[Cyberyeti]

---

This 17 count clearly is not a good one, but how bad is it ?

I present you 2 scenarios:

Playing strong NT - it goes 1N-2♣-2♦-4N quantitative

Playing our version of weak NT - it goes 1♦-1♠-1N (15-bad 19)-2♣(asking) your options are 2♠(3 spades, not 4 hearts 15-16) or 2N(17-19 3343)

K&R gives 15.1 for it.

[mw64ahw]

In the first scenario I presume you have ~32hcp between you so hopefully partner makes up for your standalone bad 17.

In the 2nd scenario if responder is minimum you end up in 2/3N depending on what you bid-your choice. In this case you may miss the slam if bidding 2♠ even though the combined hcp is 32. With tenaces in the unbid suits I guess 2N works

[apollo1201]

Shape is bad, with no interesting spots, but our smaller honors work with bigger ones and we have no KQ or QJ tight. So I would tend to think it is only slightly below average and not worth a full downgrade.

Scenario 1 you have to accept (15-17 range, right?) given partner has likely 16 and even sometimes a not great 17. With 16, unless it is a bad one, we should accept.

With the much wider range of scenario 2 (4 pts difference), I d go for it too, the 3rd S might help, no? So it cancels a bit of the small negatives.

[mikeh]

The winning choice almost surely depends on what partner has. The ‘right’ 15 count makes slam ok…KQ10x J10x Kx AQxx. The ‘wrong’ 17 count….ugh…KQxx KJx Axxx Ax…not hopeless but one would prefer to stay out of it. Now, he’s likely driving to slam on that one…my point merely being that we’re to some degree guessing.

As for how good this 17 count is….it’s horrible, given the field of balanced 17 count hands. One clue is that we have more queens and jacks than aces and kings, and queens and jacks are overvalued by the 4321 count, while aces and kings are slightly undervalued. Plus 10s and 9s have value ignored by 4321 counting…our utter lack of any spot card is a negative factor since we usually have a couple of good spots.note that my 15 point responding hand example has both major suit 10s,giving us decent chances at either or both 4 spade winners and 3 heart winners.

Finally, 4333 opposite a balanced hand, with no 8 card fit, is maybe not as bad as 4441 but it’s another negative factor.

I don’t use K&R, if only because I don’t believe in single metric numbers, even if based on a reasonably complex scheme, but I do see hands of various shapes and point count as ‘good’, ‘bad’ or ‘average’ and use that in my go-no go or invite/give up decisions and this is definitely a ‘bad’ example.

On the first auction you gave, I’d bid 6N in a mp field simply because I expect company and I’m arrogant enough to think that I’ll play the hand better than most players in slam (although often the fate of the contract will be out of my hands) plus if we miss a making slam, some partners may be annoyed that I declined while holding a ‘maximum’. That’s not a major factor but I’d rather not try to justify staying out of a common slam that makes.

On the second sequence, I definitely show a 15-16 hand. Partner hasn’t yet asked me about slam, and I’ll happily bid slam if later given the opportunity…my valuation decision isn’t final, as it would be in the first sequence.

[Cyberyeti]

As you might guess, this is the hand opposite the one in the other evaluation thread, so you have:

---

6N (s) is a spread

Our auction was 1♦-1♠-1N-2♣-2♠-3♣-3N and now I decided as we were sitting on a 70% score well into the evening I'd do what the room would do opposite 15-16 and play there. Flat board in 3N+3 at all tables, we finished with a couple of fixes, but still won the evening comfortably.

[DavidKok]

Cyberyeti, on 2024-May-31, 05:43, said:

[..] and now I decided as we were sitting on a 70% score well into the evening I'd do what the room would do opposite 15-16 and play there.

One day people will learn math and/or check the numbers for themselves, and hopefully feel silly for comments like this. But I think it'll take quite a while indeed. This argument is a very common myth, even at high level, and it keeps surprising me how many good players throw away their scores over these superstitions.

I would have gone low on the actual deal, but not over some notion of what the room might do.

[Cyberyeti]

DavidKok, on 2024-May-31, 05:48, said:

One day people will learn math and/or check the numbers for themselves, and hopefully feel silly for comments like this. But I think it'll take quite a while indeed. This argument is a very common myth, even at high level, and it keeps surprising me how many good players throw away their scores over these superstitions.

I would have gone low on the actual deal, but not over some notion of what the room might do.

In that room, you needed a guarantee of 33-34 for most of the room to bid it, and they're all playing weak NT so I was expecting no invite opposite 15-16 to be the norm.

In a better room I'd have invited. The point was I didn't want to bid an 80% slam that failed if an average was going to be plenty good enough, there's no prize for winning by an extra 3%.

[thepossum]

Almost needs some kind of Blackwood or reverse Gerber - does such a thing exist - I have a few problems, if you can cover them (one of us can) go to 6
How about 5 diamonds means I need something here at least

As for the comment about playing the room - isn't that what pairs/duplicate is about - everyone is going to do this so I will do something else, but in this room everyone will think that way etc

[mikeh]

DavidKok, on 2024-May-31, 05:48, said:

One day people will learn math and/or check the numbers for themselves, and hopefully feel silly for comments like this. But I think it'll take quite a while indeed. This argument is a very common myth, even at high level, and it keeps surprising me how many good players throw away their scores over these superstitions.

I would have gone low on the actual deal, but not over some notion of what the room might do.

Not only do I agree with this, but I’d go further. Sometimes one just ‘feels’ the cards. Zia talks about Heat 1, Heat 2, etc. I may be thinking of something slightly different but there are sessions where it feels as if I can see through the backs of the cards, and sessions where I’m struggling to maintain focus. The former, unsurprisingly, are sessions where we’re scoring well, and the very last thing I want to do is to suddenly go ultra conservative. In the typical mp field, my partnership is on paper going to be one of the best in the room, part of that is bidding judgment. Why would I throw away that part of our advantage out of a fear that I’ll get a bad board by doing something I doubt the field would do?

In professional sports, some coaches have their team go ultra defensive if they get a big lead….the so-called prevent defence. As one analyst once said, after a huge comeback by the other team…often the only thing a prevent defence prevents is winning.

[Cyberyeti]

I liken it more to the situation at the end of a soccer game where you're 1-0 up with a minute to go and a ball is played through with you 1 on 1 with the goalkeeper from the half way line. Do you back yourself to beat him, make it 2-0 and risk giving the opps time to get the ball back up the other end of the pitch if you fail to score, or do you do the professional thing and dribble it to the corner flag and kill the clock.

[DavidKok]

I did say it would take quite a while indeed. Of course people have excuses ready, neat analogies to justify the flawed intuition. It doesn't really matter what the motivation is - as long as the resulting action is "throwing away your insight as a bidder" you have squandered an advantage.

[thepossum]

Cyberyeti, on 2024-June-02, 05:17, said:

I liken it more to the situation at the end of a soccer game where you're 1-0 up with a minute to go and a ball is played through with you 1 on 1 with the goalkeeper from the half way line. Do you back yourself to beat him, make it 2-0 and risk giving the opps time to get the ball back up the other end of the pitch if you fail to score, or do you do the professional thing and dribble it to the corner flag and kill the clock.

1 on 1 professional should go for goal - maybe depending on which player it is of course