[kfay]

Playing money bridge what contract would you like to declare, vulnerable, after LHO opens 2♥ and RHO bid 4♥?

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[aguahombre]

Would settle for 4S redoubled.

[TWO4BRIDGE]

W ... N ... E ... S
(2H) - X - (4H) - 5H!
( p ) - 6S - all pass

[gszes]

kfay, on 2012-January-14, 12:33, said:

Playing money bridge what contract would you like to declare, vulnerable, after LHO opens 2♥ and RHO bid 4♥?

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I vote with aquahombre but if we cant force the x
I would be happy with 6s by south

[petterb]

TWO4BRIDGE, on 2012-January-14, 13:20, said:

W ... N ... E ... S
(2H) - X - (4H) - 5H!
( p ) - 6S - all pass

Why would north jump to 6♠ with a minimum takeout double and a worthless ♥K?

[aguahombre]

Before anyone else contributes to bidding theory, they might take note of what was asked in the OP.

[gnasher]

Suppose that I know hearts are 6=5. After drawing trumps and testing clubs, I'll know the diamond distribution, and will play the long hand for ♦Q. If I do find the long hand with ♦Q, I'll nearly always make. Disregarding some of the "nearly", that means I make against 60% of the 3-2s, 80% of the 4-1s and 50% of the 5-0s. (With diamonds 5=0, I'll go down on a trick-one ruff.)

Without the knowledge of the heart distribution, that would be 0.6 * 68 + 0.8 * 28 + 2% = 65%. It's probably not very different from that: the 6-5 heart break makes a 3-2 diamond break more likely, but the chance of a 5-0 break goes down too.

To justify bidding 7♠ at Chicago or aggregate, I need it to be 1530 / (750 + 1530) = 68% or better. Hence I don't bid 7♠.

I can't remember what odds I'd need at rubber.

At IMPs, where I need only a 57% chance, I would want to be in 7♠ (assuming I expected them to bid slam in the other room).

[Edited to take account of 5-0 diamonds]

This post has been edited by gnasher: 2012-January-14, 14:55

[masse24]

gnasher, on 2012-January-14, 14:49, said:

Suppose that I know hearts are 6=5. After drawing trumps and testing clubs, I'll know the diamond distribution, and will play the long hand for ♦Q. If I do find the long hand with ♦Q, I'll nearly always make. Disregarding some of the "nearly", that means I make against 60% of the 3-2s, 80% of the 4-1s and 50% of the 5-0s. (With diamonds 5=0, I'll go down on a trick-one ruff.)

Without the knowledge of the heart distribution, that would be 0.6 * 68 + 0.8 * 28 + 2% = 65%. It's probably not very different from that: the 6-5 heart break makes a 3-2 diamond break more likely, but the chance of a 5-0 break goes down too.

To justify bidding 7♠ at Chicago or aggregate, I need it to be 1530 / (750 + 1530) = 68% or better. Hence I don't bid 7♠.

I can't remember what odds I'd need at rubber.

At IMPs, where I need only a 57% chance, I would want to be in 7♠ (assuming I expected them to bid slam in the other room).

[Edited to take account of 5-0 diamonds]

[masse24]

Assuming (praying for?) nice "even" suit splits, I'd like nothing better than 7♥ redoubled.

[FrancesHinden]

On the diamonds 5-0 point, is LHO or RHO the GIB? If LHO is the GIB I'm pretty certain they won't have a side 5-card diamond suit, so I'd always manoeuvre to play in spades by South rather than North.

p.s. once you have worked out who has the long diamonds, why don't you make on 100% of the 4-1s? (less the 4-0 trumps)

[gnasher]

FrancesHinden, on 2012-January-14, 15:13, said:

p.s. once you have worked out who has the long diamonds, why don't you make on 100% of the 4-1s? (less the 4-0 trumps)

Because I'm stupid.

That would make it 0.6 * 68 + 1 * 28 + 2 = 70%, or 72% if I make against all 5-0 diamond breaks. So I do want to be in it after all.

[kfay]

Thanks Andy. Knew I could count on you!

A certain partner of mine attests he only wants to be in 6. I naively agreed to a bet on the majority preference of a few international players. One 'went low' with 6S. Another said that playing rubber the goal is to just 'be in the + column 100%' (lol?).

So aside from losing money on the actual hand (LHO was xxx AQJxxx Qx Jx), I lost money on the bet as well. Whether or not it's actually 72% I know it's at least very close to the break even point so to have four different pretty good bridge players go against me was pretty shocking.

Anyway, I'm glad at least someone agrees with me!

[Fluffy]

I am kind of novice in money bridge, but I though you have some kind of bonus for scoring the game vulnerable and being the one who closes the rubber. By doing so you score your vulnerable game, and don't let the opponents do the same. This makes calculations pretty impossible diffucult, but this leans towards staying low. Specially if opponents are vulnerable already as well.

[BunnyGo]

Fluffy, on 2012-January-15, 05:51, said:

I am kind of novice in money bridge, but I though you have some kind of bonus for scoring the game vulnerable and being the one who closes the rubber. By doing so you score your vulnerable game, and don't let the opponents do the same. This makes calculations pretty impossible diffucult, but this leans towards staying low. Specially if opponents are vulnerable already as well.

Yeah, playing rubber specifically, you like to stay lower (I don't know all the specifics), but playing chicago or other money bridge that moves no matter what you what some sort of EV calculation. Might this have been an issue with your poll kfay?

[kfay]

Hmmm... a certain partner of mine DID put "Rubber" in the e-mail poll. (It was Chicago).

I'll ask.

[JLOGIC]

kfay, on 2012-January-14, 17:17, said:

Thanks Andy. Knew I could count on you!

A certain partner of mine attests he only wants to be in 6. I naively agreed to a bet on the majority preference of a few international players. One 'went low' with 6S. Another said that playing rubber the goal is to just 'be in the + column 100%' (lol?).

That was indeed a very naive/horrible bet. Even if you are right, it is close enough that you should have known that betting that a random group of international players would agree with your side was a horrible bet. Just like in football, what may seem like a straight math decision is really dominated by risk aversion and conventional wisdom, such as comments like "take the sure vul slam" or "be in the plus column" or whatever. Especially when the math isn't totally obvious and it appears close without any paper and pen calculations, those factors are gonna dominate.

I posted a thread recently where I played for down 1 instead of the make when I had a pretty straight forward chance to make a vul game (QJx onside, with xx opp AKTxx). QJx was onside. Though I think I made the right play, I definitely would have bet that a majority of international players would have gone for the make in that spot.

So you might be a good bridge analyst, but you seem like a horrible gambler

As an aside I'm pretty sure ch00 sent this email to me, and I said I would want to be in 6, but I can find no record of this actually happening so maybe it didn't lol.

[kfay]

It's a poorly-kept secret that I am a bad gambler. That's why this particular setback was so distressing--I was trying to use it to pay off my massive gambling debts to ch00!

[jogs]

kfay, on 2012-January-16, 21:12, said:

It's a poorly-kept secret that I am a bad gambler. That's why this particular setback was so distressing--I was trying to use it to pay off my massive gambling debts to ch00!

It completely depends on how the bet was worded.

"Playing money bridge what contract would you like to declare, vulnerable, after LHO opens 2♥ and RHO bid 4♥?"

Whether you choose 6♠ or 7♠, that's the correct answer. What contract would you like to declare. It didn't ask which contract had a higher expected value.

[aguahombre]

Interesting point. Translation: Jogs is saying that a bet on what contract we would like to declare is a sure thing. A bet on what contract someone else would like to declare is a bad bet.