Kit Woolsey's Observation of Mr. Balicki/Mr. Zmudzinski Leads from EBTC 2014

This page is to address Kit Woolsey's comments on Bridgewinners.com.

Kit claimed in B/Z observations that he only matched 19/26. He was expecting 23/26 and was disappointed.

Good news: I scored it and got 24/24. I am going to drop two boards. In one board, the camera angle is such that we cannot tell if 4 or 5 fingers. Everyone agrees that there is a signal. In another, Kit sees a signal, I understand why, but this does not match my understanding of this signal is. Kit's signal actually matches the hypotheses.

One of the problems was I did not give an explicit definition of what the 4 or 5 card 'signal' is believed to be.

Let's go through the 7 boards that Kit/I disagreed. Indented text is from Kit.

This is actually a confirmation, not a disagreement. Kit agrees that Z touched the card, i.e. a "YES" in the column "Z Touch". Kit also confirms that 5 fingers was shown - as in the #fingers column. Kit also agrees that the 5 fingers was shown before the signal. In all cases Kit is agreeing with the observation.

The point in dispute is probably the titles of the column, I called it "Z touch", and "# fingers". Kit has interpreted this to mean something else.

In the original version of this table, I had "n/a" listed. This was my error. The reason was that there was one match where the BBO records were missing. Others (including Kit) had since found the correct hand records from the original data from EBTC and the table is corrected. The correct values for the table are "NO" (Z did not touch/move the led card) and Blank - there is no 4 or 5 card signal.

The hypotheses stated were very clear: if the signal is made, this is the number of cards. Kit falsely attempts to draw the inverse conclusion, something I specifically did not state or claim. Therefore this is NOT a false positive.

Kit's observations, "No", "--" match my observations, therefore this confirms the observation.

There is a signal as Kit states at exactly the time that Kit states. So why did I appear to get this wrong?

We believe that this is a 6 card signal. Watch the video closely, I suggest you watch it from about 5 seconds before:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8EFcFY_Ovk&t=19m10s

Watch Mr. Balicki's thumb before he makes the flat hand with his fingers. It rolls over the top of his hand. We haven't seen this in the set of videos that I presented.

When I created the original spreadsheet from which the data is taken, I had a column for 4, 5, 6 cards. When I created the web page, I copied the data from these tables and then did some manual tweaking of the table. Therefore if you look at the table, you will see a "" (blank) next in the 4 card, 5 card table because this is not what we think is a 5 card signal. I did not do a good job of explaining this in the table. I did not state that this was the signal for a 6 card suit for several reasons: this is the only example in the set of videos, I do not want to confuse. I did put in the original text that this was a 5 card signal but failed to mention that this is believed to be a 6 card suit. I have now updated the text, and implied that this might be the signal for 6 cards.

The lead is a diamond, Mr. Balicki has 6 diamonds.

I am not surprised that Mr. Woolsey shows this as a false positive in his study of 5 card signals ... now you know why.

If anyone viewed the videos, I would have expected them to see this as a 5 card suit and disagree with the values in my original table.

So... Kit is perfectly correctly when he documented that this signal was not in the table.

However the fact that he caught this is great. It was my error in not properly documenting what a 6 card suit is believed to be. I am not going to update the hypothesis at this time.

Kit agrees this is close. You need to see at 0.25 speed. In my mind he leads, and then touches - but does not move - the led card. See this image:

I do not know if the 'trigger' is moving the card, or touching the card. There is only one instance of a touch, not move. In the table with the hypotheses, this really does not matter. This board could go in the 'Yes' or 'No' column depending if the signal is 'move' or 'touch'.

Summary: Kit/I can choose to disagree over touch/no touch, this has no bearing on the hypotheses.

I have updated the table, and now include picture in the text, and identify this as a possible false positive. It was listed as such in the original text, but not in the table. Again a similar reason as the 6 card suit (note that he drums his fingers after the signal). However, I understand it can be easily construed that I'm ignoring false positives. I am documented this as a possible false positive. The other 4/5 card signals are all flat hands, no movements afterwards.

Not quite true. In the table, I left the "# fingers" field as blank, however in the text supporting this I wrote, "Mr. Balicki rearranges dummy. It is not clear how many fingers he is showing. Mr. Balicki has 4 hearts."

If we take Kit's comment as 4 fingers, then this actually supports the hypothesis as Mr. Balicki has 4 hearts. I still do not feel comfortable specifying that this is 4 fingers just because the signal is different than the other 4 hearts. When Mr. Balicki touches dummy, I do not like to include this as a signal because of other theories.

I have updated the table to show 4?.

This is hard to tell. From the camera angle we cannot tell the final thumb location. If you watch at 0.25x screen, on a large resolution monitor, you can see the thumb being extended. I'll agree that we disagree. It is hard to see.

Double taps, which are believed to be part of a different signal, are ignored. This was partially explained in the original text, but not the table. You can see this action (double taps) in other boards during the opening lead and during the play of the hand. This was not fully explained in the original documentation. For example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8EFcFY_Ovk&t=88m30s

To summarize:

Kit 2, Nicolas 7: Was a correct observation. Pass.
Kit 3, Nicolas 26: a) Kit misunderstood the hypothesis, b) Correct data now in table. Pass.
Kit 4, Nicolas 22: Was a correct observation. I believe that this is the 6 card signal. Pass.
Kit 8, Nicolas 9: Doesn't matter. Touch/no touch of led card - for purposes of the hypothesis we are arguing about something that is not relevant.
Kit 13, Nicolas 17: For now will mark as a possible false positive.
Kit 17, Nicolas 16: We agree to disagree. Taking Kit's view (4 fingers) strengthens the hypothesis.
Kit 21, Nicolas 3: We agree to disagree. Am not sure anyone can ever agree because the camera angle obscures the final location of Mr. Balicki's thumb. What is certain is a 4 (or 5) card signal.
Kit 26, Nicolas 10: Kit correct. There is a signal. However it is believed to be a different signal.

Conclusion:

I believe that Kit/I agree observationally on 23/26. The 3 disagreements are:

• One board (Kit 8/Nicolas 9) does not matter (touch/no touch).
• One board (Kit 17/Nicolas 16) strengthens my hypothesis if we take Kit's observation.
• One board (Kit 21/Nicolas 3) is difficult to determine because of camera angle.

We can ignore Kit 8/Nicolas 9. I'm happy to drop the other two as there are clearly observational issues. So we have an observational match on 24/24.

Where do this leave us?

The hypotheses still stand.

On one board (Kit 4/Nicolas 22), I believe that this is the signal for a 6 card suit. We both agree that there is a hand signal. There are no other 6 card examples. Therefore this will remain as a side note for the moment.

One board (Kit 26/Nicolas 10) I ignore, but can see that others would disagree.

Copyright © October 19, 2015 Hammond Software.