[straube]

I misunderstood and thought Zelandakh wanted me to preview his results before possibly sharing them with the group. Sorry Zelandakh. Well, I won't post them then. If someone is very curious they can email me for them, but I would caution that (for various reasons) they are mostly meaningless.

I've personally benefitted from this exercise and it has swayed my thinking a bit in several respects. I'm certainly less enthusiastic about SCREAM's 1H semipositive; it seemed mostly to preempt our auction and never produced a gain in subsequent competition.

I think a tendency for all of us to reach the par spot was to be expected, but I also noticed very many instances where folks submitted rather pessimistic auctions. I think I encouraged folks to give themselves the benefit of the doubt as much as I questioned outcomes that I thought were unlikely to be reached. Anyway, I agree that there is bias in the outcomes, but I think we did rather well considering. It would be lazy to look at some number at the end and announce a winner. I think, especially for such a small number of deals, that one has to look at how each system handles individual deals. Twenty-five is not nothing.

Thanks for all who participated. I'm still mulling whether or how to continue at some point. Suggestions welcome.

[hrothgar]

I consider myself lucky that I have Jack to sanity check some of my decisions

[Zelandakh]

 hrothgar, on 2013-February-08, 09:01, said:

I consider myself lucky that I have Jack to sanity check some of my decisions

The biggest differences between you and Jack came on Hand 3 (where Jack missed a game); Hand 8 (where Jack did something silly) and Hand 16 (where Jack made a SP response and you a GF one). These small changes made a massive difference in the IMP results. Incidentally, I do not have final results for you on hands 10 and 25, although I doubt either hand will result in a major swing.

[JLOGIC]

I enjoyed participating, it helped me find a couple of areas where I don't know exactly what I play or I need to improve on what I play (mainly, 4S 5H auctions after 1C 1H 1N should obviously be able to show their shortness below 3N imo, wtf!). Reading others auctions helped me see some plus sides and downsides for those systems. Even if I'm not a relayer maybe thats the way the world will go down the road and I don't want to be an old dinosaur not understanding it or adapting.

FWIW I would say I'm very lucky to even be 9th currently, there was one hand where I had to just play 6 because I didn't know if partner had 3rd round club control or not and all the relayers did know, and would have bid 7 opp the third round club control (which I would not). It would not surprise me if over a long enough sample I would be close to last in this because relays should kill me in slam bidding and esp grand slam bidding even if I am a good slam bidder in my system.

As zelandakh said I don't think this means my system is bad, the whole 1C 1H thing often allows minimal information leakage when not in the slam zone which is good, the system is incredibly easy to learn/memorize which is a plus for me, and it allows wiggle room for judgement and tactics (is this good or not? I don't know but I like it, maybe it is an unsound reason to like something though). Basically, if you're happy with your basic system and it fits your personality and memory load preferences, then go with it. This excersize can help you find some holes that you need to fix though which is very valuable.

Thanks for all the effort straube, and all the participants. It was enjoyable.

[Free]

It's not finished Justin, there are at least 75 more deals waiting for us

[straube]

 Free, on 2013-February-08, 10:28, said:

It's not finished Justin, there are at least 75 more deals waiting for us

Nice to hear a vote for that. I was thinking of breaking for awhile and in the meantime looking at 1C (1S) and other interferences. Is there any interest in that? What I was thinking is that we could offer our own coping mechanisms and then have folks who haven't suggested such (i.e. aren't biased) bid or help bid those hands for us.

[hrothgar]

 straube, on 2013-February-08, 11:28, said:

Nice to hear a vote for that. I was thinking of breaking for awhile and in the meantime looking at 1C (1S) and other interferences. Is there any interest in that? What I was thinking is that we could offer our own coping mechanisms and then have folks who haven't suggested such (i.e. aren't biased) bid or help bid those hands for us.

I'd be most interested in dealing unconstrained hands and seeing what happens.

[hrothgar]

One thing this thread has done is get me a bit more interested in relay auctions again.

I just updated my copy of Jack and am looking through the system it has implemented.
I'm considering etending my notes to cover the MOSCITO variant that Jack uses.

Who knows, I might be able to get the developers to ship an e-book version of the notes with Jack.
(I would want to get them to implement a more basic response structure to provide an easier on-ramp for new relay bidders)

[Mbodell]

 JLOGIC, on 2013-February-08, 10:02, said:

it allows wiggle room for judgement and tactics (is this good or not? I don't know but I like it, maybe it is an unsound reason to like something though)

I think it is a very sound reason to like something. After all your judgement is likely to be significantly better than most peoples. If we played the same system and it had strict rules with no or nearly no judgement then you'd end up in the same place as everyone else, including all those with much worse judgement than you.

I did really enjoy the 25 and hope we can keep doing them. I'm interested both in what my system bid is, and also how my partner and I can bid them (because your system is no good if you don't know it or can't use it). I also thought it was useful to see how everyone else bid them too.

