[Mbodell]

If you believe in Banzai points (see other forum thread) then the second one is better for NT.

Hand A is 19 Banzai points.

Hand B is 23 Banzai points.

A strong NT is 22-26 points in that system.

Most people are not a fan of that system, needless to say.

If you were willing to guarantee that my partner is either some 4333 or 4432 pattern and has 10-12 HCP then I think I'd rather have hand B. Otherwise, I'll take hand A. And I'd open both 1nt in 15-17 but I might downgrade either if I was swinging or if my NT range was 12-14 (since opening 1NT is great, not matter the range).

[Cyberyeti]

Without having done any analysis in advance just at a quick glance, I'd consider downgrading the first in 3rd seat but not first.

Why ? Well some of the distributional hands that will play well opposite all the controls can be ruled out by partner's failure to open, as can a slam where this hand may be quite good.

Do you fancy playing game opposite Jxxx, KQx, KQx, xxx, I certainly don't and this is not a bad hand for partner, I suspect most balanced 10s will struggle opposite this, so if I can rule out many of the hands where this shines (AQxxxx, x, xx, J9xx is plenty for example), I don't think it pulls its full high card weight.

[han]

Mbodell, on 2012-April-30, 03:44, said:

If you were willing to guarantee that my partner is either some 4333 or 4432 pattern and has 10-12 HCP then I think I'd rather have hand B.

Think again!

On 200 double dummy hands Hand A takes 1810 tricks in notrump and Hand B takes 1753 tricks.

Sometimes conventional wisdom is correct.

[Cyberyeti]

han, on 2012-April-30, 13:14, said:

Think again!

On 200 double dummy hands Hand A takes 1810 tricks in notrump and Hand B takes 1753 tricks.

Sometimes conventional wisdom is correct.

Try 10-11, 12s probably have enough raw grunt to make a very high percentage of the time, and you may well still be in game if you downgrade.

[rmnka447]

Marty Bergen talks about point count system discrepancies in the point values assigned to honors versus their actual value in his book on Slam Bidding. Basically, he says As and 10s are undervalued while Qs and Js (or quacks as he calls them) are overvalued. So he recommends comparing the number of As and 10s to the number of "quacks". If they are close, there is no adjustment, but if there is a large difference a point adjustment should be made.

So Hand #1 has 3 As and no quacks and is worth about a point more than actual point count.

Hand #2 has 6 quacks and 1 A (no 10s)-- a difference of 5, and is worth about 2 points less value than actual point count.

By that light, Hand 1 is Ok to open 1 NT and hand 2 is not.

[WellSpyder]

Antrax, on 2012-April-28, 23:17, said:

Oh wow, I'm terrible. I actually downgraded the first hand but not the second one...

I think it's interesting that views differ not just on whether to downgrade, but also on which hand is closer to a downgrade. Despite the majority view, I'm probably closer to your view that the first one is closer to a downgrade than the second. The second just looks like an entirely normal 1N to me. The first is trickier, since it is largely aces and spaces, with limited trick-taking potential in NT, but of course you may not end up in NT just because that is what you open. Personally, I see no reason not to open 1N, but my regular partner might well see it your way - last week he passed a very similar hand with an ace less, rather than open the equivalent of an 11-13 NT, whereas I suggested to him that two aces and a king was about as good an 11 count as he could hope for...

[han]

Cyberyeti, on 2012-April-30, 13:21, said:

Try 10-11, 12s probably have enough raw grunt to make a very high percentage of the time, and you may well still be in game if you downgrade.

I tried it, same results. Maybe it is time to accept what everybody has been saying all along, aces are good, queens and jacks are bad.

[Antrax]

It wasn't so obvious to me, so thanks, han.

[han]

I don't think that this can be obvious. Of course everybody can decude that an ace is better than a queen, but you can't easily deduce that an ace is worth a little more than 4 and a jack or queen is worth a bit less than 1 or 2. However, it is very well known, and it is often mentioned on these forums. Of course, sometimes conventional wisdom is wrong, but more often it is not.

