[Zar]

Hi guys:

Just put the data nad analysis of the STD research for all the methods AND the Optimization. You can download the same document (the first one in the download section) and see the new section at the end called "Performance Optimiztion".

After re0running the 105,000 borad match, here are the results:


ZP Optimized 164,000
ZP Ruffing 166,000
ZP Basic 176,000
ZP 3points 178,000
LTC 181,000
LTM 183,000
MLP 192,000
GP 210,000
WTC 212,000
BP 217,000

The only new result is that oifr the Zar Points Optimized (ZPO) which popped-put in front of ZPR with more than 2,000 IMPS, and 28,000 IMPS before the Lawrence Points, and 53,000 IMPS before Bergen.

The ZPO is the new methid which dropped the STD below 0.90 - at 0.89.


All the data is in the "Performance Optimization" section of the book. Next I'll find the values of AKQJ that minimize the STD - tehse ate more than 70 possible combinations with an increment of 0.5 points, starting from 4321 all-the-way to 8621 so we will find (for example) that 7421 is the one that minimizes the STD (or it may turn out that the current 6421 IS the optimal - we'll see).

Enjoy the reading (if you practice this activity :-):

ZAR

[Pavell]

EricK, on Mar 19 2004, 02:01 PM, said:

JonnyB, on Mar 18 2004, 08:08 AM, said:

Talking about hand evaluation......Iread a book a couple of years ago, by Laurence Drabble. Unfortunately, cant remember the title, but it dealt with a different way to evaluate combined hand strength - "Complete Hand Evaluation" he called it.
Has anyone heard of this..it seems to be totaly unknown here in NZ, but is possibly the most consistently accurate way to judge hand stength, that I have ever come across.
The second half of the book dealt with his bidding system.. "MidMac" if I recall. Well worth a read, if you can find a copy!

"A New Approach to Bidding" by Jon Drabble.

His method of hand evaluation is surprisingly accurate. it is slightly less aggressive than Zar points, but not much!

One of the differences is that Zar points explicitly add points for controls (2 for an Ace, 1 for a King) whereas Drabble's CV compares the controls actually held with the expected number (CV/3) and upgrades or downgrades the hand accordingly

CV is explained briefly at

http://www.maths.uwa...itzpatr/cv.html

Midmac is quite a nice bidding system, but I think the minor openings are rather too open to pre-emption

Eric

- Your link is not working!

[Pavell]

inquiry, on Mar 17 2004, 12:19 PM, said:

Mike has been pushing ZAR points for sometime, and I ignored them http://public.aci.on...eNeverMiss.html. Misho, however pointed me to them again earlier this week, and I have been looking though problem bidding hands in my past, as well as ones that crop up in the bbo... and well, there maybe something to it. And yes, I realize that hand evaluation is more than counting points, and that like any tool, ZAR points can be overly heavily relied upon. Here are back to back hands from a team match today involving stars versus yellows with lots of kibitizers....were the wrong decision was reached each time, i wonder if ZAR's were used if this would have been the case?

Scoring: BAM

East ZAR points... 32. West ZAR points start at 19. This totals 51... accord to the ZAR point page, 52 needed for game. However, when EAST bids 3♥ as a game try, WEST gets to add quite a few points to his hand according to the ZAR page. Two points for the heart honors, and two more points for the fifth ♥ and the singleton... for a total now not of 19, but of 23. This is more than enough to accept the game try. Bidding (1♦)-1♠-(2♦)-2♠; (P)-3♥-all pass

---

Scoring: BAM

East ZAR points... 32. West ZAR points start at 19. This totals 51... accord to the ZAR point page, 52 needed for game. However, when EAST bids 3♥ as a game try, WEST gets to add quite a few points to his hand according to the ZAR page. Two points for the heart honors, and two more points for the fifth ♥ and the singleton... for a total now not of 19, but of 23. This is more than enough to accept the game try. Bidding (1♦)-1♠-(2♦)-2♠; (P)-3♥-all pass

---

On this last hand, both teams rested peacefully in 4♠, due in part to the opening 2♠ rather than 1♠. However, even opposite a 2♠ bid, which should be 22-24 or so ZAR points, the ZAR total rapidly reaches the min 62 (you can count extra points for the singleton now as  you know you have a ten card instead of nine card fit). But even 39 in west opposite 23 in EAST is enough for slam.

- Obviously all of those players need ZAR to evaluate their Hand Evaluation technics. With it, they will not need years of experience to reach the best Contracts.
- I'm more interesting what the experienced players (or ZAR) will do if we exchange the Queen of Spade with the Queen of Diamond in the 2nd of the presented hands. I do not have a problem with that, and you ?

