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Novi Lecture Help

Posted By: Phil Simborg
Date: Thursday, 29 June 2017, at 3:49 a.m.

In Response To: Novi Lecture Help (Bob Koca)

Thank you for your feedback. As for your comments about how O'Hagan's Law falls short, I believe your raise valid criticisms if O'Hagan's Law stated that you double when you have 25 percent market losers. That is what most people think O'Hagan's Law says. But that is not a complete description of O'Hagan's Law...that is a misquote.

Here is O'Hagan's Law as John gave it to me, and as we teach to all of our students:

"If you lose your market a "net" of 25% of the time, then you probably have an initial double. It matters how much you lose your market by of course, and also how your game looks the other 75% of the time. Use this in conjunction with Woolsey's Law, Simborg's Law, some common sense, and your cube action decisions will usually be correct. This applies to money games and NMS (normal match scores)."

So the law does take into account how big or small the market losers are, including gammons, and the law doesn't say "doing o.k. on the rest of your numbers." That is how some people, and possibly I have described it sometimes, but it is not really the literal law.

Also, John is the first to admit that there are certain types of positions that it is quite difficult to apply O'Hagan's Law and that reference positions or other rules of thumb and "triggers" that have been developed might be more applicable for those kinds of positions.

And as the Law states, you should also apply common sense...O'Hagan's Law is simply a very fine tool that, if applied with skill, can usually tell you if you have a clear double or a clear no double for most situations. On the close calls, it is very hard for any human to be right all the time, and no one has come up with any method, other than a rollout, that gets it right all the time (and many argue that even the rollouts are not always right.)

Now, as for a competition between someone highly skilled in O'Hagan's Law and a giant who is not, that would be interesting. My personal belief is that unless it is a reference position or fairly close to one, the player who says he is not using O'Hagan's Law probably, to some extent is counting and weighing market losers much of the time. So even if he is not using the approach literally, he is, in effect, trying to decide if he loses his market so much that he should cube.

I am not saying that all Giants make cube decisions using the same approach and tools, but I am saying that all Giants do weigh market losers in some fashion once they have decided that the opponent is taking, for most positions other than obvious reference positions or positions where we have formulas, like EPC and I-Sight to tell us when to double.

I am sure, by the way, that you will disagree with many of my points above, because if you don't disagree with some of my points, it would be the first time since I've known you. What pisses me off is that you are usually right.

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