however, never particularly gain opportunities like that. My story is probably similar to many. Play as a kid with the folks and the little brother in the small town, with basically rubber players gone duplicate. Go off to college and play with the weird guys who have some general skills but are freaks. Next step -- law school, with no one you know except the same freaks.

Then, back to small town Ohio. While working, you play with friends you meet in the small town who have some skills, but not really all that much. As you start to advance, you realize that these folks do not see the game as it is. However, that's your partner over there. You learn to mess with people, including partner, because you can. Good results in regionals, but not much else happens.

So, you end up struggling around with lesser gods and mortals, never having a chance to do anything productive. You play with a nice friend who is really hopeless in a few major events, picking up 80-some IMPs a session, only to see partner drop 80-some IMPs by answering Aces wrong.

So, how about establishing a real partnership? No one lives in your town, and every hopeless think-they-are-something in your state has a vested interest in keeping their maybe-someday-not-just-regionals partner. Plus, they are tainted by (1) assessment of your ability because of your past partners and (2) fear of your style because of observed eccentricities (strange calls made while playing bridge without a partner).

So, you decide against that nonsense, play with friends for the fun of the game, but study for the love of the game. You figure out what would work best with a real partner, one you would love to have but cannot find in your little playground in the country.

Then, along comes someone who lives in the Big City, with wild numbers of pros and real players around him, who establishes himself because of opportunity, and questions why you, without that supermarket of options, have not won the big event. Surely you must not have the talent. Surely you must be the random, non-famous guy.

My gripe is not so much with the concept. I myself would have doubts with the idea of investing much time into theory proposed by an unknown. The gripe is with someone who has credentials making evaluations of my "pet" theory with apparent ignorance and with obvious B-level theory himself. I have received enough credentialled praise that I can easily endure competent credentialled criticism. But incompetent, even if credentialled, criticism in the form of an ad hominem attack pisses me off.

[kenrexford]

Jlall, on Jan 10 2008, 09:28 PM, said:

[good analysis by Justin]

I agree with much that you have said.

Objective analysis was constantly a problem. I had editors and friend monitor me to make sure that my self-monitoring was not errant, or at least to minimize that.

I also agree that there are multiple tiers of bidding possibilities. What seems prevalent is under-developed theory generally. As it pertains to shape-versus cues after the 2-L fit establishment, I agree wholeheartedly that defining the picture jumps and establishing good rules and inferences might well work wonders. The reality is that not many do this, such that it is difficult to compare the A-level of my style with the B-level of the shape auction, and perhaps unfair. I would welcome that debate, and I would be pleased to lose it. It would be wonderful to see that style developed as deeply as I developed the Belladonna style.

I would love that bidders' challenge. Let me know when someone develops the patterning style well enough and wants that challenge.

Finally, I know that you gave a fair read and a fair analysis to my thoughts. You would. I bet you could even argue some of my suggestions better than I could, and counter them fairly with some improvements. I bet you could even guess competently as to what changes I have made with my regular (usually competent and talented, finally) partner.

[kenrexford]

I'm thinking Mark Wahlberg for the movie.

[Stephen Tu]

[Fred apparently used his admin powers to hijack my post, below is edited to make it clearer who wrote what]

Quote

Fred:
I claim that listening to players who are much more successful then you tends to be a good thing to do.

Quote

Stephen:
Who would disagree with this?  Yet somehow when I ask better players for their opinion on a bid, play line, treatment, if I do not already understand the logical reasoning behind their choice, they are able to explain it to me.  They don't resort to "I'm a star, that's why I'm right" as an explanation,

Fred:
You have been disagreeing with this (or you have not been reading my posts because that is essentially all I have been saying).

And I did not retort to "I'm a star, that's why I'm right". First of all I never claimed that I was "right" - actually I have said repeatedly "I could be wrong". Second, my personal star status did not come into play - it was the combined weight of many (all?) stars that I find to be compelling in this case.

I believe I explicitly said something like "If this was just me vs. Ken I would like his chances a lot better" - this is not about me.