[Pavell]

EricK, on Mar 19 2004, 02:01 PM, said:

JonnyB, on Mar 18 2004, 08:08 AM, said:

Talking about hand evaluation......Iread a book a couple of years ago, by Laurence Drabble. Unfortunately, cant remember the title, but it dealt with a different way to evaluate combined hand strength - "Complete Hand Evaluation" he called it.
Has anyone heard of this..it seems to be totaly unknown here in NZ, but is possibly the most consistently accurate way to judge hand stength, that I have ever come across.
The second half of the book dealt with his bidding system.. "MidMac" if I recall. Well worth a read, if you can find a copy!

"A New Approach to Bidding" by Jon Drabble.

His method of hand evaluation is surprisingly accurate. it is slightly less aggressive than Zar points, but not much!

One of the differences is that Zar points explicitly add points for controls (2 for an Ace, 1 for a King) whereas Drabble's CV compares the controls actually held with the expected number (CV/3) and upgrades or downgrades the hand accordingly

CV is explained briefly at

http://www.maths.uwa...itzpatr/cv.html

Midmac is quite a nice bidding system, but I think the minor openings are rather too open to pre-emption

Eric

- Your link is not working !

[Pavell]

Zar, on Sep 13 2005, 03:20 PM, said:

Hi guys:

Just put the data nad analysis of the STD research for all the methods AND the Optimization. You can download the same document (the first one in the download section) and see the new section at the end called "Performance Optimiztion".

After re0running the 105,000 borad match, here are the results:


ZP Optimized 164,000
ZP Ruffing 166,000
ZP Basic 176,000
ZP 3points 178,000
LTC 181,000
LTM 183,000
MLP 192,000
GP 210,000
WTC 212,000
BP 217,000

The only new result is that oifr the Zar Points Optimized (ZPO) which popped-put in front of ZPR with more than 2,000 IMPS, and 28,000 IMPS before the Lawrence Points, and 53,000 IMPS before Bergen.

The ZPO is the new methid which dropped the STD below 0.90 - at 0.89.


All the data is in the "Performance Optimization" section of the book. Next I'll find the values of AKQJ that minimize the STD - tehse ate more than 70 possible combinations with an increment of 0.5 points, starting from 4321 all-the-way to 8621 so we will find (for example) that 7421 is the one that minimizes the STD (or it may turn out that the current 6421 IS the optimal - we'll see).

Enjoy the reading (if you practice this activity :-):

ZAR

Hey ZAR,
- First of all, thank you for the great job you did by presenting to the bridge world one of the most easy and explicit Hand Evaluation Counting. I'm sure that all players who read it and do not hate the simple arithmetic will relay on it for a brief checking despite the Bidding system they use.
- One advice: Your explicit Hand Evaluation Counting was clauded recently by the split in 3 separate versions. Which one to be used for final? That's not for the public. If you expect the players to check all of them separately, I think you are wrong. Most of them even do not want to exchange their own far worse Hand Evaluation, simply because they put some time in it, and will continue to believe in it for years to come, or because they are still winning with it against weak players. For the other brighter inovative players you must present One Only version of ZAR which combines all of the best to the possible boundary.
- Of course, it is simply my opinion, maybe because I had 17 versions of my own Hand Evaluation, but every time I posted only the last, discarding the old ones, until I reached the best. Any way, do the things simple, if you want more players to relay on your Counting. For me it is EXEPTIONAL, and if you decide some day to compare it with ForcePoint's Counting, that day will be a "look around" for me.

[Pavell]

tysen2k, on Sep 9 2005, 01:22 PM, said:

Was Goren right after all?
So I decided to look at the cases where we have exactly an 8-card fit. I looked at the trick-taking potential of each shape.

