[hrothgar]

JLOGIC, on Jul 17 2010, 01:35 AM, said:

Sorry you can't participate Richard. I think it's a little strong to say that it's an asinine decision to not allow memory aids though. A big part of bidding is knowing your system.

If there were memory aids allowed, I would just play ultimate club (I think that's the system that won challenge the champs like 10 times in a row so they had to change the format?).

Part of the tournament would then be who has the best documented system. If every bid can be defined then defining the most auctions in the best theoretical manner would be a huge edge. I don't think a good pair would be beatable ever in that format.

Also, IMO, how good a system is includes how hard is it to remember. There are a lot of auctions that can be optimized theoretically imo that aren't because there's a finite amount of memory that people have.

It seems like memory aids would turn it more into a "who has the best documented system, and which system is the best" competition. That kind of competition has merit but it's not what I think of when I think of a bidding competition.

Anyways, hopefully you can understand this point of view, I don't think the intention was ever to exclude you.

IMO allowing vs not allowing memory aids just creates 2 different types of competitions, both of them have merit but they're different, and typically no memory aids are allowed in stuff like this since it's trying to simulate real at-the-table bidding. That's not to say this way is better or worse though, but it's the way I prefer (which is why I voted against memory aids).

Hi Justin:

I think that there is a significant difference between Free and I playing MOSCITO and your adopting Ultimate Club.

The system that Free and I would be using is one that we used to play regularly and had memorized. They reason that we don't currently know the system by rote is not a question of complexity or out ability to memorize a complex system, but rather that we both have jobs that are keeping us too busy to play seriously.

If I viewed this as a real bidding contest then I would agree that these sorts of inequities would be a serious consideration. Then again, if this were a real bidding contest one would hope that there was some way to make sure that folks weren't IMing one another with the hands...

I view this as a rather amusing diversion.
I think that the most important value of the exercise is to see how people value hands and what choices that they make. To a lesser extent, I think that it is interesting to contrast what nag of tricks people have available.

I have no real interest in this event as a contest either between systems or individuals. Indeed, I'd go so far as to say that emphasizing this aspect of the exercise seems like a mistake. (If you turn this into a real contest and egos get involved people will start "cheating")

[jdonn]

I honestly think it would be silly to allow memory aids. I equate that to holding a chess contest where you have documented as many possible continuations as possible and get to use it as a memory aid. I don't think that's any more a test of chess skills than a bidding contest with memory aids is of bidding skills.

That said I wish you would participate anyway Richard although only you know if you know the system well enough. I was interested to see Moscito in action since I never really have before, I only know the very basic outline.

[hrothgar]

jdonn, on Jul 17 2010, 02:08 AM, said:

That said I wish you would participate anyway Richard although only you know if you know the system well enough. I was interested to see Moscito in action since I never really have before, I only know the very basic outline.

As I mentioned, I have little / no interest in the "contest" aspect of this.

Assuming that Free is game (and someone is willing to administer the hands) I'm happy to bid whatever...

[inquiry]

hanp, on Jul 16 2010, 09:36 AM, said:

Ben will need so many hands, he would be crazy to cook up hands to advertise his own system interests. He'll probably use bridgebrowser in some clever way to search for interesting bidding problems.
.

Ding ding ding, we have a winner....

And they are all from very LARGE tournament in the distant past, all matchpoint events, an in general ones with a lot of different results on the same hand (from denomination to level, even to which side plays the hand).

I have used some of 22 hands submitted to me by Hanoi5, and will use some more of those in later rounds. I am not sure where he got them, some he got from old articles, that I hope are not familar to the forum members.

For what it worth, this is how I find a lot of misery hands, but since I am not bidding in the contest, and no one would want to hear about misery, these are not being specifically picked. I would not be surprized if a few showed up, after all, there were 3 of them in one bridge world challenge the champ contest one month. But it is not my intent to push the rather unusual methods I prefer in this contest....

If I was going to over-under it, I would say about four.... over the 128 hands but that is a guess... (this excludes preempt which are included in misiry)....

[Free]

I understand people's motives not to allow memory aids, but I think people don't fully understand ours. The only reason we'd want to use memory aids is for the relay system after strong 1♣ to get our hand type across. Once we've shown singlesuiter/2-suiter/... it's easy and no memory aids are necessary. In slam bidding everything is calculated in steps, so there's no documentation anyway. Same for competitive bidding: no relays, so no memory aids necessary.

That being said, I'm not going to invest a bunch of time and effort to dig up MOSCITO once more, do a poor job, and burry it (because of lack of time to practice and a huge time difference). Moreover, in the unlikely event we would get a good score, some people might accuse us for cheating and that's a reputation we don't want. It's not even worth the risk.

