[Fluffy]

where is Ben when you need him?

[Mbodell]

I was thinking about spot leads a while ago, and I'm not so surprised that 3 and 5 were pretty good for you, although I agree that the AK8642 is a great set.

Thinking about people who lead 4th best and typically lead from 4 or 5 card suits we can sort of estimate the odds that a spot card is led by counting the number of holdings that would lead that card. I was thinking about it from a non-betting perspective thinking if I see the 3 led from a 4th best leader what is the probability that it is a 5 card suit versus a 4 card suit. Obviously just counting holdings is a great simplification as certain holdings are more likely, the cards I hold influence things, people are more likely to lead a 5 card suit than a 4 card suit if they have both, etc.

But doing a count:

There are 220 holdings that are yyy2. I think if we assume that you only need a 2 card sequence that we only get 175 once we remove the 45 sequence holdings that lead the 2. There are no 5 card holdings that lead the 2 (playing 4th best).

There are 165 holdings that are yyy3. Again assuming the 2 card sequences I think 125 of these lead the 3. But there are another 165 holdings of yyy32 and again 125 of them lead the 3. So counting these we get 250 of them leading the 3 assuming 5th best leads.

So from a numbers perspective, assuming you usually play against 4th best players 3>2.

Doing the same for 4 we get 85 (out of 120) 4 card holdings that lead the 4 and and the same number of 5 card holdings (plus a few 6 card holdings, but I'm not counting that). So that is 170, almost as many as there were for the 2.

So my Q&D estimates give 175 for 2, 250 for 3, 170 for 4, 108 for 5, 62 for 6, and 30 for 7.

So 3 is a pretty key card IMO.

[kenrexford]

Like I said. The three is the bomb.

I also find it amusing that I wanted the odds for 5+3 over 2+4, and that WAS the key. LOL

[FrancesHinden]

This is way more hard work than our usual bet, which is one half the partnership has to offer a spread on how many pairs playing either Benjie Acol or Reverse Benjie we'll play against during an event. At least we can't manipulate this (although I suppose in a Swiss we could lose matches on purpsoe to get the count higher!)

You have to offer the market before seeing any of the field, of course.