                  Tricks Tricks Tricks Tricks Tricks Error  Error  Error  Error
Shape     Count   Real   Zar    531    TSP   Goren   Zar    531    TSP   Goren
4-3-3-3   10.54   0.00  -0.29  -0.22  -0.14  -0.08   0.90   0.49   0.20   0.08
4-4-3-2   21.55   0.22   0.11   0.12   0.06   0.25   0.30   0.25   0.56   0.01
5-3-3-2   15.52   0.23   0.31   0.12   0.26   0.25   0.10   0.19   0.02   0.01
5-4-2-2   10.58   0.43   0.51   0.45   0.46   0.58   0.07   0.01   0.01   0.25
6-3-2-2    5.64   0.46   0.71   0.45   0.66   0.58   0.33   0.00   0.22   0.08
6-3-3-1    3.45   0.65   0.91   0.78   0.86   0.58   0.22   0.06   0.15   0.02
5-4-3-1   12.93   0.66   0.71   0.78   0.66   0.58   0.03   0.20   0.00   0.08
4-4-4-1    2.99   0.68   0.31   0.78   0.46   0.58   0.41   0.03   0.13   0.03
7-2-2-2    0.51   0.82   0.91   0.78   1.06   0.92   0.00   0.00   0.03   0.00
6-4-2-1    4.70   0.85   1.11   1.12   1.06   0.92   0.30   0.33   0.21   0.02
5-5-2-1    3.17   0.91   0.91   1.12   1.06   0.92   0.00   0.14   0.08   0.00
7-3-2-1    1.88   0.91   1.31   1.12   1.26   0.92   0.30   0.08   0.24   0.00
5-4-4-0    1.24   1.16   0.91   1.45   1.06   0.92   0.08   0.11   0.01   0.07
5-5-3-0    0.90   1.16   1.11   1.45   1.26   0.92   0.00   0.07   0.01   0.05
6-4-3-0    1.33   1.19   1.31   1.45   1.26   0.92   0.02   0.09   0.01   0.10
6-5-1-1    0.71   1.29   1.31   1.78   1.66   1.25   0.00   0.17   0.10   0.00
6-5-2-0    0.65   1.47   1.51   1.78   1.66   1.25   0.00   0.06   0.02   0.03

                                             Totals   3.06   2.29   2.00   0.83

Count is the % frequency of that shape
Tricks Real are the number of tricks that each shape really takes more than the 4333 shape
Tricks for each evaluation scheme are the number of tricks predicted by that count system. I allowed everything to be shifted by a constant so that you won't have a problem if the 4333 shape is off. This helps Zar's performace by a lot. It would be worse without it.
Error is the square of the difference between the real and predicted numbers, multiplied by the Count.
Total at the bottom is the sum of the errors.

It looks like most of the systems are predicting more tricks than are really available. Good old Goren is the closest!

Implications? Distribution when we only have an 8-card fit maybe doesn't have as much weight as a lot of us were thinking. But since it has much more weight on average over all possible fits, that must mean that we really have to increase it a lot when we have a superfit. So maybe the best solution is for all methods to tone down a bit closer to Goren as the baseline, but once a superfit is found, pump it up even more than Zar or TSP ever did before? I'd like to hear other people's thoughts.

- What do you mean by "pump it up" ? By how many points? Could you manage the millions of the SuperFit hands with one simple Rule? I have spent 9 years to find the answer, and I'm not sure where I will be if ZAR decide to include the ForcePoint Counting in his table comparisions. Most of the players do exactly what you adviced: they 'pump it up" when they sense a SuperFit. You know the Human nature: one lucky winning will make them to forget the rest of the 99. But that is not a Lotto where one lucky game pays off by the Jackpot. Do you have some numbers to offer like ZAR did ?

[tysen2k]

Pavell, on Sep 14 2005, 09:00 AM, said:

What do you mean by "pump it up" ? By how many points? Could you manage the millions of the SuperFit hands with one simple Rule? I have spent 9 years to find the answer, and I'm not sure where I will be if ZAR decide to include the ForcePoint Counting in his table comparisions. Most of the players do exactly what you adviced: they 'pump it up" when they sense a SuperFit. You know the Human nature: one lucky winning will make them to forget the rest of the 99. But that is not a Lotto where one lucky game pays off by the Jackpot. Do you have some numbers to offer like ZAR did ?

One simple rule is probably not going to cut it. There are a lot of complicating factors and it just is a matter of how much extra detail you really want in your adjustments and how much benefit are you really going to get from it? One of the problems that neither Zar nor TSP addresses is that high card strength and distribution are not independent. This is something I've touched on in previous articles. For example, if your partner opens 1♠ showing 5+ cards, then we need to "pump up" this hand:

xxxx
xxxx
xxxx
x

more than we pump up this hand:

xxxx
KQxx
ATxx
x

even though they have the same shape and extra trump. Weak hands gain more from distribution than strong hands do. No current evaluation scheme takes this into consideration.

Tysen

[inquiry]

Zar is to be congradulated on his new addition to his Zar book dealing with statistical analysis of the different bidding systems.

