[000002]

kenrexford, on Feb 4 2007, 04:09 PM, said:

A dangled worm gets bitten.

Sure, you may object that bidding 4♦ might lead to a diamond lead that otherwise might not be made.  However, look what happens if you understand the situation, discuss it, and understand what 4♦ means, and then assess its use in alternative auctions.

Suppose, instead, that the minors were reversed.  4♣ would be the bid instead of 4♦.  Now, change the auction such that Opener's RHO doubles 2♣ Stayman.  Now, the club lead is assured and the stiff more likely.  Almost no risk from the info; greater chance of gain.

The actual 4♦ call might be made after 1NT-P-2♣-2♦-2♥-P-3♥.

The same theory might occur after 1NT-P-2♦-2♠-P-P-X-P when Opener holds ♠xxxx ♥Qxx ♦AKQx ♣Ax, if the double showed values and offense-to-defense high.  Again, spade lead likely anyway, and shortness more likely.  This hand was from actual play, slam missed.

How about KJxx-10xxx-Ax-AKQ opposite Q10xx-v-KQx-J1098xx?  If 1NT-P-2♣-P-2♥-P-3♣ showed clubs, spades, and invitational values, would you expect as Opener that a stiff heart was likely as opposed to remote (partner seems to be 6-4 to introduce such cruddy clubs)?  How do you show this powerhouse without a jump to 4♥ as an empathized splinter bid?  Soloway-Hamman and Bramley-Feldman failed to find this slam, but this sequence suggests strongly that the rare is probable, tipping the odds in favor of the call.

Meddling from the opponents and other indicators often erase the lead-directive risk and often increase the likelihood of the otherwise unlikely.

Back to the original problem.  What about 1♥-P-1♠-2♣-2♥-X(Snapdragon)-3♥-3♠-4♦?  NOW, bidding 4♦ makes sense if it shows a hand like I earlier described.  Our auction is the same, but the likelihood of the remote being present radically increases, now perhaps outweighing the risks.

So, if the call has been discussed and understood, this new situation might occur where the call threatens much less risk and offers much greater chance of success.

True, you might lose in the long run using it in unimpeded auctions.  However, the call might be available in impeded auctions, where the risk is negated and the benefits more likely.  It probably occurs more often in contested auctions.

"How about KJxx-10xxx-Ax-AKQ opposite Q10xx-v-KQx-J1098xx? If 1NT-P-2♣-P-2♥-P-3♣ showed clubs, spades, and invitational values, would you expect as Opener that a stiff heart was likely as opposed to remote (partner seems to be 6-4 to introduce such cruddy clubs)? How do you show this powerhouse without a jump to 4♥ as an empathized splinter bid? Soloway-Hamman and Bramley-Feldman failed to find this slam, but this sequence suggests strongly that the rare is probable, tipping the odds in favor of the call."

huge difference in this hand ,it's alterable declarer, and game forced strength(invitational with ♣/♠ 5431 but not 5422).



regards 000002

[fred]

jikl, on Feb 4 2007, 10:50 PM, said:

Quote

I am sorry, but the only good books I know of on this subject were written more than 50 years ago. Probably for some they would still be interesting to read, but the game has changed so much since then that I expect most non-experts reading such books (if they could even find a copy) would end up becoming confused.

Fred,

Do you think this might have something to do with the fact that noone plays rubber bridge anymore? In rubber it is all natural bidding and you have to think about the auction.

Sean

Probably there is some kind of relationship between the number of new books on bidding theory and the number of rubber bridge players.

But I doubt this is a causal relationship.

I think it is more likely that other factors (such as the proliferation of conventions and systems and the way that bridge is taught) are primarily responsible for both of these things.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[whereagles]

About bidding books for beginners: there are a few well-written books on french standard. They lack a bit on the strategy issue, but are very systematic and easy to understand. Basic overcall and dealing with overcalls theory is covered too. The problem is they're only available on french

As for bidding books on english, the only good one I know of is Robson/Segal's "partnership bidding", and that's expert stuff only. Mike Lawrence does an ok job too on beginner bidding theory, though he lacks a bit on systematics. All other seem.. well.. snake oil, as someone would say

[helene_t]

Hey, do you call Points Schmoints "Snake Oil"? Blasfemist!

