Re: [math-fun] bridge and randomness
Interesting. But I think it would be difficult if not impossible to infer with confidence the reason that a top bridge player made a surprising play. In bridge you're not supposed to have any secret communication with your partner, even if it's limited to secret meanings of bids. But this rule seems impossible to enforce, especially for partners that change their codes often enough. --Dan << 1) that the 'standard' method of shuffling wasn't very good and you needed to do additional shuffles to really randomize the deck. 2) bridge masters seemed to occasionally make counter-probabilistic plays [playing finesses and for suit splits, etc], but as a corollary to (1), he discovered that their play was actually correct for the *actual* probabilities [due to the inadequate shuffles]. I found it pretty impressive that the deviation from "true randomness" almost certainly wasn't all that much, but it was enough that the top bridge players could detect the deviation and took advantage of it.
Sometimes the brain has a mind of its own.
Dan wrote:
for partners that change their codes often enough.
... Codes are public, in the game of bridge. At any moment during the bid, the opponents can ask: "What does this bid mean?" A fair answer must be given. Best, É. Envoyé d'un iPhone Le 8 juil. 2011 à 02:52, "Dan Asimov" <dasimov@earthlink.net> a écrit :
Interesting. But I think it would be difficult if not impossible to infer with confidence the reason that a top bridge player made a surprising play.
In bridge you're not supposed to have any secret communication with your partner, even if it's limited to secret meanings of bids. But this rule seems impossible to enforce, especially for partners that change their codes often enough.
--Dan
<< 1) that the 'standard' method of shuffling wasn't very good and you needed to do additional shuffles to really randomize the deck.
2) bridge masters seemed to occasionally make counter-probabilistic plays [playing finesses and for suit splits, etc], but as a corollary to (1), he discovered that their play was actually correct for the *actual* probabilities [due to the inadequate shuffles].
I found it pretty impressive that the deviation from "true randomness" almost certainly wasn't all that much, but it was enough that the top bridge players could detect the deviation and took advantage of it.
Sometimes the brain has a mind of its own.
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Eric Angelini