[MickyB]

david_c, on May 25 2006, 03:26 PM, said:

Oh, this is just getting silly.

All I am saying is that foo's statement,

"If you make most games you bid at IMPs, then you are not bidding enough games."

is false. I'm afraid I can't explain this any better without repeating myself. I will now have to stop posting in this thread before it drives me insane.

You lasted longer than I would have done.

[bid_em_up]

david_c, on May 25 2006, 10:26 AM, said:

Oh, this is just getting silly. 

All I am saying is that foo's statement,

"If you make most games you bid at IMPs, then you are not bidding enough games."

is false. I'm afraid I can't explain this any better without repeating myself. I will now have to stop posting in this thread before it drives me insane.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. But I believe what foo meant to say is:

"The flip side of this is that if you are not going minus more often on close games than you are going plus, then you are not bidding enough close games at IMPs."

He's welcome to correct me if I am mistaken.

Of course you should be bidding your 60/70/100 percent games, and they will make the majority of the time (based on their percentage). This, of course, should give you a much higher combined frequency of making game as opposed to going down, as you state.

But, that was never part of the equation since we were discussing bidding game with invitational hands (not certain game forcing ones), and what the cutoff point is for where it begins to become profitable to bid these close games.

Sorry for the confusion.

[luke warm]

bid_em_up, on May 20 2006, 06:47 PM, said:

ArcLight, on May 20 2006, 05:52 PM, said:

I asked Marty Bergen about this and he disagreed.

Unfortunately, if I were to respond to this the way I would like to, I probably could be held liable for slander, and I really cant afford it......

I knew there was a reason my profile says "NO BERGEN", I just couldnt remember why. Thanks for reminding me.

ROFLMAOWPIMP

i find this attitude puzzling and a little troubling... bergen's theoretical contributions have, imo, benefited vast numbers of players... his 2 volume 'better bidding' books are still among my favorites... i've read many books on 2/1 and the most that can be said about even the best is that they compare favorably with his

i know of no advanced players posting here, and few if any former or present world class players, who can make negative remarks about bergen's play or introductions to theory... very few have won 12 nat'l championships or amassed over 12,000 masterpoints, or have had rules inacted by the acbl to stop him and cohen from winning even more than they did

[foo]

*sigh* I am not trying to "drive people insane" nor be difficult.

Nor did I "pick numbers out of hat" to make my point. They are =exactly= correct.

points imps points imps
0- 10 0 750- 890 13
20- 40 1 900-1090 14
50- 80 2 1100-1290 15
90-120 3 1300-1490 16
130-160 4 1500-1740 17
170-210 5 1750-1990 18
220-260 6 2000-2240 19
270-310 7 2250-2490 20
320-360 8 2500-2990 21
370-420 9 3000-3490 22
430-490 10 3500-3990 23
500-590 11 4000+ 24
600-740 12
Work it out for yourself.

The thing people are forgetting is that when you bid "close" games, eg w/o extras or w/ slightly less than "traditional values" you do =not= know what the odds are on that game when you bid it. {heck, you do not actually know what the odds are on a game-w/-extras when you bid it either. Eddie Kantar's story of a heart breaking 30+ HCP 3N that is 0% comes to mind...}

The point Frances and others including myself are making is that at IMPs you must bid games that are likely to be less than 50%, at Red considerably less, as well as the obvious games-with-extras that are likely (only "likely" we do not know when we bid them) to be considerably better than 50%.

...and the upshot of this strategy is that if you are bidding game with the appropriate amount of aggression, particularly Red at IMPs, you are very likely to be going down in game more often than you are making. ...and assuming you are not =too= aggressive, you will still show a profit for it when playing vs opponents strong enough to know to do the same thing.

Missing a makable game Red at IMPs is a =big= deal. All of this is why.

[bid_em_up]

I can't and didn't make any negative remarks about his play. Please don't imply something that isn't there.

In my opinion, the vast majority of his methods should only be used by those who are already at advanced or higher levels in their bridge expertise.

Unfortunately, all too often these methods appear to be marketed to the beginner/intermediate player, and I have problems with promoting or being a fan of any method that by default, starts to teach beginning/intermediate players to open "Rule of 20", just to name one example. All too frequently, I see people stating, "I open Rule of 20 partner" and since they think that it means open any hand where the two long suits length plus HCP equals 20, they proceed to open on:

Jx Axxxx Qxxxx K or AQ xxxxx xxxxx A

because they truly believe it qualifies as a Rule of 20 opener. And it doesnt matter to these players what position they are in, or what the vulnerability happens to be.

