[Antrax]

Two hands, one I downgraded, one I didn't. Should either of these be downgraded?

♠K53 ♥A42 ♦A63 ♣AT75

♠QJ8 ♥AJ5 ♦J85 ♣KQJ9

[aguahombre]

I vote, no. But I actually looked at the hands; some here don't need to look before saying no.

[broze]

First one: no Quacks so no downgrade.

Second one closer IMHO (I'm sure this is the one you chose) but that ♣ suit is gold: no downgrade.

[mgoetze]

Antrax, on 2012-April-28, 11:08, said:

Should either of these be downgraded?

What gives you the idea?

[Bbradley62]

No downgrade here either.

[ggwhiz]

An emphatic no. Just giving partner a problem they don't deserve otherwise.

[neilkaz]

I'd not downgrade either hand.

[petterb]

15.60 http://www.jeff-gold...53+A42+A63+AT75

12.55 http://www.jeff-gold...J8+AJ5+J85+KQJ9

[TWO4BRIDGE]

Antrax, on 2012-April-28, 11:08, said:

Two hands, one I downgraded, one I didn't. Should either of these be downgraded?

♠K53 ♥A42 ♦A63 ♣AT75

♠QJ8 ♥AJ5 ♦J85 ♣KQJ9

Quite awhile ago, I ran across the following ( but I don't use it ) :
A = 4.5
K = 3.25
Q = 1.75
J = 0.5
    10.0

First hand = 4.5 + 4.5 + 4.5 + 3.25 = 16.75

Second hand = 1.75 + 0.5 + 4.5 + 0.5 + 0.5 + 3.25 + 1.75 + 0.5 = 13.25

[aguahombre]

TWO4BRIDGE, on 2012-April-28, 16:32, said:

Quite awhile ago, I ran across the following ( but I don't use it ) :

Good. In addition to not using it, don't try to find it again How does that counting method feel about tens? Right or wrong, it seems to work if we just assume something will be wasted when choosing an opening bid, then upgrade if our points are all the nuts. Otherwise, we just stay in the boat.

For downgrades, we look for KQ tight and QJ tight, but have found that to be wrong at times.

[gszes]

Antrax, on 2012-April-28, 11:08, said:

Two hands, one I downgraded, one I didn't. Should either of these be downgraded?

♠K53 ♥A42 ♦A63 ♣AT75

♠QJ8 ♥AJ5 ♦J85 ♣KQJ9

both highly reasonable minimum 1n bids just remember if
p makes a mild slam try hand 1 is worth pursuing slam
(all controls) hand 2 is not.

[Antrax]

Oh wow, I'm terrible. I actually downgraded the first hand but not the second one, figuring it's more suit oriented and then the poor distribution is a minus. The second one seemed adequately no-trumpish with slow tricks and all that. I *think* I'm trying to apply concepts from Lawrence's hand evaluation book, but clearly I'm too pessimistic.
Thanks

[nigel_k]

Definitely don't downgrade the first, aces are undervalued already. I think the theoretically correct values, given you know nothing about where the contract will be played, are 4.4, 2.8, 1.6, 0.8 and 0.4 for tens. So this is 16.4 as a starting point.

I would downgrade the second though. Kaplan/Rubens overstates the first and understates the second, assuming you play in notrump. If you play in a suit though, the second is going to be quite a lot worse than partner will expect. Downgrading has the added bonus of indicating a club lead.

[JLOGIC]

Yeah downgrading the 2nd one seems fine. I wouldn't do it personally but would never criticize it.

The first hand is nothing special if youre going to play in NT opposite a balanced hand, but it is a huge error to downgrade if partner has either a trick taking based NT hand or a suit hand. I would be horrified if my partner had a distributional hand and he was bidding assuming I had 12-14 balanced.

I actually downgraded yesterday, I had Qx KQ KQx A987xx and opened a 14-16 NT (ok, well I failed to upgrade, but 16 and a 6 bagger is a downgrade in my book!). Joe said HOW CAN YOU OPEN 1N with 16 and a 6 bagger! To me, the best features for downgrading are short honors (KQ doubleton, Qx, QJ doubleton, KQJ third etc), lack of aces, and a bad long suit. For instance, KQ KQ QJxx Qxxxx would be an easy downgrade. The first hand has a lot of jacks, but it doesn't really have short honors, only one honor is unsupported, and the 4 card suit is good. It definitely suffers from lack of aces and only has one king though. It doesn't even have any tens, though that 9 of clubs might be worth something. If you made it QJx AJx KQJ Jxxx I would think it is an easy downgrade. But yeah, basically this is the same argument as always, I think it's only right to downgrade the really extreme ones, and the 2nd one is just a well below average hand.

[gwnn]

petterb, on 2012-April-28, 16:11, said:

15.60 http://www.jeff-gold...53+A42+A63+AT75

12.55 http://www.jeff-gold...J8+AJ5+J85+KQJ9

Wow, the second one is shocking, I've never seen such a huge discrepancy. I guess I will stop using K&R in arguments from now on since I wouldn't downgrade this hand.

[mcphee]

I vote no. The first one is clear NT, the second one sucks a tad, but my turn and what the heck 1N.

[JLOGIC]

gwnn, on 2012-April-29, 07:01, said:

Wow, the second one is shocking, I've never seen such a huge discrepancy. I guess I will stop using K&R in arguments from now on since I wouldn't downgrade this hand.

K&R is quite easy to game if you want to see some funny ones. But yeah, it is definitely stupid.

[mgoetze]

I think K&R is reasonable for evaluating for suit contracts.

[Zelandakh]

TWO4BRIDGE, on 2012-April-28, 16:32, said:

Quite awhile ago, I ran across the following ( but I don't use it ) :

I think there is a big difference between quacks with a supporting higher honour and those without. It makes more sense to me to downgrade those without by 0.5 points and not downgrade others at all than to uniformly downgrade them by 0.25/0.5. Similarly for tens in combination with higher honours.

The second hand is probably a downgrade if you switch the ♣Q to diamonds (♠QJ8 ♥AJ5 ♦QJ5 ♣KJ98). The first hand is not close to a downgrade.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

If you downgrade, that you would downgrade the 2nd.

I wont downgrade.

A reason not to downgrade - usually the agreement set after a NT opening will be fairly
detailed, compared to the rest of the sytem.

With kind regards
Marlowe