[lamford]

I was looking at the alleged methods employed by Elinescu and Wladow and thought they could do much better by having a binary system of coughs on the first four rounds of the auction, or on the first few plays of the hand, if there are fewer than four rounds to the auction. Using C for cough and 0 for no cough, they could each communicate their distribution over 95% of the time, by using the following matrix:
4-4-3-2 0000
4-3-3-3 000C
4-4-4-1 00C0
5-3-3-2 00CC
5-4-3-1 0C00
5-4-2-2 0C0C
5-5-2-1 0CC0
5-4-4-0 0CCC
5-5-3-0 C000
6-3-2-2 C00C
6-4-2-1 C0C0
6-3-3-1 C0CC
6-4-3-0 CC00
6-5-1-1 CC0C
6-5-2-0 CCC0
Others CCCC
The advantage of this method is that there will only be one cough almost half the time, and the bidding and play would be much more accurate. Playing precision with asking bids, one can gear a whole system to find out almost the exact hand partner has. A little bit of work on double-dummy defence would probably reap dividends as well. Without screens, and I have no evidence that this happens, A can communicate with B using any variable such as water or not, pen or not, cards folded or not, etc, and this toggle can be varied randomly to avoid detection. With screens, coughing is one option, but small variations in tempo can be used. For C, one takes a bit longer than for 0, and one usually has an unbalanced hand, so that is no surprise. A similar tempo variation can be used with plays if needed.

[Zelandakh]

I think I would prefer to set the bits based on something more intuitive than a frequency table. So on the first round a cough shows a shortage and no cough is balanced or semi-balanced. Then on the second the cough pinpoints the shortage to major/minor in the unbalanced case or separates between balanced and semi-balanced in the other.

Really though, this approach is only sensible for auctions where we pass throughout. Another idea is to incorporate the cough into the bidding - for example it might show extra length for a 1 of suit opening, a 5 card major in the case of 1NT, or a side feature after a weak 2. In essence though, it seems you are coming to the same conclusion as Reese according to some reports of the aftermath of the BA affair - that conveying a single important piece of informaton at a given point is trivial. Of course we all know how that turned out...

[Trinidad]

Err... Ahum...

Rik

[aguahombre]

Our method is complicated by my COPD.

[ArtK78]

If you are playing with screens, what do you do about interference coughing?

[EricK]

I think a Vinje cough has quite a favourable ratio of usefulness to ease of detection/decoding. A cough shows 1 even suit and 3 odd, no cough shows 1 odd suit and 3 even. Or to mix it up a bit a cough on an even numbered board shows 3 even 1 odd; whereas a cough on an odd board shows 3 odd 1 even. This way each player coughs on average once every two boards, and they can do it at any time during the auction.

[ArtK78]

EricK, on 2015-March-17, 13:26, said:

I think a Vinje cough has quite a favourable ratio of usefulness to ease of detection/decoding. A cough shows 1 even suit and 3 odd, no cough shows 1 odd suit and 3 even. Or to mix it up a bit a cough on an even numbered board shows 3 even 1 odd; whereas a cough on an odd board shows 3 odd 1 even. This way each player coughs on average once every two boards, and they can do it at any time during the auction.

I am sure encrypted coughing is not allowed. You wouldn't want to be hauled in front of a committee.

[WellSpyder]

Help, please! I think I have accidentally crossed over into a parallel universe...

[Zelandakh]

Can you communicate with your non-parallel self? That opens up many additional opportunities....

[KurtGodel]

What's an acceptable amount of coughing before people decide it's grounds for investigation? Or is it more to do with results? I would have thought that sooner or later if you start making completely insane leads that work, or making ridiculous overcalls and catching partner with a fit all the time, that someone would look into it.

[aguahombre]

KurtGodel, on 2015-March-20, 08:12, said:

What's an acceptable amount of coughing before people decide it's grounds for investigation? Or is it more to do with results? I would have thought that sooner or later if you start making completely insane leads that work, or making ridiculous overcalls and catching partner with a fit all the time, that someone would look into it.

Are you trying to ask a serious question in this particular thread???

[KurtGodel]

aguahombre, on 2015-March-20, 09:46, said:

Are you trying to ask a serious question in this particular thread???

[helene_t]

Last year Ant suggested that bbo announced a new feature on the first of April: the cough button which you can use to augment your bidding and carding system.