[hrothgar]

Why don't we try to organize the pairs for the first go arround...

Ideally I'd like 2 strong club pairs and two players more standard methods.

Table 1:

2/1 Game force versus Precision

Table 2

MOSCITO versus French Standard or SAYC

I'll provide a MOSCITO pair

DO we have another three pairs willing / able to participate?

[Trpltrbl]

I can play with "Matushko" 2/1 style with weak variable NT and precision destroying "exclusion transfer" overcalls.
But I have hard schedule, I would like to know when, and what timeframe, since he lives in Russia and I am in USA ( most of the time ).

GBB

[Echognome]

I have decided that for the first set of boards, it will just be a pairs bidding contest. There will be a slight amount of competition in that the opponents may bid on a few hands depending on what has been bid in front of them. However, I am not deciding what the opponents will bid, the expert commentator is. He says things like "If the bidding has not been opened in front of him, East will open 1♣." Or "if North has responded 1♥, then East West will not enter the auction." Etc. So I feel I can make it a fair playing field in this manner.

I will be online and you can catch me there to participate or send me a message on the forums if you would like to arrange a time. I will ask participants to write down their auctions and thoughts on each bid. Once we have a quorum of participants, I will post the hands one at a time on a forum (any thoughts on which?) and the participants can post their reasoning for each bid. I will then post the expert commentary. I won't reveal who was the commentator until the end as I do not want people to figure out where I got my hands!

I have already typed in 12 boards and will be setting up a teaching table where I can be both opponents. Kibitzers are certainly welcome.

I understand that some people may prefer a different format to the challenge. I do not dispute that there are different merits of formats, but I feel this to be most in line with the commentary I have. Yes the deals are selected, but that is to make it more interesting than pass throughout by a pair. I also understand that there are many more considerations in bidding such as implications for the defense, but let's just give this a go for now and we can decide how much we liked it after.

[Echognome]

I have sent Jillybean the hands and instructions as well, so you can also find her online to bid the hands.

[luis]

I will try to bid with my pd Fantunes-Style
This is going to be quite fun :-)

Luis

[Al_U_Card]

hrothgar, on Nov 10 2005, 12:26 PM, said:

Why don't we try to organize the pairs for the first go arround...

Ideally I'd like 2 strong club pairs and two players more standard methods.

Table 1:

2/1 Game force versus Precision

Table 2

MOSCITO versus French Standard or SAYC

I'll provide a MOSCITO pair

DO we have another three pairs willing / able to participate?

How about a "round-robin" where the different methods are applied (albeit by different pairs) agaisnt each other in contested "real-life" auctions. So I guess you need 4 2/1 prs to bid the set hands versus prec. WJ fantunes moscito etc

[awm]

Elianna and I are quite busy for the next few days (there's a regional tournament in town, plus we have to keep up at work) but we'll try and bid the hands if we get the chance. While our system is based on SAYC, it does include a number of "nonstandard" treatments, most notably gazilli and a limit+ 2NT response to 1M.

[Echognome]

I've gone through a couple trial runs with some of the university lads (thanks guys) and have now ironed out any kinks. It runs now fairly smoothly. It take about 30 mins to go through the boards for those that want to know. I'll have a URL with the analysis I will give to the pairs for when they are finished.

[jillybean]

I have the hands and analysis and have been through the boards
so if Matt isn't around I can help too.

jb

[Echognome]

I am going to make an arbitrary deadline of Friday for any pair that wants to participate in this. I have also emailed the hands to some participants that want to bid them with their f2f partners and report back to me. (Please send me just your final contracts on each board and the general type of system you are playing.)

If you haven't caught me or jillybean online by Friday, I will make the hands available to those that want to bid them later on, on their own. Saturday I will start posting the hands and the contracts categorised by general system. Then it will be up to the pairs to explain how they reached the contracts and what their thought processes were. I will also include the expert commentary on the boards and reveal who that is and where the hands came from.

[Fluffy]

hrothgar, on Nov 10 2005, 12:17 PM, said:

My own thought is that it would be best to have contested auctions.
I think that the easiest way to achieve this end is to have a "realistic" system with two pairs bidding each set of hands "live".

Ideally each pair should be willing to devote some time and effort to ensure that they're prepared for whatever oddities the other side might bring up.

For what its worth, I think hat players often behave very differently in bidding contensts that real life. They know that there is a trick to the hands and they shape their bidding accordingly. Personally, I'd prefer unconstrained/random hands. However, I can understand if people want "interesting" deals.

This reminds me... I sometimes willed to try the partnershp biddign table with 4 players, but this is not implemented I think .

Trying these means there is 4 player competition, wich needs arranging times for 4 people. Much harder than a pair. And also that 1 pair gets good scores if the opponents bid badly.

[hrothgar]

I'll repeat once again:

I think that it is a mistake to consider this as a "contest" where the goal is to achieve a good score. I'd prefer a learning exercise in which people strive to offer logicial/rational explanations for the actions that they chose.

Ideally beginners and intermediates will benefit from seeing the the thought processes involved. Experts will get to compare the logic processes used in different systems.

[FrancesHinden]

Indeed.

If you wanted a "contest" you'd have to invigilate each pair and check for no communication between them, etc.

I prefer this approach, though it does depend on people being fairly honest.

The instructions we got for the bidding challenge in Bridge Magazine (UK mag) probably struck about the right note. I can't remember the exact wording, but it was something like:

"Please bid the hands as you would at the table, without discussion. Don't try and construct auctions to reach the perfect contract on each hand, but if you have a complete disaster I don't mind if you take a second attempt at it."

I take this to mean that if your normal bidding reaches 3NT with no play, please leave it in 3NT and don't give a clever auction to the 4-2 spade fit; but if you passed partner out in Blackwood by accident you're allowed to take your bid back.