[the hog]

Well, are you going to admit you were totally incorrect JT?

[Stephen Tu]

Quote

Missing the point. If you are short in opps suit, you MUST reopen. Usually with a dbl, but you must reopen. Matter of partnership trust. That is the convention of negative dbls

So you are taking the position that if you are short, you must reopen regardless of strength, level of the overcall (within your neg-x range), and vulnerability?

To me that is losing bridge. My partners trust me to take the action I think will maximize our score expectation. That doesn't include giving him the choice between -730 & -800 when LHO overcalls 3H just because I happen to be short in the suit.

Quote

Do you pass out 4N blackwood because you can't see the slam and opened with a sub-minimum? How about passing opener's reverse or jump-shift? Do you refuse a transfer (unless playing puppet where that is allowed)? How about passing a takeout dbl because you are too weak?

I can't see myself doing these specific things, since I can't see how these things would help our score. (I would pass a takeout double if long in the opponent's suit, even expecting them to make it, if I felt that bidding would lead to a worse score most of the time).

But in general in my partnerships, we are free to violate agreements if we think that is going to score best on average. Now we do this very rarely, probably much more rarely than average players, because in general violating partnership agreements isn't going to score well. But that doesn't mean we aren't allowed to do it if we think it's the winning action. We play to win the game, not to honor partnership agreements.

Playing neg-x, you should try to reopen, in case partner has a penalty pass. Bu t a lot of the time, he just doesn't, he was just too weak. So at high levels, you need extras to survive in case he doesn't & pulls, or has nowhere to go & can pass hoping your extras are enough to beat the contract. That's what the agreement ought to be. Mandatory reopening is somewhat of a suicide pact sometimes.

It's a partnership game, you do have to follow your agreements 99% the time in order to do well. But that doesn't mean always. Very few things in bridge are always

[HeartA]

I am on Stephen's side.

[hrothgar]

Stephen Tu, on Nov 18 2004, 12:19 AM, said:

We play to win the game, not to honor partnership agreements.

Silly me, I design partnership agreements to win the game...

From my perspective, if you're too weak to re-open with shortness in the opponents suit, then you're too weak to open to begin with...

[the hog]

Stephen I think you should give up negative doubles at the 2 level and play penalty doubles.

[Stephen Tu]

Quote

Silly me, I design partnership agreements to win the game.

Of course, so do I, so that taking winning actions doesn't require violating agreements with any significant frequency. I violate agreements extremely rarely. Partners have made comments about how much more disciplined I am than their other partners. But that doesn't mean that hands don't come up that fall outside the scope of your agreements, where you can judge that you'll likely do better by violating your previous basic agreement. Perhaps afterwards you can come up with a better, more sophisticated agreement to handle that case.

If you always reopen, you pick up more of the hoped for penalties available, but there are hands where you lose where partner pulls & is wrong, pulls + to -, (too marginal to risk a pass), one of you bids too much or too little (you do have extras, when partner bids 3M after do you raise to game? He couldn't bid 4M himself since you might be min), partner pulls & gets doubled, partner pulls and goes down undoubled more than their partscore, partner leaves it in and they make.

The sums of those losing cases can easily be more than the gains you get from the extra penalties picked up.

[hrothgar]

Stephen Tu, on Nov 18 2004, 12:46 AM, said:

Quote

Silly me, I design partnership agreements to win the game.

Of course, so do I, so that taking winning actions doesn't require violating agreements with any significant frequency. I violate agreements extremely rarely. Partners have made comments about how much more disciplined I am than their other partners. But that doesn't mean that hands don't come up that fall outside the scope of your agreements, where you can judge that you'll likely do better by violating your previous basic agreement. Perhaps afterwards you can come up with a better, more sophisticated agreement to handle that case.

If you always reopen, you pick up every hoped for penalty available, but there are hands where you lose where partner pulls & is wrong, pulls + to -, (too marginal to risk a pass), one of you bids too much or too little (you do have extras, when partner bids 3M after do you raise to game? He couldn't bid 4M himself since you might be min), partner pulls & gets doubled, partner pulls and goes down undoubled more than their partscore, partner leaves it in and they make.