Heck, their expert partner/teacher told them they needed 20 and they have it, so lets open it. It works for them (the expert teacher/partner), so why shouldnt I do it? Of course the expert partner wouldnt open either of these hand, especially not first seat vul (ok, maybe some would but its not for me), but most (if not all) would open if it were xx AJxxx KQxxx x, would open regardless of position or vulnerability.

Granted, Marty's methods themselves attempt to stress this, but it is not something that can be "taught" and the parts about downgrading values for stiff honors, or having values outside your suits are usually somehow omitted from this discussion amongst lower-level players.

The same applies to Bergen raises (and its variants), his preemptive styles, and so on.

You also might try reading Larry Cohen's own article titled "Love Thy Partner" for his thoughts regarding partnerships and conventions for another perspective, if you have never read it. It can be found here:

http://www.bridge-fo...Cohenluvpd1.htm

From Larry's own perspective (and certainly he is a top player as well), too many gadgets/conventions are not necessarily a good thing. Having to discuss lots of different sequences and their intricate meanings has its downsides on partnerships frequently. Having to constantly change a system to meet a specific need is not a good thing.

I have to wonder, if Marty was such a great theorist (and I am not saying whether he is or he isnt), why was their system constantly having to be changed? Could it be because there was a flaw in the original theory? I dont know. But I think that is usually the case, when one is constantly having to make system changes/adjustments. Or it could just be because he likes to tinker. I dont know.

Another insight might possibly come from another article Larry wrote regarding partnership style, which can be found here:

http://www.culbertso...com/Larryc.html

Again, imo, Marty Bergen's aggressive tactics are more suited for use by the already advanced player who is seeking to improve his arsenal of weapons, and should be attempted only after they have a firm grasp on fundementals of the game and are not methods that should be taught to beginners and intermediates as I see to be so frequently the case.

I, personally, feel that those teaching these methods to beginning/intermediate players are doing what has been one of the biggest disservices done to the game of bridge in the last 30 years, which leaves me not being a fan of his methods.

I also realize that I am in the minority opinion regarding this subject, but those are a few of my reasons for it. There are other reasons as well, but I will not go into them on a public forum.

[jdonn]

foo, on May 25 2006, 01:34 PM, said:

The point Frances and others including myself are making is that at IMPs you must bid games that are likely to be less than 50%

No one is arguing that point as far as I can tell. However, the conclusion you draw from that...

foo, on May 25 2006, 01:34 PM, said:

...and the upshot of this strategy is that if you are bidding game with the appropriate amount of aggression, particularly Red at IMPs, you are very likely to be going down in game more often than you are making.

is WRONG! It can't be said any more clearly! How can I get you to understand?

What you are saying would be true only if we were just referring to those games which are right on the cusp of whether they should be bid or not, the 38% games vul at imps and such. But far more games that people bid, most games for sure, are 60% or 70% or 80%, or better still. It is because of all those games easily offsetting the <50% games that people still make far more games than they go down in. It's not even close.

Another factor is that due to the possibility of multiple undertricks, and of being doubled, the cutoffs are higher than you think anyway.

Don't take my word for it. Look at the vugraph or hand records of any major tournament you want, Bermuda bowls or whatever. Or look at the recap sheet at your local sectional for any good pair you want. I guarantee you 1000% that (overlooking short term anomolies) every pair that did well, and indeed probably every pair at all except for those who did terribly, will make way more games than they go down in. And that doesn't even account for games which were sacrifices, else it would be even more true.

[mikeh]

Let me add my voice to jdonn's, and add a little extra.

If you make most of your 'very aggressive' vul. games at imps, you are either playing against very weak defenders or your perception of your level of aggression is flawed. You should fail at the majority of those games that you think, when bidding them, that you are being very aggressive.

However, statistically, it seems clear that the majority of the games that you bid will be bid by you either 'routinely', or 'conservatively' or only 'mildly aggressively'.

You should probably be making in excess of 75% of these types of contracts.

