[32519]

I don't believe Shortage Ask is playable. The probability of being dealt a 6-card suit and 5-11 HCP is 2.97%. Multiply that by 3 for ♦, ♥ and ♠ you get 8.91%. The probability of being dealt a 6-card suit and 5-11 HCP which includes a singleton or void is 0.77%. Multiply that by 3 and you get 2.31% leaving a difference of 6.6%. With no singleton or void, opener is forced to repeat the suit opened. Responder now has no idea of the suit/hand quality. Is it bad (5-8 HCP), or is it good (9-11 HCP)?

[Zelandakh]

32519, on 2013-July-04, 01:42, said:

Wow? 80% plus of all Multi's are a weak 2 in either major. Many play a weak only Multi. Now your 80% plus becomes 100%.

And it still is not a Weak 2 opening...any more than a Swedish or Polish Club is a weak NT. Nor is 2♣ = weak with diamonds or GF a Weak 2 opening. Note also that you still have some leeway over a Multi. As Adam already wrote, the most important piece of information is whether the opening is good or bad. A typical set of responses to 2NT after a multi shows this directly. After 2♦ - 2NT; 3m, you can also use the "in-between" step as a further ask if you want, either for suit quality (Ogust) or asking for a shortage. Many also play a 2♠ response as invitational in hearts with Opener rebids showing shortage. Obviously you have effectively less space after a Multi 2♦ opening and 2NT response than the equivalent Weak 2 auctions - you have twice as many hand types to show - but it is not as if you have no space at all.

As for shortage asks being unplayable - tell that to the World Class pairs that do use them. I am sure your maths will impress them greatly. Schemes that address the issue you are raising have already been posted.

[sfi]

32519, on 2013-July-04, 01:49, said:

The probability of being dealt a 6-card suit and 5-11 HCP is 2.97%.

Quote

The probability of being dealt a 6-card suit and 5-11 HCP which includes a singleton or void is 0.77%.

I'm not convinced you have thought about what you wrote. At least one of these numbers is clearly nonsensical.

[Zelandakh]

sfi, on 2013-July-04, 02:09, said:

I'm not convinced you have thought about what you wrote. At least one of these numbers is clearly nonsensical.

Don't worry about it. I directed 32519 to Chris Ryall's statistics page a month or so ago. A 6-10 Weak 2 in a major alone has a 3% probability. Just ignore any numbers posted here.

[32519]

Zelandakh, on 2013-July-04, 02:27, said:

Don't worry about it. I directed 32519 to Chris Ryall's statistics page a month or so ago. A 6-10 Weak 2 in a major alone has a 3% probability. Just ignore any numbers posted here.

Zel, you're hell bent on placing more reliance on an external source (external to BBO). Guess what? I am hell bent on placing more reliance on BBOs deal generator. You can test it for yourself.
1. Set up a "Teaching Table."
2. Click on "Deal Source."
3. Pick any hand.
4. Fill in the constraints.
...a) Number of ♠ = 6-13
......Number of HCP = 5-11
......Click on "Odds" = 2.97% X 3 = 8.91%
...b) Now add the following constraint as well
......Number of ♣ = 0-1
......Click on "Odds" = 0.77% X 3 = 2.31%

I stand by my post. I don't believe Shortage Ask is playable!

[helene_t]

32519, on 2013-July-04, 03:48, said:

Zel, you're hell bent on placing more reliance on an external source (external to BBO). Guess what? I am hell bent on placing more reliance on BBOs deal generator. You can test it for yourself.
1. Set up a "Teaching Table."
2. Click on "Deal Source."
3. Pick any hand.
4. Fill in the constraints.
...a) Number of ♠ = 6-13
......Number of HCP = 5-11
......Click on "Odds" = 2.97% X 3 = 8.91%
...b) Now add the following constraint as well
......Number of ♣ = 0-1
......Click on "Odds" = 0.77% X 3 = 2.31%

......Click on "Odds" = 0.77% X 3 X3 = 6.93%

I stand by my post. I don't believe Shortage Ask is playable!

FYP. You can have a six-card in three suits and the singleton in any of the three remaining suits, so you should multiply by 3x3=9, not by 3.

Technicalities aside you should know intuitively that something close to this must be correct. Is it really your experience that three quarters of all 6-baggers are 6322?

There are three 322 and three 331 distributions, and six 430 and six 421. But some 6430 and 6421 hands may be too flawed, especially if the 4-card suit is a major.

[manudude03]

It's not even like it cripples you entirely. I start by making the assumption you want to be in game opposite a maximum.
2D(multi)-2N:
3C/D: minimum with H/S.
3H/S: max with H/S (some reverse this).
...3C/D-3D/H asks if it's a good suit compared to the rest of their hand.

[PhilKing]

32519, on 2013-July-03, 22:49, said:

If you're still playing Multi then your legs are chopped off on what to use. Multi forces you to use good/bad type responses over the 2NT asking bid. Feature Ask or Shortness Ask do not exist for you.

That's not strictly true.

I give up a 3♣ response, which now shows specifically a game try in partner's major.

This frees up 2NT as a GF relay, over which more accurate definition can be obtained.

[manudude03]

32519, on 2013-July-04, 03:48, said:

Zel, you're hell bent on placing more reliance on an external source (external to BBO). Guess what? I am hell bent on placing more reliance on BBOs deal generator. You can test it for yourself.
1. Set up a "Teaching Table."
2. Click on "Deal Source."
3. Pick any hand.
4. Fill in the constraints.
...a) Number of ♠ = 6-13
......Number of HCP = 5-11
......Click on "Odds" = 2.97% X 3 = 8.91%
...b) Now add the following constraint as well
......Number of ♣ = 0-1
......Click on "Odds" = 0.77% X 3 = 2.31%

I stand by my post. I don't believe Shortage Ask is playable!

