[AL78]

I played in a X-imps session yesterday evening (not on BBO) and again was sat in the wrong place as far as picking up decent hands was concerned. 24 boards, declared twice, mean HCP 8.54 (why am I bothering to work through the BridgeMaster hands?). It got me thinking that if the deals are biased toward one orientation, it is harder to do well in a one winner movement if you are on the wrong side of the bias? My thinking is that whilst those following me will get the same poor hands on average, there will be other partnerships who primarily sat the other way and picked up the good hands with games and slams on, which gives them more opportunity to get big swings in (by bidding and making the thinner games and slams, or those contracts which require good technique less likely to be found by the less experienced players). Fortunately our defence was decent and we finished fifth out of 15 with +18. Two of the strongest pairs ran away with it with +88 and +81.6, thrid place was a mere +37.2 by comparison (we were 0.44 imps away from fourth).

[Douglas43]

The same applies in Howell movements. The initiative is always with the pair with stronger hands. Even in a Mitchell, if you have weaker hands, you just have to hope that the opponents slip up sometimes. But no form of the game is perfect, you just have to grind out the best result you can.

[akwoo]

Well, you have less chance of finishing top, but you also have less chance of finishing bottom!

[AL78]

Douglas43, on 2021-January-09, 12:24, said:

The same applies in Howell movements. The initiative is always with the pair with stronger hands. Even in a Mitchell, if you have weaker hands, you just have to hope that the opponents slip up sometimes. But no form of the game is perfect, you just have to grind out the best result you can.

This was X-imps with a Howell movement. It was West who got the raw deal, average HCP 7.54 which is about the lowest mean HCP I have seen in a full session. At least at MPs, if you cop the poorer hands on average and are defending a lot, you can compensate for opponents bidding to a game or slam not found by the field by tight defence on another board taking one more trick than the room. On the evening in question, our big swing in was opponents going off in 6NT which could have made by taking a double finesse with Tx opposite AJx to set up a 12th trick (the honors were split). Our big swing out was opponents bidding 3NT on a combined 18 count making which wasn't found elsewhere, they had no heart stop but the hearts were 4-3, all we can do is cash them then they have nine on top. The rest of the boards were mostly small (< 5 imps) scores in and out, which we got more on the right side of resulting in a modest plus score overall.

[barmar]

Bridge is a partnership game. Even though you got poor hands, your partner's hands could make up for them.

[AL78]

barmar, on 2021-January-10, 23:07, said:

Bridge is a partnership game. Even though you got poor hands, your partner's hands could make up for them.

Yes I'm aware of that. My partner had much better hands (average HCP 10.92) and declared seven times. As a partnership we did well when defending.

[paulg]

It is a feature of cross imps and teams bridge that some boards are more important than others. This is why many consider matchpoints and point-a-board to be fairer, since every board is equal.

Whatever the scoring, getting more than your fair share of points gives you the illusion of more control over your destiny and it is probably not an illusion in a mixed field. In a field of roughly equal ability it probably makes less difference than you imagine, but defence is the hardest part of the game and so it is more taxing.

[hrothgar]

Various forms of duplicate decrease the amount of luck involved in bridge
It does not eliminate it.

Back in the day, I used to spend a fair amount of time calculating the expected scores that we achieved with various opening bids.

Some were bid winners
Others were losers

It was interesting to note that our overall score often depended on what types of hands were being dealt that evening.

If we got lots of 1♣ openings, it meant a relatively bad night...

[Tramticket]

I am a little surprised that a single-winner movement was used for a Cross-IMPs competition. I'm not a director, but I thought that a two-winner movement was more usual for this form of scoring?

[AL78]

Tramticket, on 2021-January-11, 08:24, said:

I am a little surprised that a single-winner movement was used for a Cross-IMPs competition. I'm not a director, but I thought that a two-winner movement was more usual for this form of scoring?

It is the first round of a running competition, 2nd Friday of the month over the year with the best six results counting, so I guess a single winner per round is better than a two winner movement (I really don't know)?