I do have a complaint about some of his data, however. In figuring out which system was "the best" for imps won/lost from the match with 105,000 hands (or was it 150,000), he replicated the error Tysen did in an earlier study. In Tysen's test, he assumed all the hands were not vulnerable. That assumption favors the less aggressive bidding methods as you will bid fewer close games, but the reward for bidding the game (in imps) is lower. This made Tysen's favorite method come out on top. Zar assumed all games and slams were bid VUL, which clearly favors the more aggressive (as long as not crazily so) method. In the real world, only have of our hands are vul. Sigh.

I think there is a little of something in there for everyone who is interested in means, mediums, standard deviations, and the like. Just print it out, it takes some time to digest.

[mike777]

Zar, on Sep 13 2005, 03:20 PM, said:

Hi guys:

Just put the data nad analysis of the STD research for all the methods AND the Optimization. You can download the same document (the first one in the download section) and see the new section at the end called "Performance Optimiztion".

The ZPO is the new methid which dropped the STD below 0.90 - at 0.89.


All the data is in the "Performance Optimization" section of the book. Next I'll find the values of AKQJ that minimize the STD - tehse ate more than 70 possible combinations with an increment of 0.5 points, starting from 4321 all-the-way to 8621 so we will find (for example) that 7421 is the one that minimizes the STD (or it may turn out that the current 6421 IS the optimal - we'll see).

Enjoy the reading (if you practice this activity :-):

ZAR

What happens if we accept that mean-variance optimization isn't sufficient?

[Zar]

>
I think there is a little of something in there for everyone who is interested in means, mediums, standard deviations, and the like. Just print it out, it takes some time to digest.
<

It would take some reading and thinking, I agree. BUT it will show a new focus on the game and hopefully result in a step-up in the game.

>
... except good judgement.
<

Good judgement ... HOW good, and measured in WHAT, and how MUCH, and how do you COMMUNICATE it (to your partner, forget opponents etc.)? The end-result is a “conversation” with your PD where you explain him that you are in a league by yourself and he just doesn’t have a clue, only wasting your golden chances ... :-) If only there were “TWO of YOU”, it would have been the perfect pair :-)

>
Why bother with Aggressive research when the General one would be enough?
<

The point is that it’s the aggressive Games and Slams that make a difference. If it is a 39 HCP GRAND or 35 HCP Slam or 29 HCP Games, you’d bid it regardless of what kind of cricket you are actually playing at the table, so it’s gonna be a wash anyway ...

>
What happens if we accept that mean-variance optimization isn't sufficient?
<

Well ... it’s actually the first attempt at real optimization to begin with, rather than saying “Mr. X thinks that a value of Y here is optimal”. “Isn’t sufficient ...” – it is never sufficient really :-) You want to get closer and closer to “perfection” and any attempt that results in BOTH optimization from modeling point of view AND in “real-life” optimization too (that’s why AFTER the statistical optimizations I run the match AGAIN and see how the optimized method actually performs) should be more than welcome (I think).

The problem with “isn’t sufficient” also kind of reflects the controversy with the so called “intuition” and the actual reflection on the STD, and from there on the Performance. We were able to see that having an 8-card SECOND fit does NOT actually have an impact on performance (rather, the 9-card, 10-card etc. secondary fits do). The same way it turns now out that Jxx doesn’t project a deduction (of say, 1 pt) while Qx or singleton K do etc. We will also see that “6421 is better than 4321” without any reference to context (i.e. how you count distribution, fits, superfits etc.) is just another misconception by itself – 6421 is better for Zar Points [ (a+ + (a-d) ], but 4321 is better for Goren [ 3*voids + 2*singletons + 1*doubletons ], and if you switch them, in BOTH cases you get catastrophic performance, etc.

ZAR

[david_c]

Zar, on Sep 18 2005, 09:11 AM, said:

>
... except good judgement.
<

Good judgement ... HOW good, and measured in WHAT,

Good judgement is measured in IMPs.

[han]

Completely agree with Justin's edited post.

[Elianna]

Jlall, on Sep 18 2005, 01:47 AM, said:

Now maybe instead of being a stubborn [deleted], you will actually read what people say instead of trying to beat into peoples heads that ZAR points are great. I'll play you any time for any amount of money and you can have any partner you want and you guys can play ZAR points and we'll see how you do. Stop being so condescending, ok? You have no reason to be.

Except I'm not sure exactly what this would show. I would bet not a lot about hand evaluation, but a lot about card play, and I don't think that you'd get the worse end, Justin.

