[virgosrock]

Partner is short in spades for the takeout double, I am short in spades. Good time to pass. My rules and/or simulations tell me they are going down at least 2.
I was shaking and trembling when I doubled ....

---

vrock

[steve2005]

Surely if your beating this 4♥ may be making.
Passing a takeout double on points with no trump tricks and possibly a double fit has all sorts of ways to go wrong. I don't care what the simulations say.

At imps wrong decision could cost over 15 imps.

At matchpoints your betting 4♥ doesn't make and 3♠ doesn't make. There is a chance but I'd rather take my chances on 4♥.

[zhasbeen]

Boy, I tell you; the robot tournaments keep throwing decisions like this at you all day long. I would not have doubled, but had I run those simulations, who knows.

I would have bit my lip, passed, and missed a cold game. If I had to bid I'd take as stab at 4 hearts, while risking a cold zero.

"Passing a takeout double on points with no trump tricks and possibly a double fit has all sorts of ways to go wrong. I don't care what the simulations say."

I agree on this one, although I thought I read that Bergen bases doubles on the "Law" even if he doesn't have a trump trick.

Maybe I would too if I was as good as him at estimating trump count for both sides. Plus you know he's going to play the spots off the cards on defense. Before the law became so widely accepted, all the books advised against doubling without trump tricks.
Btw, I do believe in the law, but after 2S-P-3S you have a lot of guessing to do. There are 3 things you know: Your hand, that EW have at least 8 spades between them, and that they stopped short of game. East could have a pretty good hand and still pass a weak 2. You can't even be sure that hearts is where you have the most combined trump for your side.

If you did take a deep breath and bid 4 hearts it's unlikely that GIB would leave it there with his hand.

Anyway, this a tough hand. With your cards there would be a lot of "darned if you do, darned if you don't" floating around in this ol' brain.

I'd like to see the traveler if it was MP or IMPS, but as far as I know you only play money bridge. My guess is that most of the field would be playing either 3S or 4H undoubled, with only a few others doing something else. It would have been a bad board for me, but not a zero.

Virgos, I think that playing more IMPS and MP would help your game. You get to compare your results with many players, and you are also able to see what the ratings are for those who enter the same tournaments as you. After the round you can see how everyone bid and played the hand, and what their scores were. Only the players who played in the same tournament have access to these clips. You can learn a lot this way, and how you stack up compared to the other players.

As you already know, most of these hands will test you, especially in the MP games, that on average have larger fields and more wild hands.

[steve2005]

zhasbeen, on 2017-November-16, 21:32, said:

I would have bit my lip, passed, and missed a cold game. If I had to bid I'd take as stab at 4 hearts, while risking a cold zero.

Pass risks a zero also.
I don't know how money bridge scored. I'm not crazy enough to play with Gib for money lol.
I imagine money bridge is like rubber bridge so passing double risks huge lose for little return. At imps/rubber is usually better to bid 1 more with a fit that hasn't been shown. Maybe you even get to double 4!s.

[zhasbeen]

steve2005, on 2017-November-16, 21:57, said:

Pass risks a zero also.
I don't know how money bridge scored. I'm not crazy enough to play with Gib for money lol.
I imagine money bridge is like rubber bridge so passing double risks huge lose for little return. At imps/rubber is usually better to bid 1 more with a fit that hasn't been shown. Maybe you even get to double 4!s.

Bad board yes, but probably not a zero. The odds could be against me on the pass--not sure. There would be plenty of doubt if I passed there, but I believe that I'll be right more often than not; not necessarily with these cards, but on tough decisions in general.

I'm now 77 deep into a study I'm doing of the 373 robot tournaments I've played at matchpoints. It compares my scores when I play the hand vs when I defend. At this point I average 65.1% when I play it vs 57.1% when I defend. I thought it would be a lot worse defending, because my perception is that I'd be below average on defense. It seems like I get a lot of bad boards, but they are the ones I tend to remember the most, which is probably true for most players. I'm thinking of going back to the beginning and breaking it down more by tracking when I double, when I let them play it undoubled for plus score, and when they make their bid. It seems like they make most of the hands I double and and I get a bad score whenever they make something. I still have a long ways to go, and these first 77 average 61.1% compared to 60.5% for all 373. I wish I could do this well in offline tournaments against humans. I average a hair under 54% there, playing fewer boards in a month than I do during 3 days of robot tournaments.

[steve2005]

zhasbeen, on 2017-November-17, 00:07, said:

Bad board yes, but probably not a zero. The odds could be against me on the pass--not sure. There would be plenty of doubt if I passed there, but I believe that I'll be right more often than not; not necessarily with these cards, but on tough decisions in general.