The sums of those losing cases can easily be more than the gains you get from the extra penalties picked up.

My guess is that the losses would be a function of poor interactions between opening style and trap pass.

Can you provide an example hand where

1. You have 0-1 clubs
2. You would open 1♦ playing a standard system
3. You would pass LHO's 2♣ overcall

[Stephen Tu]

Quote

Stephen I think you should give up negative doubles at the 2 level and play penalty doubles.

This doesn't follow logically. Just because one doesn't collect every penalty available doesn't mean that you would score better playing penalty doubles rather than negative doubles. You pick up many more hands where the negative double is best to describe your hand than you pick up hands where you want to take out the axe & bar partner.

You still pick up a good deal of the penalties available, when opener is appropriate to reopen. You don't need a lot of extras to reopen at the 2 level. I'm just saying that the higher you go, you should have some extras; reopening after (3s) .... p p is insane to do on your 11 count just because you are short.

The goal is highest net MP/IMP score on the sum of all hands, not to collect every penalty available. People started to play neg doubles since hands were otherwise hard to describe, and it improved their score on average to be able to describe these hands than to collect all the penalties available. You reopen with a double to recover some of the penalties available. You don't have to recover all of them to score well. If you try to recover all of them, your net expectation can go down.

[Stephen Tu]

Quote

Can you provide an example hand where

1. You have 0-1 clubs
2. You would open 1♦ playing a standard system
3. You would pass LHO's 2♣ overcall

If you'll read my post above, I did say that over 2♣ perhaps it is mandatory. But over 2♠ there are hands where I would not reopen on a marginal 11 count low on aces with doubleton spade.

Quote

My guess is that the losses would be a function of poor interactions between opening style and trap pass.

The losses aren't when partner was trap passing. The losses are when partner wasn't trap passing, he was just too weak to do anything. If you are always reopening when short, even on 11 counts at the 3 level, these losses will just happen.

[jtfanclub]

The_Hog, on Nov 17 2004, 04:01 PM, said:

Well, are you going to admit you were totally incorrect JT?

No, because I am correct. And Stephen is more correct.

You do not X in hopes that your partner has a penalty pass. You X because you think you can find a better fit to play. This hand is actually a great example- change the A8xxx into ATxxx or even AQxxx and leaving in the X still gets you a bad board. This doesn't even include the times you make East nervous enough to pull to 2 spades, where they'll be very happy indeed.

But far more importantly, if you are a beginner, you should NEVER even THINK about penalty passing, or asking yourself what if your partner penalty passed, unless you've forced to game. It is such a minor consideration that there are far more important things to worry about. Like, do you have a major suit fit?

In old style SA, the X promises more points than the standard opener. What do you want me to do, find some links? It's designed to be conservative. If you're an expert, with specific agreements and who plays the spots off the cards, it's fine to play this doesn't show extras. For a beginner, to find himself at 2♦X with a 4-2 fit and about 17 combined HCP, can be a bit disillusioning.

Your answer is wrong for two reasons, but the bigger one is because you give the same answers regardless of forum.

[pclayton]

JT:

Are you suggesting it isn't correct to teach beginners (or...intermediates?) that its not right to reopen with:

Axxx
Axxx
Axxx
x

?

[the hog]

JT I don't think you should suggest bad practices to beginners unless you also suggest they don't play -ve Xs

[jtfanclub]

pclayton, on Nov 18 2004, 11:47 AM, said:

JT:

Are you suggesting it isn't correct to teach beginners (or...intermediates?) that its not right to reopen with:

Axxx
Axxx
Axxx
x

?

What a fascinating hand. All you've done is switch some honors with the opponents.

Let's see what you came up with:

Scoring: IMP

---

I may have confused a spot or two, but should be good enough to work with.