Quote

Stephen:

and it makes their opinion infinitely more valuable IMO when they can explain clearly the thinking behind it.  Isn't it valuable to know how experts think, so you can try to apply similar logic in similar situations?  How would it help to know what an expert bid in a certain situation, if you yourself have no idea why he did so?  Shouldn't you ask him why, and shouldn't he be able to explain it?

Of course, but if the best he can do is "sorry I can't explain it, but my experience and judgment suggests blah", then blah still has value. And the more stars who say blah, the more likely it is that blah is true.

Quote

Stephen:

If it's truly impossible for you to evaluate an idea based on logic (which I think should be extremely rare), and you ask the better players and they also cannot offer firm logical reasoning behind their stance, then I think they shouldn't feel so strongly about it and be open to the idea that some other way might be better.  If an idea truly stinks, it should be very easy to expose the logical flaw(s) in it, not "impossible or impractical".  If it is unclear, the expert  I feel should say "Don't know, haven't really done in depth research/thought into it, but everyone does it the other way so I go along with them", rather than "everyone does it the other way, so this is probably absurd though I can't explain why".

Well I happen to think that it would be either impossible or impractical to answer this question by logic alone. It would be like trying to prove that 4-card majors is better than 5-card majors or vice versa. Good luck trying to prove things like this.

Of course you should feel free to try. I consider myself fortunate that I have better things to do with my life (and better ways to spend whatever time I have for bridge).

Quote

Stephen:

Justin actually read Ken's book, he can make arguments directly on the merits (and wrote review of said book in the big book review thread in the general forum), I give those comments a ton more weight.  Even though you have better credentials than he or anyone else here.

I agree - I would give considerably more weight to Justin's opinions about Ken's ideas than my own opinions (but only because I know he is a very good player - if he was an intermediate player who read Ken's book I really would not care what he thought of the merit of Ken's ideas).

But if you had been paying attention you will have noticed that I have not offered any opinions on the merits of Ken's work. Since I have not read his book I have no opinions. All I have said is that my instincts suggest it is clearly best to show pattern in these auctions, that I would expect almost all of my peers to agree, and that this means something.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

This post has been edited by Stephen Tu: 2008-January-11, 02:44

[inquiry]

If any two sides in the cue-bid versus the shape-out group would like to hammer this out in a bidding contest, I am willing to gather 24 hands that the auction should go 1♠-2♣-2♥-2♠ on in a game force manner.... we can set up two partnership bidding tables and let them each bid them. (BTW, we know fred is too busy for this, we want him programming not wasting time on such nonsense...so someone else will have to stand up for the shape out folks).

We would of course have to agree on what the 2♠ auctions show. Are "jacoby 2NT" hands out? (no 2NT immediately) meaning basically a five card suit for clubs? Can responder also have 4♥'s and take preference back to 2♠ on three to an honor? Etc. But once we set the requirements, I can easily harvest many, many such hands from ancient BRBR archives for use in the bidding rooms.

As an aside, here is an interesting auction.. what does 4♣s here mean (no partnership discussion, just what do you think it should mean)?

1♠ = 2♣
2♥ = 2♠
4♣ ....

[mike777]

"As an aside, here is an interesting auction.. what does 4♣s here mean (no partnership discussion, just what do you think it should mean)?

1♠ = 2♣
2♥ = 2♠
4♣ .... "

splinter


Partner just told me this is what he bids with

AKxxx..AKxx...xxx...x
I guess he prefers to pattern out via a splinter as opposed to bidding the 3 card suit.

[pclayton]

inquiry, on Jan 10 2008, 09:14 PM, said:

If any two sides in the cue-bid versus the shape-out group would like to hammer this out in a bidding contest, I am willing to gather 24 hands that the auction should go 1♠-2♣-2♥-2♠ on in a game force manner.... we can set up two partnership bidding tables and let them each bid them. (BTW, we know fred is too busy for this, we want him programming not wasting time on such nonsense...so someone else will have to stand up for the shape out folks).