Lol, tx for an excelent post Fred, what you said cannot be said often enough,

[hrothgar]

fred, on Feb 5 2007, 05:50 AM, said:

Probably there is some kind of relationship between the number of new books on bidding theory and the number of rubber bridge players.

But I doubt this is a causal relationship.

I think it is more likely that other factors  (such as the proliferation of conventions and systems and the way that bridge is taught) are primarily responsible for both of these things.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

Its somewhat disappointing to see you advance such a simplistic thesis after so many discussions about this topic. I'd be shocked if either system regulations or teaching programs had any significant impact (one way or the other) on the declining popularity of bridge.

The world has seen some phenomenal demographic changes over the last 50 years.

1. Rising real incomes
2. Dual wage earner families
3. Proliferation of alternative forms of etertainment (TV, video games, the Internet)
4. Cheap travel
5. Aging of the baby boomers

I believe that the significance of each of these factors swamps that of "system regulations" on bridge's overall popularity.

Furthermore, its very important to note that a wide number of traditional games are being affected by these same demongraphic trends. Chess players, checker players, wargamers, backgammon players, scrabble players are all lamenting the difficulty in recruiting new players. If we cast our net a bit wider, the same forces seem to be ripping apart civics organizations ranging from the Masons to local bowling leagues. Needless to say, I think that its far fetched to claim that proliferation of obscure bidding systems had much impact on the popularity of backgammon...

[jtfanclub]

helene_t, on Feb 5 2007, 05:56 AM, said:

Hey, do you call Points Schmoints "Snake Oil"? Blasfemist!

Lol, tx for an excelent post Fred, what you said cannot be said often enough,

I love points schmoints and Larry Cohen's books on the LAW. But I don't think these are snake oil- they're just teaching you how to evaluate your hand. Learning Losing Trick Count doesn't hurt either.

I think the main problem with Bridge is that people aren't playing it in college any more- that's how my parents learned it, and I think how most people did. I don't think that any reason that doesn't apply to college students has anything to do with the declining popularity, at least in the U.S.

I do think that the unbelievable complexity of SAYC does hurt the game. Trying to teach beginners that this is forcing but this isn't, and the simple auctions that become very difficult. Again and again, playing in some low level tournament, I'll watch an argument develop between my opponents who have been playing standard for years together on some ridiculously simple auction.

We need an SAGC- a Standard American Green Card, with simplifications down to the silly level to teach raw beginners. Then we need a very simple computer program that will run it and bundle it in free with Windows.

[fred]

hrothgar, on Feb 5 2007, 01:53 PM, said:

fred, on Feb 5 2007, 05:50 AM, said:

Probably there is some kind of relationship between the number of new books on bidding theory and the number of rubber bridge players.

But I doubt this is a causal relationship.

I think it is more likely that other factors  (such as the proliferation of conventions and systems and the way that bridge is taught) are primarily responsible for both of these things.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

Its somewhat disappointing to see you advance such a simplistic thesis after so many discussions about this topic. I'd be shocked if either system regulations or teaching programs had any significant impact (one way or the other) on the declining popularity of bridge.

The world has seen some phenomenal demographic changes over the last 50 years.

1. Rising real incomes
2. Dual wage earner families
3. Proliferation of alternative forms of etertainment (TV, video games, the Internet)
4. Cheap travel
5. Aging of the baby boomers

I believe that the significance of each of these factors swamps that of "system regulations" on bridge's overall popularity.

Furthermore, its very important to note that a wide number of traditional games are being affected by these same demongraphic trends. Chess players, checker players, wargamers, backgammon players, scrabble players are all lamenting the difficulty in recruiting new players. If we cast our net a bit wider, the same forces seem to be ripping apart civics organizations ranging from the Masons to local bowling leagues. Needless to say, I think that its far fetched to claim that proliferation of obscure bidding systems had much impact on the popularity of backgammon...