[awm]

I suggest that you give the two hands in separate spoiler text (same thread is fine) so we can actually bid them with partners. Might reduce the bias... and we can always still look at both hands if that is easier.

[nige1]

 awm, on 2013-February-08, 16:02, said:

I suggest that you give the two hands in separate spoiler text (same thread is fine) so we can actually bid them with partners. Might reduce the bias... and we can always still look at both hands if that is easier.

In the past, when we were developing a system,

• We chose a set of hands from a magazine competition e.g. Bridge World's Challenge the Champs
• I would write down my bids on all the hands where West had the first bid and email the result.
• Partner would simultaneously do the same on all hands where East had the first bid.
• We would keep exchanging emails until all auctions were complete..
• We would keep notes of uncertainties/alternatives and discuss them afterwards.
• We would agree on a "correct" auction for each pair of hands (Often this wouldn't be an auction to the par contract)

You don't need to treat bidding Straubes hands as a bidding competition. It's a helpful exercise, anyway. For example, you can plug holes in your methods, as and when you discover them. Please would Zelandakh share his results as he goes along?

[akhare]

 hrothgar, on 2013-February-08, 11:50, said:

I'm considering etending my notes to cover the MOSCITO variant that Jack uses.

Please, please ...

[relknes]

I am currious how "Phantom Club" would perform compared to other strong/multi club systems.
For those who don't know, Phantom is an approach that treats all auctions as competitive, with 1♣ being a takeout double of clubs. Opening bids are light, usually with stronger lead directing properties than standard openings, and some hands are passed in first or second seat that others might open if the long suit is weak. This system will vary considerably from partnership to partnership depending on their style of overcalls.
I expect that it will not do so well in the slam auctions, since it is geared toward competitive bidding.

[straube]

 relknes, on 2013-February-13, 10:05, said:

I am currious how "Phantom Club" would perform compared to other strong/multi club systems.
For those who don't know, Phantom is an approach that treats all auctions as competitive, with 1♣ being a takeout double of clubs. Opening bids are light, usually with stronger lead directing properties than standard openings, and some hands are passed in first or second seat that others might open if the long suit is weak. This system will vary considerably from partnership to partnership depending on their style of overcalls.
I expect that it will not do so well in the slam auctions, since it is geared toward competitive bidding.

The basic idea of these deals was to compare strong club systems. Some systems that had an element of strength to their 1C (i.e. Polish club) entered auctions and some systems that used a strong club along with other openings (2N as 20-21 for example) also participated. Forcing pass? Well...

But I'd rather not expand this as far as Phantom Club or other systems that don't have an element of a strong club opening because then we're comparing apples and oranges.

The other thing, for late entrants, is that there is no review process. As I posted the deals, we kind of bid the hands together. As we're taking a break now, the group element is not present...and primarily is the reason I haven't been updating the outcomes so as to include late entrants.

[relknes]

 straube, on 2013-February-13, 10:46, said:

The basic idea of these deals was to compare strong club systems. Some systems that had an element of strength to their 1C (i.e. Polish club) entered auctions and some systems that used a strong club along with other openings (2N as 20-21 for example) also participated. Forcing pass? Well...

But I'd rather not expand this as far as Phantom Club or other systems that don't have an element of a strong club opening because then we're comparing apples and oranges.

The other thing, for late entrants, is that there is no review process. As I posted the deals, we kind of bid the hands together. As we're taking a break now, the group element is not present...and primarily is the reason I haven't been updating the outcomes so as to include late entrants.

Ok, sorry I posted the first two already. I will stop now. I had thought Phantom Club would qualify since you start with a 1♣ "takeout double" with any hand too strong for a smple overcall.

[straube]

No problem. Thanks.

[CamHenry]

Though I'm (another) latecomer to this exercise, I do have a question. Matt (mjj29) and I play a strong diamond system, so would it be worth me joining in a later stage? I intend to look at the auctions so far and see what I can learn, in any case.

(The reason for the strong diamond rather than club is that we didn't want an intermediate 2♣ opening, and therefore our 1♣ opening needs more room for disambiguation)

[Free]

 CamHenry, on 2013-February-20, 08:51, said:

Though I'm (another) latecomer to this exercise, I do have a question. Matt (mjj29) and I play a strong diamond system, so would it be worth me joining in a later stage? I intend to look at the auctions so far and see what I can learn, in any case.

(The reason for the strong diamond rather than club is that we didn't want an intermediate 2♣ opening, and therefore our 1♣ opening needs more room for disambiguation)

Personally I'm glad someone wants to enter strong ♦ auctions, I already noticed nobody suggested that

[CamHenry]

OK, I've done the first five. No real surprises so far.

[Lord Molyb]

I hope it is ok for me to use my self-invented forcing pass system. (It's still being edited)