I do not keep stats on my play, but my gut tells me that my good partnerships make in excess of 70% of the games we bid, excluding sacrifices, which really don't count... and while I am conservative at many aspects of the game, bidding vul. game contracts is not one of them.

[luke warm]

bid_em_up, on May 25 2006, 02:34 PM, said:

I can't and didn't make any negative remarks about his play. Please don't imply something that isn't there.

i never said you did... i didn't even imply that you did... i simply said, "i know of no advanced players posting here, and few if any former or present world class players, who can make negative remarks about bergen's play or introductions to theory" and that was the beginning sentence of a new paragraph

i already read the articles you posted links to, i enjoy cohen's writings very much... the fact remains that he and bergen were a hugely successful partnership... it's true that bergen was more the wild man of the pair, as it's true that most changes in their system were his creations... but i stand by my belief that his theoretical contributions have, for the most part, been a success... good bad 2nt, scrambling 2nt, LOTT bids, etc... even the rule of 20, while maybe prone to abuse, has led to (imo) better overall bidding by beginning and intermediate players...

as for things such as bergen raises and OBAR bids, they're based on the law of total tricks, and bergen invented them way before the general playing public had heard of such a 'law'... he, and one supposes cohen as well, simply believed that bidding as quickly as possible to your combined trump holdings would lead to far more victories than defeats... i think he's probably right, though will grant that his strategies might be better for the matchpoint player

[winkle]

I have some statistics from a random collection of deals from world class team events.
Over 27000 deals, the collective success rate for games is 66%. This does not exclude sacrifices.

[jdonn]

winkle, on May 25 2006, 06:31 PM, said:

I have some statistics from a random collection of deals from world class team events.
Over 27000 deals, the collective success rate for games is 66%.  This does not exclude sacrifices.

Can you break it down by teams that finished, say, above and below average, or by the winning teams?

Impressive that you found that though.

[winkle]

jdonn, on May 25 2006, 11:46 PM, said:

Can you break it down by teams that finished, say, above and below average, or by the winning teams?

I can, but I don't have the data readily available and I don't have time to generate it at the moment.

What I do have is the game statistics and average imps per board for individual pairs. Here are the pairs that I have over 200 total boards for:


Pair                         Bds  Imps AvgImps  Fraction     Fraction
                                               Games bid   Games made
Kwiecien       -Pszczola      305    2    0.01      0.31         0.75 
Bocchi         -Duboin       1126  652    0.58      0.33         0.72 
Levin          -Weinstein     342   -9   -0.03      0.30         0.72 
Molson         -Shenkin       240 -117   -0.49      0.35         0.71 
Gawrys         -Pszczola      250   69    0.28      0.33         0.71 
Martel         -Stansby       986  271    0.27      0.34         0.70 
Casen          -Schwartz      220  -35   -0.16      0.29         0.70 
Ekeblad        -Lipsitz       254   30    0.12      0.28         0.69 
Fallenius      -Welland       398  -93   -0.23      0.31         0.69 
Sontag         -Weischel      637  -47   -0.07      0.30         0.69 
Balicki        -Zmudzinski    476   74    0.16      0.30         0.68 
Berkowitz      -Cohen         382   27    0.07      0.28         0.67 
Mahmood        -Rosenberg    1100  324    0.29      0.31         0.67 
Hamman         -Wolff         324   40    0.12      0.29         0.67 
Brogeland      -Salensminde   316    8    0.03      0.28         0.67 
Hamman         -Soloway      1011  462    0.46      0.31         0.67 
Jassem         -Tuszynski     224   68    0.30      0.30         0.66 
Fantoni        -Nunes         288   72    0.25      0.30         0.66 
Meckstroth     -Rodwell      1771  715    0.40      0.33         0.66 
Helgemo        -Helness       279 -123   -0.44      0.31         0.65 
Branco         -Chagas        336  -50   -0.15      0.32         0.65 
Jacobs         -Katz          304  172    0.57      0.27         0.64 
Larsen         -Meltzer       350 -211   -0.60      0.27         0.64 
Chemla         -Perron        395   -3   -0.01      0.32         0.64 
Lauria         -Versace      1028  797    0.78      0.33         0.64 
Levy           -Mouiel        207   65    0.31      0.32         0.63 
Freeman        -Nickell       892 -131   -0.15      0.30         0.61 
Garner         -Weinstein     399 -103   -0.26      0.31         0.61 


I wouldn't try to correlate imps/board with game %, though, because there are too many other factors that go into average imps per board.