Richard,

Please reread my post.

It had nothing to do with "the decline of bridge".

It was about why the % of bridge players who are rubber bridge players is much smaller than it once was.

I agree with most of what you say in your post, but that is not the subject that jikl asked me to comment on.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[hrothgar]

fred, on Feb 5 2007, 07:04 PM, said:

Richard,

Please reread my post.

It had nothing to do with "the decline of bridge".

It was about why the % of bridge players who are rubber bridge players is much smaller than it once was.

I agree with most of what you say in your post, but that is not the subject that jikl asked me to comment on.

Here we get to a somewhat more interesting question:

Lets assume that there has been an overall decline in the popularity of "bridge". More over, this decline has been asymmetric in nature. The "Rubber Bridge" form of the game has declined much more significantly than the "Duplicate Bridge" form.

One potential argument is that the proliferation of systems and conventions has a pernicious effect and accelerated the loss of rubber bridge players. However, the converse might also be true. Its possible that the proliferation of bidding systems and conventions provides value to duplicate players and is arresting their attrition.

I've long argued that bridge will inevitably transition from a mass market form of entertainment to a niche game. Accordingly, I think that its important to focus on those elements of the game that are separate, unique, and distinct.

[kenrexford]

My grandparents were avid rubber bridge players of the old school variety. 25 cents to play, winner takes all ($1). Men's night, women's night, snacks.

They owned one book, from 60 years ago.

I doubt they ever heard of any new fangled bridge books, let alone would read them. They certainly would not have stopped playing rubber bridge because some people in the big city were reading weird books.

They knew I would read weird city books, but they thought I was funny. Bidding weird, like I do. Silliness. We made 2S last hand -- so why bid over 1NT, let alone some strange transfer? These city books are stupid.

[WrecksVee]

Concerning basic bidding I would suggest Frank Stewart's "Becoming a Bridge Expert". I have not looked at this book in years but am now re-reading it. The sections on constructive bidding will help anyone looking for some discussion of basics. His explanation and examples of why he does not care for 2/1 should be of interest to everyone.

The old classic "How to Win at Duplicate Bridge" by Marshall Miles has much interesting pre-gadget ideas though it is focused on duplicate.

[blackshoe]

Fred,

Thanks for you long and information packed reply. I was afraid you'd say there weren't any recent good books on bidding theory - I have a decent sized library, I pay attention to what's in print, and I haven't seen any lately, except perhaps for Robson & Segal's Partnership Bidding, which I've read twice now, and still haven't assimilated it all.
I've printed out your reply, and will give it some study.

This is kind of off-topic, so I'll stop here.

[blackshoe]

Hm. I recall reading somewhere that there are something like a couple million bridge players in North America who don't play duplicate, don't belong to the ACBL, and don't know more than about two conventions (Stayman and Blackwood). Maybe that info is wrong, or wishful thinking on somebody's part, I dunno. But if it's true, I don't think you can attribute a lack of good books on bidding theory to a lack of rubber bridge players.

Most of the players I talk to (almost all of them duplicate players) aren't interested in reading about theory - they just want to play. Maybe that's the reason. Or maybe not.

[awm]

There is some advantage to having a fairly simple and widely understood system.

As I understand things (I'm not old enough to remember), back in the days when bridge was wildly popular, certain books by Charles Goren were recognized as the bidding standard. This made it relatively easy to learn how to bid -- you read the Goren book. When teaching beginning or intermediate students, it was pretty clear what the standard agreements were (it didn't vary much from bridge teacher to bridge teacher).

Of course, even back then it wasn't as though all the top-class partnerships played Goren. Roth-Stone and Kaplan-Sheinwold's methods have been around quite some time, and even more unusual methods like Roman Club aren't all that new.