We would of course have to agree on what the 2♠ auctions show. Are "jacoby 2NT" hands out? (no 2NT immediately) meaning basically a five card suit for clubs? Can responder also have 4♥'s and take preference back to 2♠ on three to an honor? Etc. But once we set the requirements, I can easily harvest many, many such hands from ancient BRBR archives for use in the bidding rooms.

As an aside, here is an interesting auction.. what does 4♣s here mean (no partnership discussion, just what do you think it should mean)?

1♠ = 2♣
2♥ = 2♠
4♣ ....

Well, I would take it as similar to what we discussed above - a 6430. Something like: KJxxxx, AKxx, QJx, void

[fred]

Stephen Tu, on Jan 11 2008, 04:08 AM, said:

[Fred apparently used his admin powers to hijack my post, below is edited to make it clearer who wrote what]

My apologies - I must have clicked "edit" instead of "quote" by mistake.

I would never intentionally edit a post made by another person.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[fred]

kenrexford, on Jan 11 2008, 03:38 AM, said:

My gripe is not so much with the concept.  I myself would have doubts with the idea of investing much time into theory proposed by an unknown.  The gripe is with someone who has credentials making evaluations of my "pet" theory with apparent ignorance and with obvious B-level theory himself.  I have received enough credentialled praise that I can easily endure competent credentialled criticism.  But incompetent, even if credentialled, criticism in the form of an ad hominem attack pisses me off.

Well your gripe is not justified since I did not evaluate your pet theory. I evaluated (in a completely unscientific way) the chances of it being better than the conventional wisdom (no pun intended) in this area. I said that my judgment suggests that cuebidding at low levels is not as effective as pattern bidding, but I have also stated (repeatedly) that my judgment could easily be wrong.

I have not insulted you the way you insulted me in the post I quoted. All I have said about you is that you are a relatively unknown player who has, to the best of my knowledge, had no significant tournament successes. These are facts, not insults, and I am sure you agree with them.

As I have said (repeatedly) these facts do not mean that your pet theory is necessarily a bad one or that they necessarily make you a B-level bidding theorist (to borrow your insult).

It is entirely possible that your lack of significant tournament successes can be attributed to geography or circumstances as you suggest. It is also possible that you simply don't play very well, that you are a terrible partner, that your pet bidding theories would be too much of a burden for anyone to play effectively, or that they don't work at all.

I don't know the real reasons why you have never won anything and frankly I don't think it matters what excuse you have for your lack of success as a player.

This thread was started by a person who is apparently not an expert at 2/1 bidding who was looking for some good practical advice. Because my name happened to appear in the subject line, I thought it would be nice for me to post my thoughts.

Meanwhile you felt the need to post some advice that I consider completely impractical for the player in question, regardless of the merits of your theories. Then you got all bent of shape because I had the gall to suggest that, if one cannot figure out something for themselves, they rate to be better served by putting their trust in the entire community of leading players rather than some random guy.

Sorry that you happened to be that random guy and that you took it so personally. It was not my intention to insult either you or your theories.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[Stephen Tu]

[On listening to successful players]:

Quote

You have been disagreeing with this

No, I have not. I never disagreed on listening to successful players, never suggested that one shouldn't listen to successful players. Where we apparently disagree is on why to listen to successful players, and whether to accept their opinions as gospel even if they can't explain them and offer no reasoning. I listen to them because they are usually the ones who are best at presenting good logical arguments. To me, credentials are only a criterion for deciding whom to ask, but not for deciding whether to end up agreeing with them -- I use the strength of their logic for that, in areas where logic can be brought to bear. You apparently accept credentials alone without a logical explanation where I do not, and also don't care what people without credentials think even if they are capable of presenting a strong logical case. I feel my approach to listening is better, because strong players are capable of being wrong/having blind spots (and if they can't come up with a compelling argument other than "most experts do this", even though they are still often right, they are much more likely to be wrong in such an area, than in an area where they do present strong reasoning), and because if an unknown/maybe weak player can present a strong case, it is possible their idea is worthwhile even though they aren't national champion caliber.