(Wow, that's a lot of double negatives, but that's ok, what I said is negative. )

[Zar]

>
you know, you really are a pompous [deleted]. maybe if you bothered to not take my comment out of context of the quote that i was replying to which was:
<

You are furious for ... nothing! I quoted EXACTLY and COMPLETELY. You didn’t say any additional word. Can you check again, just not to embarrass yourself. Just a humble suggestion :-) Plus, my comments do not have anything PERSONALLY directed to you – you are not the only one who’s trying to hide behind “judgement”, are you?

>
Measured in, human judgement knows that weak hands gain from shape more than strong hands. My human partner will also know this. Your ZAR point controlled robot will not.
<

We are talking evaluation methods, you are saying that it’s raining outside ... I don’t get the picture completely, may an ESL issue :-)

>
Now maybe instead of being a stubborn [deleted], you will actually read what people say...
<

I copy and paste. Always. I don’t change anything – plus indeed your personality is something that nobody’s interested in here, you may start a thread “Justin’s personality” :-)

>
Completely agree with Justin's edited post.
<

OK – start a thread called “Justin’s and Hannie’s personality then :-)

>
Good judgement is measured in IMPs.
<

Exactly – that’s the way I MEASURE it. All these “stubborn” and “pompous” posting are irrelevant really – I didn’t target ANYONE specifically by my comments on “judgement” and “cricket play” etc. and I just wonder why you actually did chose to identify yourself with those.

Take it easy and don’t read this thread – read the threads on “judgement” instead :-)

ZAR

[Chamaco]

Jlall, on Sep 18 2005, 08:47 AM, said:

Zar, on Sep 18 2005, 03:11 AM, said:

>
... except good judgement.
<

Good judgement ... HOW good, and measured in WHAT, and how MUCH, and how do you COMMUNICATE it (to your partner, forget opponents etc.)? The end-result is a “conversation” with your PD where you explain him that you are in a league by yourself and he just doesn’t have a clue, only wasting your golden chances ... :-) If only there were “TWO of YOU”, it would have been the perfect pair :-)

you know, you really are a pompous [deleted]. maybe if you bothered to not take my comment out of context of the quote that i was replying to which was:

"
even though they have the same shape and extra trump. Weak hands gain more from distribution than strong hands do. No current evaluation scheme takes this into consideration.
"

Measured in, human judgement knows that weak hands gain from shape more than strong hands. My human partner will also know this. Your ZAR point controlled robot will not.

Now maybe instead of being a stubborn [deleted], you will actually read what people say instead of trying to beat into peoples heads that ZAR points are great. I'll play you any time for any amount of money and you can have any partner you want and you guys can play ZAR points and we'll see how you do. Stop being so condescending, ok? You have no reason to be.

[a couple words and one sentence edited.... - inquiry]

Look, Justin,
I have been reading and posting quite a lot on the BB Forum.

I do not know you and neither do I know Zar.

But if I had to judge from the BB Forum posts, my own impression is that of the 2you are by far the most arrogant: very nice and kind to the player you consider strong, and arrogant and sometimes verbally violent with posters that disagree with youi without having any recognized achievements.
And the fact that the achievements you have are much higher than Zar's is not- in my view - a good reason for this.

Of course I might be wrong, as I do not know you, and also because the written words can be misleading.
Also, probably other strong players older than you have developed some less disturbing ways to deal with these arguments.

I just suggest you to sometimes stop and consider your attitude (without having any expectations you will follow my advice, though).

[hrothgar]

>>Measured in, human judgement knows that weak hands gain from
>>shape more than strong hands. My human partner will also know this.
>>Your ZAR point controlled robot will not.

>We are talking evaluation methods, you are saying that it’s raining outside ...
>I don’t get the picture completely, may an ESL issue

I suspect that this must be a language issue, because Justin's point is fairly simple:

Zar points calculates distributional strength using the formula 2a + b - d
This formula is based solely on hand pattern. It does not change based on the number of honors held in the hand.

Justin is arguing that distributional strength is inversely related to honor strength.
Extremely weak hands benefit from distribution much more than strong hands.

[han]

except good judgement was a perfectly reasonable and correct addition to Tysen's remark that no current evaluation scheme takes into account that weaker hands may gain more from distribution than stronger hands.

Good judgement ... HOW good, and measured in WHAT, and how MUCH, and how do you COMMUNICATE it (to your partner, forget opponents etc.)? The end-result is a “conversation” with your PD where you explain him that you are in a league by yourself and he just doesn’t have a clue, only wasting your golden chances ... :-) If only there were “TWO of YOU”, it would have been the perfect pair :-) is apparently some kind of response to this.