If you want to read more (even a lot more) on this topic I recommend the website of Thomas Andrews, who spent a lot of energy on this topic. It won't make you a better bridge player though. If you just remember to appreciate your aces and not to disregard your tens, then you'll do better than most.

[gwnn]

Han, it sounds to me like your results confirm that 4321 is a pretty good estimate for NT purposes. The fact that people have been trying to meddle with Work point count in both directions (giving slightly less/slightly more to queens and jacks, the opposite for aces and maybe kings) would also point in this direction.

[Cyberyeti]

han, on 2012-May-01, 05:44, said:

I tried it, same results. Maybe it is time to accept what everybody has been saying all along, aces are good, queens and jacks are bad.

Well can you please publish the results (they will not have been identical, the numbers will have both reduced), I wanted to use them for something else, ie that opposite 10-11 (the situation that you'd face in 3rd seat as 12s would have been opened, as in fact would some of the 11s, some of which will invite if you downgrade, so this will overestimate the true trick yield) you don't want to be in 3N in either case.

I'd be astounded if 3N was with the odds opposite balanced 10s on either hand, the difficulty is identifying 11s that wouldn't open and wouldn't invite opposite a downgrade to get a true picture, but my natural inclination is moving to suggest that you downgrade both in 3rd.

[Antrax]

han, on 2012-May-01, 06:40, said:

I don't think that this can be obvious. Of course everybody can decude that an ace is better than a queen, but you can't easily deduce that an ace is worth a little more than 4 and a jack or queen is worth a bit less than 1 or 2. However, it is very well known, and it is often mentioned on these forums. Of course, sometimes conventional wisdom is wrong, but more often it is not.

Indeed. But other pieces of conventional wisdom dictate that a 4-3-3-3 pattern is bad, and that aces are better for suit contracts. The issue is to understand and be able to balance the contradictory notions, I believe.

[gwnn]

Antrax, on 2012-May-01, 08:57, said:

Indeed. But other pieces of conventional wisdom dictate that a 4-3-3-3 pattern is bad, and that aces are better for suit contracts. The issue is to understand and be able to balance the contradictory notions, I believe.

I think 6421 (plus something for shortness) for suit contracts and 4321 for NT (plus a little something for a 5- or 6-card suit and a bit for tens) is fine and probably as far as you want to go into numerical hand evaluation (note that most experts don't even bother to use 6421, it is more subconscious). The important point to make is that aces are not overvalued in 4321 for notrump, it is just that they are less undervalued than for suit contracts.

[han]

Antrax, on 2012-May-01, 08:57, said:

Indeed. But other pieces of conventional wisdom dictate that a 4-3-3-3 pattern is bad, and that aces are better for suit contracts. The issue is to understand and be able to balance the contradictory notions, I believe.

I don't see any contradictory notions. Aces are good. They are good for notrump, and they are even better for shapely hands. That's no contradiction.

4333 is bad, although not nearly as bad as the religious nutcases who subtract a full point make it sound. Maybe subtracting one fifth of a point is more accurate. Note that we were comparing two different 4333 hands, so the 4333ness isn't an issues since they both suffer from it.

As gwnn said, the 4321 count really is quite good, certainly for balanced hands. Don't believe those experts that tell you they don't count points. They do. For unbalanced hands kings and especially aces are worth more, particularly when you have a good fit.

For slam purposes you want to stop counting points at some point during the auction and try to visualise possible hands for partner to see how likely possible slams will play. You'll sometimes want to do that for game hands as well, depending on the kind of hand you hold and what you know about partner's hand.

[han]

Cyberyeti, on 2012-May-01, 07:07, said:

Well can you please publish the results (they will not have been identical, the numbers will have both reduced).

1765 vs 1720.

If you find those numbers interesting I suggest downloading Thomas Andrews' Deal. It's free and it is good.