Anyway, I'm pulling back. If Richard wants to play with someone else, it's fine with me. Bidding hands with memory aids without being in the contest is fine for me as well. That way people could see MOSCITO in action once more.

[Codo]

This is getting much too serious.... I had liked to watch mosquito and I had not cared about memory aids.

Silly descission in my view, but Ben decides and I will follow the CoC too.

[gnasher]

Quote

(For what its worth, I think that the decision to bar memory aides is asinine

Quote

Silly descission in my view

Ben asked for the views of the contestants, determined that the majority were against it, and therefore decided not to allow them. That seems to me a very reasonable approach. You may strongly disagree with the views expressed by that majority, but I don't think it's fair to criticise the decision.

I also think that when someone is donating a lot of his time for the benefit of others, words like "asinine" should be avoided.

[inquiry]

I will give free and richard the bidding hands in each round. They can bid them with all their notes. They will not be eligible to win, and they will get the hands appropriate for there placement if they were eligible each round.

Seriously, the notes will not help that much. But this seems like a reasonable option, who knows after they bid the hands a lot of us might want to change to MOSCITO.

[TimG]

inquiry, on Jul 18 2010, 09:38 AM, said:

I will give free and richard the bidding hands in each round. They can bid them with all their notes. They will not be eligible to win, and they will get the hands appropriate for there placement if they were eligible each round.

Seriously, the notes will not help that much. But this seems like a reasonable option, who knows after they bid the hands a lot of us might want to change to MOSCITO.

They might change their minds about putting in the memorization time if this becomes a monthly event?

[Codo]

inquiry, on Jul 18 2010, 11:38 PM, said:

I will give free and richard the bidding hands in each round. They can bid them with all their notes. They will not be eligible to win, and they will get the hands appropriate for there placement if they were eligible each round.

Seriously, the notes will not help that much. But this seems like a reasonable option, who knows after they bid the hands a lot of us might want to change to MOSCITO.

Great solution

[hanp]

Nice solution, glad to hear they will be bidding. Curious to see on which hands the system will help them and on which hands it will not.

[hrothgar]

Hi Ben

Thanks for agreeing to to this.

Not sure if you prefer mailing us the hands or, alternatively, having us bid on line.
If we're bidding online, it will (probably) need to be next week.

If you prefer to mail them to us, please send the South hands to rwilley@sloan.mit.edu

[jillybean]

Hi Richard, I think it would be good if you could bid them online so others can watch.

[inquiry]

hrothgar, on Jul 18 2010, 12:30 PM, said:

Hi Ben

Thanks for agreeing to to this.

Not sure if you prefer mailing us the hands or, alternatively, having us bid on line.
If we're bidding online, it will (probably) need to be next week.

If you prefer to mail them to us, please send the South hands to rwilley@sloan.mit.edu

Gavin Wolpert is gong to make the East and West hands available to anyone who isn't in the bidding contest on his webpage about the time we end round one. If you want to bid them that way, I think you can wait until he does that.

If you want me to give them to you, we will do it at a bidding table under same rules as the regular contestants, but you can use your notes. It is up to you and Fredrick. Any of the people giving the hands can do it for you if they want, or I will certainly be glad to host your table.

[mr1303]

If David Collier still reads this, would he like to participate and dig our old system out as well? There was a touch of MOSCITO in that old system.

Send me a message if interested.

Mark

[JLOGIC]

mr1303, on Jul 18 2010, 05:53 PM, said:

If David Collier still reads this, would he like to participate and dig our old system out as well? There was a touch of MOSCITO in that old system.

Send me a message if interested.

Mark

Haven't seen David on this forum in a long time unfortunately Maybe he still lurks. MickyB is still here though AFAIK and knows DavidC obv.

[Fluffy]

This is turning ridicoulous. Codo wears a note in his profile that says RKCW 1430, should we banned from winning also?

[Hanoi5]

Fluffy, on Jul 18 2010, 07:34 PM, said:

Codo wears a note in his profile that says RKCW 1430, should we banned from winning also?

No, but you may be penalized for suggesting you used RKCB.

[Codo]

Fluffy, on Jul 19 2010, 08:34 AM, said:

This is turning ridicoulous. Codo wears a note in his profile that says RKCW 1430, should we banned from winning also?

CHEATER!!! DON'T LOOK AT MY PROFILE WHILE BIDDING!!!!!

They will scan your eye movement and get you......

[Free]

Don't even look at your partner's name, as this is a memory aid for which system you play...