On actual hand 3♠ makes so yes you get 0 worse is money game and opps are doubled into game
If 3♠ down and 4♥ make this will be horrible you get 100 maybe 300 when could have 620 and risk 3SX= what 530?? to be right you need to be down very high percentage
Playing in 3♠X is huge risk if wrong opps get game if right get very little 100 or rare 300

The simulation should also look at if you make 4♥. I bet anytime your getting +300 4♥ makes

[zhasbeen]

steve2005, on 2017-November-17, 06:12, said:

On actual hand 3♠ makes so yes you get 0 worse is money game and opps are doubled into game
If 3♠ down and 4♥ make this will be horrible you get 100 maybe 300 when could have 620 and risk 3SX= what 590?? to be right you need to be down very high percentage
Playing in 3♠X is huge risk if wrong opps get game if right get very little 100 or rare 300

The simulation should also look at if you make 4♥. I bet anytime your getting +300 4♥ makes

I meant MPS. Why else would I be talking about study I'm doing about matchpoint tournaments, and estimating what people would be doing at other tables? Isn't it just you and your opponent when you play money bridge?

I was defending my judgement--seems like I do a lot of that around here. I would not be surprised at all if your simulation comment turned out to be true. I thought I made it clear that this would be a tough hand for me and that I would have gotten a bad sore by passing. What I said after that is that I'm right more often than not on tough decisions, and that is true.

It's still bridge whether you are playing for money or matchpoints. I thought this was an interesting hand so I commented.

I'd like to get some more opinions, and this is not to slight you in any way. We've all seen polls where answers vary among experts. Would this be a hand where they were unanimous in support of 4 heart bid, or would answers be split between bidding, doubling, or passing? Would answers have conditions, depending on form of scoring, vulnerability, etc ?

If that same situation were to come up later today I'd pass again, but with reservations. The one thing I don't want to do is waver back and forth, on what I do in nearly identical situations because of result I got on the last hand. That just throws me off balance and causes me to lose trust in my judgement. However, if I discovered that most experts would bid 4 hearts on this hand I'd do the same next time on a hand just like this or similar hand. It might not be as close of decision as I thought it was.

[zhasbeen]

zhasbeen, on 2017-November-17, 10:18, said:

I meant MPS. Why else would I be talking about study I'm doing about matchpoint tournaments, and estimating what people would be doing at other tables? Isn't it just you and your opponent when you play money bridge?

I was defending my judgement--seems like I do a lot of that around here. I would not be surprised at all if your simulation comment turned out to be true. I thought I made it clear that this would be a tough hand for me and that I would have gotten a bad sore by passing. What I said after that is that I'm right more often than not on tough decisions, and that is true.

It's still bridge whether you are playing for money or matchpoints. I thought this was an interesting hand so I commented.

I'd like to get some more opinions, and this is not to slight you in any way. You make intelligent comments. We've all seen polls where answers vary among experts. Would this be a hand where they were unanimous in support of 4 heart bid, or would answers be split between bidding, doubling, or passing? Would answers have conditions, depending on form of scoring, vulnerability, etc ?

If that same situation were to come up later today I'd pass again, but with reservations. The one thing I don't want to do is waver back and forth, on what I do in nearly identical situations because of result I got on the last hand. That just throws me off balance and causes me to lose trust in my judgement. However, if I discovered that most experts would bid 4 hearts on this hand I'd do the same next time on a hand just like this or similar hand. It might not be as close of decision as I thought it was. I'm always open to change and have made a few in relatively short period since I started playing again. There are others I'm still contemplating.

[steve2005]

zhasbeen, on 2017-November-17, 10:18, said:

I meant MPS.

Is money bridge if someone can enlighten on scoring in money bridge.
Am assuming similar to total points then passing double needs to be right around 80% to be good

[zhasbeen]

steve2005, on 2017-November-17, 13:17, said:

Is money bridge if someone can enlighten on scoring in money bridge.
Am assuming similar to total points then passing double needs to be right around 80% to be good

Here we go again. I played a robot tournament this morning. I didn't think it was appropriate to do an hv diagram, but I bring it up because it so related to the hands we have been discussing.

Partner passed, and RHO open 3H white. I was next (red). This was my hand, S, H, D, C:

AKQ4 K85 853 KQ8. True to my word I passed...got 3.3% on the board.

I reasoned that I was an under dog to get a plus in this hand--thinking it was unlikely if partner didn't have spade support. I didn't want to double 3-level. However on this one I did have a likely trump trick. Two pairs played in 3S making, 10 bid 4 and went down a trick, and there was one other player who sold out at 3 hearts. Both made 3.

GIB had J97653 109 94 A63. We were just talking about a hand where GIB opened a weak 2 with x J10xx 1098765 Kx. It was either yesterday or Weds. Why on earth would he open that hand and not this one??

Anyway, that is beside the point of my decision here, but something to think about. Like the other hand I'm looking for more opinions.

I managed to finish 4th with 53.95%, despite having 3 other boards of 16.7, 26.7, and 10.7 to go with this one. More tough hands--I noticed that a couple heavy hitters dropped out. I thought about it when I was 42% at half way but hung in there. The 10.7%s came later.