You need a basic lesson on probability. What that odds gave you was the probability that you have 5-11 HCP AND 6 spades AND 0-1 clubs. You should be dividing by the probability of having 5-11HCP and 6 spades (2.97%), or in technical terms P(0-1C|5-11HCP&6S). That gives you an actual probability of 25.926% for a singleton club.

The real percentage is slightly lower because of some freak distributions.

edit: numbers wrong, I put it in as 6-13 spades.
reedit: ok, did it properly this time, according to BBO hand generator, 5-11HCP and 6 spades is 2.38%, and 0-1 clubs added on is 0.57% giving a true probability of 23.95% (minus whatever for the "freaks"). Now multiply that by 3 for any singleton, and that becomes 71.85%

[fromageGB]

OK, when you have a weak 2, you have a shortage considerably more than half the time, but knowing the shortage is surely less important than knowing the strength. A strong (relatively) hand will give more tricks than a weak hand, but the tricks you make by ruffing in the shortage suit are worth no more than the tricks you would make from length otherwise.

[Phil352]

fromageGB, on 2013-July-04, 04:54, said:

OK, when you have a weak 2, you have a shortage considerably more than half the time, but knowing the shortage is surely less important than knowing the strength. A strong (relatively) hand will give more tricks than a weak hand, but the tricks you make by ruffing in the shortage suit are worth no more than the tricks you would make from length otherwise.

This may be true, but personally I have found the real value of shortage ask is when partner (the 2nt bidder) holds something like xxx in a suit - opposite a shortage a thin game can be bid because we know our values are concentrated with the longer suits. If I show a feature in a different suit over his 2NT bid he is still left wondering about his xxx.

[PhilKing]

Phil352, on 2013-July-04, 06:00, said:

This may be true, but personally I have found the real value of shortage ask is when partner (the 2nt bidder) holds something like xxx in a suit - opposite a shortage a thin game can be bid because we know our values are concentrated with the longer suits. If I show a feature in a different suit over his 2NT bid he is still left wondering about his xxx.

If that is what you needed for game, then 2NT was an overbid.

[gnasher]

Phil352, on 2013-July-04, 06:00, said:

This may be true, but personally I have found the real value of shortage ask is when partner (the 2nt bidder) holds something like xxx in a suit - opposite a shortage a thin game can be bid because we know our values are concentrated with the longer suits. If I show a feature in a different suit over his 2NT bid he is still left wondering about his xxx.

I used to believe this, but then I realised that I'd never actually experienced this advantage. The hands where it occurs are rare, and when they occur you don't usually have enough for 2NT, and the opponents may be in the bidding anyway. And while we're waiting for the right deal to come along, we're leaking information on all the other deals where we don't care about singletons but we do care about overall strength.

In fact, the only reason I ever played a singleton ask was because Phil King had told me it was best, in about 1988.

[32519]

helene_t, on 2013-July-04, 03:52, said:

FYP. You can have a six-card in three suits and the singleton in any of the three remaining suits, so you should multiply by 3x3=9, not by 3.

Yeah, but you can't have them at the same time. Playing weak twos, you can have a six-card suit at ANY ONE TIME and the singleton in any of the remaining suits.

[32519]

Maybe we should ask the BBO programmers to relook at the mechanics sitting behind the odds calculator. Seems like I'm the only BBOer who believes that they are correct.

[sfi]

Zelandakh, on 2013-July-04, 02:27, said:

Don't worry about it. I directed 32519 to Chris Ryall's statistics page a month or so ago. A 6-10 Weak 2 in a major alone has a 3% probability. Just ignore any numbers posted here.

Turns out you can lead a horse to water...

[manudude03]

32519, on 2013-July-04, 07:22, said:

Maybe we should ask the BBO programmers to relook at the mechanics sitting behind the odds calculator. Seems like I'm the only BBOer who believes that they are correct.

What everyone is saying is you're not interpreting the numbers correctly. As I said, you have about a 2.38% chance of getting dealt 6 spades and 5-11HCP. But once you make your bid showing that, then the probability of you having it is 100%, and you need to scale your other percentages accordingly.

32519, on 2013-July-04, 07:19, said:

Yeah, but you can't have them at the same time. Playing weak twos, you can have a six-card suit at ANY ONE TIME and the singleton in any of the remaining suits.

I don't think Helene really explained it properly. It's not really so much as you need to multiply the singletons by 9, more that you shouldn't have multiplied the 6 card suit percentage by 3 (if you open 2S, you don't have 6 hearts or diamonds), but if you insist in doing so, then you must multiply the singletons by 3 (3 singletons to go with each suit)

[blackshoe]

An artificial bid showing a weak two in either major is not the same thing as a natural weak two in the suit bid. Put it another way: "weak two" is the name of a treatment, i.e., one of several possible natural meanings for a bid. By that name, a multi is not a "weak two" in spite of the fact that it is a two level bid that is, or usually is, weak.

[Winstonm]

Bidding always has a ripple effect. Multi changes the response structures, meaning that multi players cannot be as creative in responses as those who play a natural weak two. There are pluses and minuses to both methods.

The OP asked about weak twos: this probably should include multi weak twos but is unclear in the question.

[Vampyr]

blackshoe, on 2013-July-04, 07:35, said:

An artificial bid showing a weak two in either major is not the same thing as a natural weak two in the suit bid. Put it another way: "weak two" is the name of a treatment, i.e., one of several possible natural meanings for a bid.

This is not strictly true. It is common to talk about "holding a weak two in spades" even when you are not playing an opening weak two. Similarly people talk about holding a weak NT or an Acol Two even if they do not include these among their opening bids.