The point isn't that we should somehow force everyone to play the same methods -- it's that there are substantial advantages to the existence of a widely-recognized standard. These days you can't really sit down, agree to play "standard bridge" and have much of any idea what you're getting yourself into. Even if partner is a genuine expert player, there's no guarantee that his opinion of what's "standard" even in basic sequences like 1♠-P-2♥-P-2NT or 1♠-P-2♠-2NT will match yours. This makes it a lot harder to play bridge without substantial discussion and much harder to teach bridge to new players.

There is some relationship between this problem and the proliferation of conventions, and it's true that a lot of teachers focus too much on conventions rather than basic bidding sequences, but I don't think this problem is all that closely tied to "system regulations." It's more a lack of a single recognized authority.

[000002]

sorry,i don't know what u say really,but i hope u can undersatnd what i say:

i hate to see so many grey alert when i am watching the live broadcast.

about half years ago,i ever sent an massage to a famaous italian player(one of F-N) when i watch he is free to see their italian's teamate act on BBO.he was amuzed apparently and explain that is proffessional bridge.
but i hate this proffessional bridge if i have to accepted too many alert.

i hope we can limit the range of the new convention ,they must be required to indicate what is the fault in the "OLD" way,and what is real advantage in their new convention.
i think many poor players make many foolish convention now in this world,(include 3pairs of italian top players,but they are excellent player)they ought to accept the concept spare more time to study the OLD way , till they can point out the vice exist in the old way, excatly.

regards 000002

[cherdano]

awm, on Feb 6 2007, 12:27 AM, said:

There is some advantage to having a fairly simple and widely understood system.

As I understand things (I'm not old enough to remember), back in the days when bridge was wildly popular, certain books by Charles Goren were recognized as the bidding standard. This made it relatively easy to learn how to bid -- you read the Goren book. When teaching beginning or intermediate students, it was pretty clear what the standard agreements were (it didn't vary much from bridge teacher to bridge teacher).

Of course, even back then it wasn't as though all the top-class partnerships played Goren. Roth-Stone and Kaplan-Sheinwold's methods have been around quite some time, and even more unusual methods like Roman Club aren't all that new.

The point isn't that we should somehow force everyone to play the same methods -- it's that there are substantial advantages to the existence of a widely-recognized standard. These days you can't really sit down, agree to play "standard bridge" and have much of any idea what you're getting yourself into. Even if partner is a genuine expert player, there's no guarantee that his opinion of what's "standard" even in basic sequences like 1♠-P-2♥-P-2NT or 1♠-P-2♠-2NT will match yours. This makes it a lot harder to play bridge without substantial discussion and much harder to teach bridge to new players.

There is some relationship between this problem and the proliferation of conventions, and it's true that a lot of teachers focus too much on conventions rather than basic bidding sequences, but I don't think this problem is all that closely tied to "system regulations." It's more a lack of a single recognized authority.

It also makes it a lot more difficult for advancing players to pick up stuff automatically when, e.g., they are playing against better opponents, but those are using different methods. I found it quite remarkable that Chip Martel in his bridgematter interview mentioned as a disadvantage of weak NT for himself that these days almost everybody else is playing strong NT, and thus weak NTers don't benefit as much from the community (and general progress of bidding theory). If that's a concern for Chip Martel, it must certainly be a concern to the rest of us...

In Germany the situation is (as far as I can tell) a lot worse than in the US.(*) According to some, part of the reason is the ego of some of the teaching professionals who rather teach their own stuff, as otherwise their students might end up buying competitors' books, or even go to their courses... (The German bridge association has been trying to set an SEF-alike system as the standard, but it isn't really accepted yet.)
I can't judge this myself at all, but I know some who think this is the main reason why German bridge (aside from the women's team) isn't even close to the international success of nations like Sweden, Norway etc. which may have a similar, or smaller, number of bridge players.

