[Kalvan14]

Carl, on Nov 8 2005, 10:18 AM, said:

Kalvan14, on Nov 8 2005, 07:17 AM, said:

It was truly a kind of war of religion, which made me think there was something personal between Bergen and Lawrence.

That's twice now I've seen Marty Bergen instead of Larry Cohen, the author of the LOTT books. These two used to be partners but Marty doesn't really have any involvement in this discussion.

It's a great discussion, by the way; things like this help players at all levels to understand where the other folks are at in terms of hand evaluation techniques, and opinions of the different approaches.

The evaluation techniques expressed in I Fought The LAW are quite valid, if you have the mental acumen and capacity to do this at the table during the auction; apparently Lawrence and Wirgen feel there are a sufficient percentage of players capable of this to warrant the publication of the book.

Until the ACBL permits players to keep a computer running, as an aide during the auction, I'm afraid these techniques are beyond my level

Cheers,

Carl Ritner
ACBL Library Used Bridge Book and Magazines

My bad: as in a lot of great partnership, I tend to mix up the guys, like in this case, Bergen instead of Cohen. But my point stands.

Going back to the second part of your post, I think you support my position. The method suggested by Lawrence is too complicated for the advancing players who might benefit from it. And expert players have their own rules, and card/table sense.

[luke warm]

Chamaco, on Nov 8 2005, 12:31 PM, said:

whereagles, on Nov 8 2005, 05:27 PM, said:

By the way, about biasing: I once read a chess book by Alekhine and his writting was VERY dogmatic. As you see, even the greatest players of all time fall into the trap of biasing

Alekhine played and wrote in the years 1910-30s.
Besides, he was universally considered one of the most objective commentators of the time, one that introduced the modern way of commentary (the same followed by Bronstein in one of the best books of all time, the commentary of the Zurich 1953 tournament).
Many think that especially his ability in annotating, leaning from errors, and selfcriticisms is what led him to defeat Capablanca in the world title match.

Capablanca or Nimzowitsch articles/books (same period) appear to the modern reader even worse in terms of dogmatism, and we are talking of really great players.


It is only natural that all of these books seem overly simplified to the reader of the 2000, in between we had many generations of other authors that have elaborated many nuances from the time these giants were playing :-)

If any of them was living, playing and writing today, he's be writing ina different way and most of its articles would go over our head, trust me

i remember the first (in my view) really great chess book i ever read... i'm sure you've read it, mauro, it was staunton's (i don't remember the name)... that book made me see what a beautiful game chess is

[Winstonm]

Kalvan14, on Nov 8 2005, 06:17 AM, said:

I was not trying to defend I fought the Law.
Actually, when I read the book, i found it more than a bit annoying. It was truly a kind of war of religion, which made me think there was something personal between Bergen and Lawrence.
This said, the idea of finding a kind of unified field theory for bridge is quite funny 
I would anticipate that this is not possible. Luckily so:  were it possible, I would stop playing bridge.

If you have read much from Lawrence or communicated with him you soon learn that he dispises Bergen raises as well - so much so that it seems beyond bridge theory or logic and reflects a true "cattiness".

I am convinced this is a personality issue and not bridge. If a friend like Peter Rank had written the LOTT books I would bet Lawrence would be in total agreement and his book would have been about how to improve results within the law instead of a battle against it.

Winston

[mike777]

Winstonm, on Nov 9 2005, 10:31 AM, said:

Kalvan14, on Nov 8 2005, 06:17 AM, said:

I was not trying to defend I fought the Law.
Actually, when I read the book, i found it more than a bit annoying. It was truly a kind of war of religion, which made me think there was something personal between Bergen and Lawrence.
This said, the idea of finding a kind of unified field theory for bridge is quite funny 
I would anticipate that this is not possible. Luckily so:  were it possible, I would stop playing bridge.

If you have read much from Lawrence or communicated with him you soon learn that he dispises Bergen raises as well - so much so that it seems beyond bridge theory or logic and reflects a true "cattiness".

I am convinced this is a personality issue and not bridge. If a friend like Peter Rank had written the LOTT books I would bet Lawrence would be in total agreement and his book would have been about how to improve results within the law instead of a battle against it.

Winston

I think there are 2 reasons he does not like Bergen raises.
1) He strongly prefers strong jumps shifts and his 2/1 structure is based on them.
2) He thinks LOTT is badly flawed and cannot be saved.

Given the above Bergen raises are worse than useless, they destroy his whole bidding system logic.