Basically there are areas in bridge where I think expert experience/judgment is a good indicator for what to do, stuff like "do I double or bid 5 over 5 here?", "balance on this hand?", basically pure judgment issues. Really the answers here are statistical in nature, but hard to model on a computer because of difficulties in setting up constraints and sometimes also uncertainty over future developments. (Or perhaps just a computer isn't on hand and you want an answer). The expert makes a judgment based on experience, and their guesses over what works best statistically tend to be much more accurate than those of lesser players.

But on things like bidding styles & treatments, I don't think expert experience/consensus (rather than logical reasoning) is anywhere near as reliable, since it is tainted by inertia/groupthink. Some areas of bidding like this one, when the auction just doesn't come up frequently, I don't think can be assumed to be thoroughly explored/optimized. After all when you are playing the same methods as everyone, you bid the same way, get same result, you aren't losing anything to them; whether to get to slam/miss slam was just a guess right? But maybe another method could make it not a guess. It is quite possible that the frequency of this auction and possible gains just make it not worth spending time optimizing here, just going along with consensus is a better use of time, but if that is the case why not just say so, without also implying that something different is very probably inferior/absurd?

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First of all I never claimed that I was "right" - actually I have said repeatedly "I could be wrong"

When you say that "I could be wrong", but then immediately follow with "all the experts including me think you are wrong, the odds are heavily in favor of you being wrong", it undermines your initial statement. Maybe you didn't claim that you are 100% right with 0% probability of being wrong, but your posts come across to me as a claim that you are 99+% sure you are right. Which I interpret as claiming you are right.

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Well I happen to think that it would be either impossible or impractical to answer this question by logic alone. It would be like trying to prove that 4-card majors is better than 5-card majors or vice versa. Good luck trying to prove things like this.

If you feel this is on par w/ 4 vs 5 cM, then why such a strong opinion about it? Just say "answer is unknown, I don't think it's worth the time to figure it out, thus suggest to play what all the experts play", rather than also including all the insinuations (unnecessary & unwarranted IMO) about inferiority/absurdity?

[dburn]

Why not play pattern-showing and cue-bidding and keep 3NT in the picture? You have lots of space, after all. Off the top of my head after about three minutes' thought:

After 1♠-2♦-2♥-2♠

2NT "Please start cue-bidding; we are not going to play 3NT"
3♣ 5=4=1=3 or 5=4=2=2 with no club guard; or 5=4=1=3 with a club guard and extra values
3♦ 5=4=3=1
3♥ Five hearts or six spades or both
3♠ 5=4=2=2 with a club guard
3NT 5=4=1=3 with a club guard and a minimum
4 any Anything you like

After 3♣, 3♦ asks and 3♥ shows 5=4=1=3 with no club guard, 3♠ shows 5=4=2=2, 3NT shows 5=4=1=3 with a club guard and a maximum.

After 3♥, 3♠ asks and the responses are whatever you like.

This takes an effort of memory, of course. But once learned, the scheme can be adapted to all three auctions in this family, e.g.

After 1♠-2♣-2♦-2♠

2NT "Please start cue-bidding; we are not going to play 3NT"
3♣ 5=3=4=1 or 5=2=4=2 with no heart guard; or 5=3=4=1 with a heart guard and extra values
3♦ 5=1=4=3
3♥ Five diamonds or six spades or both
3♠ 5=2=4=2 with a heart guard
3NT 5=3=4=1 with a heart guard and a minimum
4 any Anything you like

Of course, if you have a hand strong enough that it wants to start cue-bidding even though it has one of the shapes that could be shown otherwise, you can bid 2NT. The inference when you do show your shape is that you don't have enough to want to start cue-bidding.

Also, responder does not have to continue to ask you for your shape if he doesn't want to; he can start cue-bidding himself if that's what he feels like doing. Details left as an exercise for the reader - I'm not going to spend another whole three minutes on this.