Arend


(*) I once played in a club in a very small town, where more than half of the LO ladies and gentlemen played a pretty weird strong diamond system... That was an exception, of course, but in a typical tournament you will play vs, play polish club, various short clubs, Swiss Acol, the SEF-like Forum D, SAYC-like structures, a few 2/1ers, ...

[mike777]

Arend, thank you very much for your post, this was quite fantastic. Again ty for taking the time to post this.

[Gerben42]

The big problem in Germany is not that people play or teach what they like, but that they teach a bidding system at all. Too much emphasis is placed on system and the federation is supporting this by publishing all this material based on bidding system.

The German teaching method works very well if you teach people in their 60s and because they don't learn as fast as when they were young but still want to learn all, they will come back to the next course (or to the same one!), thus providing a living for the teachers. Of course this is important work also, but to make Bridge more popular you need to teach younger players.

Now to teach YOUNG players, the German system is hopeless. I've taught some students and in lesson 2 we were playing bridge, not minibridge, not learning how to count who knows what kind of points, and also not learning what is sequence A and what is sequence B but seeing what was possible in the game.

After 8 lessons I let them play in the club, and not in a beginner's line but the real thing. They really liked it, and they even dared to play the club individual

Maybe if you teach your group of older students you have to explain that 1♥ - 2♣ shows 11 points and that 1♥ - 2♥ shows only 6 to 9, but younger students need to understand the logic. So my short bidding notes had things like:

* If partner opens and you have a weak hand you should not go past 1NT without a fit.

* You should not bid 2NT unless you almost have the combined strength for game.

The standard way of teaching is "this is how it is", how would you ever understand WHY it is how it is?

In contrast a year earlier someone else in my club tried to teach students following the books from the bridge federation, and it simply didn't catch on. I am not surprised...

[microcap]

Thanks Fred-- I am sending this email to Rex, who knows every convention ever invented and some that haven't been. He does have trouble counting to 13 more often than not though! LOL

[Vilgan]

Hrmm, perhaps a tad late to chime in.. but as a young player I am not at all surprised that rubber bridge is declining faster than duplicate. I love duplicate bridge and am completely uninterested in ever playing much rubber bridge. Rubber bridge is (imo) closer to a regular card game than duplicate. Its a past time that a few decades ago appealed to the masses, but over time a lot of other things (video games and tv being big ones) have appeared as alternate ways to relax and have fun.

Duplicate is (for me) a completely different cat completely. It eliminates the luck of who got the "good cards" inherent in most games and is very competitive. The demographic of people (imo) who enjoyed rubber bridge has a lot more competition for their attention now. The demographic for duplicate players really doesn't have much competition as there really isn't anything like duplicate bridge. Rubber bridge isn't just for casual relaxed players, a lot of experts seem to enjoy it. However, the average rubber bridge player is a lot more casual, relaxed, and is more likely to wile away hours doing all the various other entertaining things that have appeared over the years than a duplicate player who really only has one outlet for their competitive appetite.

Eric

[helene_t]

fred, on Feb 5 2007, 03:50 AM, said:

(Relating to his own assertion that the best beginner's bidding books were written 50 years ago) I think it is more likely that other factors  (such as the proliferation of conventions and systems and the way that bridge is taught) are primarily responsible for both of these things.

Some observations:
- When I was new to duplicate bridge I found it great fun to invent crazy conventions.
- I was well aware that the crazy conventions gave me bad results. I didn't care much until I reached a level were I would actually be able to win a few small tournaments if I didn't play the crazy conventions.
- At that point I tried to convince partners to scrap the crazy conventions, but that could be difficult. New partners would insist on playing multi, bizarre notrump structures etc.
- Opponents were impressed by our crazy convention card. Many said explictly that we must be very good players since we played all those sophisticated conventions, and I am sure they weren't sarcastic.
- It is much easier to learn step responses such as Gerber by heart than learning to use logic to assess whether 4♣ is to play or a slam try in clubs.
- Authors of popular textbooks, as well as good teachers, admit that beginners shouldn't learn crazy conventions but they teach them anyway because the market demands it.