Looks like 2♣ is down on a diamond lead, or on a major suit lead switching to a low diamond (the fact that partner didn't raise you gives you a good hint about the diamonds). Two hearts...probably makes, thanks to the QT9x. If it were the Q65x there wouldn't be much hope. And you got lucky- partner has a fine offensive hand. You won't always get a partner who gives you a four card major with excellent intermediates and an ace across your singleton.

If opener figures the aces are worth extra (he's right) and that perfect shape is worth extra (he's right again) and doubles that's fine. It's a whole lot safer than with the one trick wonder originally given. But that's a question of hand evaluation. He has extras, so it's fine to reopen.

But note something else here. Suppose responder had:
Jxx
xxx
Jx
KTxxx

This hand is a horror. If you go for only -500 at wherever you end up, you've done a heck of a job.

And yet...

In two clubs: Diamond led, to the ace. diamond comes back. Ace of clubs, club to the king. Heart to the ace, diamond ruffed. Spade to the ace, diamond ruffed. Down 1.

The three ace hand can afford a leave-in.
The first hand could not.

That's part of what gives the three ace hand extras.

[the hog]

Foregt it Phil. He's not prepared to learn so its not worth the effort.

[jtfanclub]

The_Hog, on Nov 21 2004, 03:15 AM, said:

Foregt it Phil. He's not prepared to learn so its not worth the effort.

Yes, you're absolutely right. I trust you won't be replying to me again.

[the hog]

The_Hog, on Nov 21 2004, 03:15 AM, said:

Forget it Phil. He's not prepared to learn so its not worth the effort.

"Yes, you're absolutely right. I trust you won't be replying to me again."


Have no fear, as long as the clueless don't try to feed crap to learning players.

[jtfanclub]

The_Hog, on Nov 21 2004, 04:40 AM, said:

Have no fear, as long as the clueless don't try to feed crap to learning players.

You mean like...

-Referring to doubles as 'sputnik' without context,
-Saying the only reason why you should X is in case your partner had a penalty double, and
-Calling A8xxx not even close...it should be ATxxx?

I'm sure your words of wisdom are doing a wonderful job of enlightening them.

[the hog]

Other examples of cluelessness.
Negative Xs were originally called Sputnik because they first appeared in 1961 and are still referred to as such in the civilised world.
Playing Sputnik Xs a takeout is mandatory at most low levels with shortness in the opps suit.
Anyone who has played bridge for more than 1 week realises that AT to 5 is worth at least 1 trick more than A8 to 5.

End of story and my last post in this thread.

[luke warm]

jt,

anyone can construct a hand that proves whatever it is he's trying to prove... i think ron and phil were talking about principles though... they're discussing whether or not it's right to teach someone something that, on balance, is wrong...

obviously a bid might be right on any one occasion, but that isn't the question... is it sufficiently correct to warrant teaching it as a general principle? that's what they're talking about... both of their skill levels are such that, without evidence to the contrary, they'll usually take the percentage play at the table... it seems to me they're simply saying that what you're expousing is anti-percentage

if you read over your posts you'll see that you seem to spend a lot of time saying things like "but change the hand to so and so, or give east such and such"... i don't think that's quite the point... phil asked you a simple question above... instead of just answering him, you constructed several hands that bolstered your view... we can all do that, it isn't a gift

anyone wishing to improve can do a lot worse than reading and absorbing the things phil and ron (as well as others too many to name) say... on the other side of the coin, arguing for what seems to be arguments sake doesn't seem to serve any interest

just my opinion

[jtfanclub]

Quote

anyone can construct a hand that proves whatever it is he's trying to prove...

I didn't construct the hand- I just took the actual hand, and did the honor swap PClayton was suggesting.

My point was that the hand he's suggesting is a much stronger hand, especially defensively, than the one in question. If a reopening double shows extras, the three ace hand has extras. The hand with a devalued 12 thanks to the strength on the left does not.

I'm not disagreeing with Paul- that hand does need to reopen with a double. I was trying to explain why I would reopen with Paul's hand and not with the original hand, and how a beginner could figure that out.

I apologize for not being clear.

I think I'm done. Thanks all.