As a side note I am surprised by the strong lack of support for "Fought the Law" on this forum. If I understand the arguments against it:
1) LOTT is of more significant help than FTL claims for advancing level players.
2) FTL is not a significant improvement over LOTT and may be worse.
3) FTL is to difficult to use at the table for the vast majority of improving level players.

BTW2 I think this kind of debate can only help my bridge game and make the game much more interesting for many of us who love the game.

[kenberg]

I am generally a great fan of Mike Lwarence's books but I am still hoping to someday finish "I Fought ...". Mostly it strikes me as an overheated reponse to an overhyped Law. Nonetheless, the parties involved are major players and theorists so it is well worth our while to try to grasp it all.

Also, I think Bergen must be brought into this. It seems right to say there are two distinct applications of Cohen's version of the Law. One is as a guide to competitive decisions in the almost infinite array of contested bidding sequences, the other is as a foundational tool for a bidding system whether or not the opponents enter in (although in anticipation that they might). It is in this latter part that Bergen especially comes in, or so I believe. Let's say for simplicity (ignoring the exceptions and other aspects) that Bergen advocates getting to the three level quickly whenever there are nine or more trump. I believe it is historically accurate that this advocacy reached its height during his partnership with Cohen and that in justification he often cited Cohen's LOTT. It seems not totally crazy to say part of the expert assessment of LOTT is tied up with how many experts play 1S-Pass-3S as preemptive and/or 1S-Pass-2S as being pretty much limited to 3 card support. At the least, it would be interesting to know if this treatment is now common among experts or whether it is not. Of course one could say "I adhere to LOTT but I reject this application of it".

I myself don't much care for Bergen raises but I doubt that this non-endorsement will create a massive drop in its stock.

Ken

[Kalvan14]

kenberg, on Nov 9 2005, 02:54 PM, said:

I am generally a great fan of Mike Lwarence's books but I am still hoping to someday finish "I Fought ...". Mostly it strikes me as an overheated reponse to an overhyped Law. Nonetheless, the parties involved are major players and theorists so it is well worth our while to try to grasp it all.

Also, I think Bergen must be brought into this. It seems right to say there are two distinct applications of Cohen's version of the Law. One is as a guide to competitive decisions in the almost infinite array of contested bidding sequences, the other is as a foundational tool for a bidding system whether or not the opponents enter in (although in anticipation that they might). It is in this latter part that Bergen especially comes in, or so I believe. Let's say for simplicity (ignoring the exceptions and other aspects) that Bergen advocates getting to the three level quickly whenever there are nine or more trump. I believe it is historically accurate that this advocacy reached its height during his partnership with Cohen and that in justification he often cited Cohen's LOTT. It seems not totally crazy to say part of the expert assessment of LOTT is tied up with how many experts play 1S-Pass-3S as preemptive and/or 1S-Pass-2S as being pretty much limited to 3 card support. At the least, it would be interesting to know if this treatment is now common among experts or whether it is not. Of course one could say "I adhere to LOTT but I reject this application of it".

I myself don't much care for Bergen raises but I doubt that this non-endorsement will create a massive drop in its stock.

Ken

Quite true. i would add that it is not just a battle of principles, but also (and possibly mostly) a battle for market shares between book writers. Maybe it's not as big (or as heated) as the famous querelles of the 30s and 40s, but it is a reasonable imitation.

I agree that the bidding stuctures with fit (Bergen vs. Lawrence, I mean) are completely incompatible, and obviously this affects the complete bidding structure.
As you mentioned, the most striking differences are Bergen's urge to get to 3-level with 9 trumps, and Lawrence's insistence on strong jump shifts.

I like the way Lawrence writes (FTL excepted ), and I believe he did a very good job with his books on hand evaluation, competitive bidding and balancing.
I do not like his version of 2/1, OTOH, and my ideas in bidding are more in line with Bergen's (I play a different structure of fit bids, but the underlying principle is the same). This said, I also think that a beginner or an intermediate player will likely be more comfortable with Lawrence methods (except, once again, FTL: I do have the impression that this method not only is too complicated for the target slice of players, but is also too mechanical).

IMO, the popularization of the Law was a very successful exercise, and Cohen earned a place among the great theoreticians of bridge with his books. The Law is not (and cannot be) an infallible oracle (or maybe it is that, : just like all oracles, it must be understood and interp[reted), but I believe that a majority of bridge players discovered a side of the game they had not even glimpsed before.

[Trpltrbl]

So you didn't shoot the deputy ?

GBB