[nigel_k]

gwnn, on 2012-May-01, 06:48, said:

Han, it sounds to me like your results confirm that 4321 is a pretty good estimate for NT purposes. The fact that people have been trying to meddle with Work point count in both directions (giving slightly less/slightly more to queens and jacks, the opposite for aces and maybe kings) would also point in this direction.

4321 is fine when you play in NT and both hands are balanced. But neither of those can be known when you are considering the opening bid. For example, it makes sense to use 4321 when raising partner's 1NT opening and use ZAR after an opening one of a major has been raised. But people seem to rely on these things too much on opening bid questions where to me it makes more sense to do something in between until you find out more.

[Zelandakh]

gwnn, on 2012-May-01, 09:03, said:

I think 6421 (plus something for shortness) for suit contracts

It is worth pointing out that 6/4/2/1 is functionally identical to 3/2/1/0.5 and 4.5/3/1.5/0.75 as well as to MLTC with -0.25 losers adjusted for a jack. The second of these (Ace = 4.5, etc) is closest to Milton and probably the best option for intermediates looking to add adjustements to their normal point count methods. I have posted before that I think it is better still to decide whether/how much to deduct for quacks by the honour combination that they appear in (eg xx/KJTxx is better than KT/Jxxxx).

[Mbodell]

han, on 2012-May-01, 05:44, said:

I tried it, same results. Maybe it is time to accept what everybody has been saying all along, aces are good, queens and jacks are bad.

I ran two sets of 10,000 board experiments for 10-12 and 10-11 range. The first there were no restrictions on W shape. For 10-12 I got:

Hand A makes 3nt 73.8% of the time and averages 9.03 tricks.

Hand B makes 3nt 63.1% of the time and averages 8.79 tricks.

For a 10-11 range I got:

Hand A makes 3nt 67.3% of the time and averages 8.85 tricks.

Hand B makes 3nt 57.5% of the time and averages 8.65 tricks.

The second time through I restricted W to only those hands that would pass a 1nt opening. This made only very negligible difference. For 10-12 I got:

Hand A makes 3nt 73.7% of the time and averages 9.04 tricks.

Hand B makes 3nt 62.2% of the time and averages 8.77 tricks.

For a 10-11 range I got:

Hand A makes 3nt 66.9% of the time and averages 8.85 tricks.

Hand B makes 3nt 57.5% of the time and averages 8.64 tricks.

So this is consistent with Han's 200 hand test and conclusion. I guess the only caveat is that these are all double dummy results, and double dummy always guesses locations of finesses, so maybe undervalues middle honors a little? Probably not close to enough to make up for the 10% make difference or the .2 to .25 trick difference.

Edited: The first time I ran it I promoted the ♠Q to the A in the B hand, then B was substantially stronger.

This post has been edited by Mbodell: 2012-May-06, 23:39

[sfi]

han, on 2012-May-01, 09:26, said:

4333 is bad, although not nearly as bad as the religious nutcases who subtract a full point make it sound. Maybe subtracting one fifth of a point is more accurate. Note that we were comparing two different 4333 hands, so the 4333ness isn't an issues since they both suffer from it.

I recently read somewhere that the 4333 pattern is actually a small plus for NT, according to simulations. The reason given is that it doesn't have the structural weakness of a doubleton, which means it's less likely that the opponents can run a suit.

Of course I can't remember the source, but it was recent. Hopefully someone else has seen it and knows where it's from.

[Cyberyeti]

Mbodell, on 2012-May-06, 23:08, said:

So this is consistent with Han's 200 hand test and conclusion. I guess the only caveat is that these are all double dummy results, and double dummy always guesses locations of finesses, so maybe undervalues middle honors a little? Probably not close to enough to make up for the 10% make difference or the .2 to .25 trick difference.

The interesting thing to come out of this as far as I was concerned was that the averages, particularly for 10-11 were significantly below 9 tricks, but the % making was well above 50%.