Hopefully, no one will use the imps/board to compare different pairs.

[civill]

To the topic,I think that it's simpler relaticely,and for most common-level players as me,simpler is better.

[keylime]

Now that I have the ability to type again, my thoughts on this topic:

1. I think 4 suit transfers are a disadvantage. The two auctions that come to mind are the 2♣ "step invite" to 2NT, and the potential wrongsiding of a minor suit transfer if opener finds a preaccept (some invert the meanings of a preaccept to attempt to resolve this matter). What would be an interesting adjunct is, what do experts play 1NT-3X to be?

2. Minor Suit Stayman - when does it really come up? I think I've ran across it once.

3. If I couldn't use Keri for whatever reason, I'd use Danny Kleinman's concept of "compressed transfers". For one, the ability to issue an invite of 1NT-2NT naturally is non-telling to the defense. Also, it does allow you to play MSS in its engine if memory serves.

[mike777]

" Minor Suit Stayman - when does it really come up? I think I've ran across it once."

Funny I think Fred mentioned somewhere he does not have a way to show weakish 5-5 minor hands in his style but it came up last night for me.

1nt=x(penalty)=2s=mss as (either weak with long D, weak with both minors(5-5) or slam try with minors (at least 4-4, often more)).

[FrancesHinden]

keylime, on May 26 2006, 04:12 PM, said:

Now that I have the ability to type again, my thoughts on this topic:

1. I think 4 suit transfers are a disadvantage. The two auctions that come to mind are the 2♣ "step invite" to 2NT, and the potential wrongsiding of a minor suit transfer if opener finds a preaccept (some invert the meanings of a preaccept to attempt to resolve this matter). What would be an interesting adjunct is, what do experts play 1NT-3X to be?

Like a lot of this discussion, what you use 1NT-3X to mean depends on the rest of the system.

I happen to play 1NT-3m as a slam try and 1NT-3M as pre-emptive in one partnership. In another partnership I play 1NT-3M as a 3-suiter with shortage in the other major. I think the latter is a more useful hand-type to show, but in the first partnership we have other ways to showing these 3-suiters.

We played mss for years and it didn't come up once. So we stopped playing it and got more accuracy into bidding 3-suiters, which do come up.

[fred]

In my partnership with Brad Moss we use:

1NT-3C=diamonds any strength except invitational
1NT-3D=4441, 4414, 4450, or 4405
1NT-3H=1444, 0445, or 0454
1NT-3S=4144, 4045, or 4054

3-suited hands are relatively rare, but most players (in USA at least) do not have a good way to bid these hands after a 1NT opening. So when these bids do come up we have a big advantage.

As far as I can tell, most top American pairs use most of the 3-level responses to 1NT to describe 2-suiters with both minors. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, we transfer to 2H and then bid 2S with such hands. This is a superior way to describe hands with both minors (because the bidding is so much lower).

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[han]

fred, on May 29 2006, 09:30 AM, said:

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, we transfer to 2H and then bid 2S with such hands. This is a superior way to describe hands with both minors (because the bidding is so much lower).

It seems to me that you may have more difficulty when the opponents enter the auction after such a transfer. For instance, 1NT-(p)-2D-(3S)-p-(p)-Dbl would be difficult because opener won't know whether responder has hearts or both minors. Any thoughts on this issue Fred?

[fred]

Our rule is:

If the opponents interfere over 2D, responder shows that the has the minors (as opposed to hearts) by bidding spades at the cheapest level at his next opportunity. All other bids say "I really had hearts". The only exception is if the opponents have bid up to 4S by the time it is responder's turn to rebid. Then 4NT says he has the minors and all other bids show hearts.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[mike777]

No theory claims this is superior but you can play mss(2s) and still show 3 suited hands.

1nt=2nt= sign off in clubs or 3 suited hands.
3c=forced then:
3d=4414 slam try
3h=4144=slam try
3s=1444=slam try
3nt=4441=slam try


1nt=3c or 3d=invite
1nt=3h or 3s=fragment (strength for 3nt, no 4 card major, the other major is extremely weak, typical 3h bid=x...Kxx...Qxxxx...AQTx)