[Kaje]

The other night or was it day, I was watching one fine match in which France's and USA 2's seniors teams were vying (seg 8/21). The protagonists were USA2 (open room I think) : Stansby and Bramley, France : Stoppa and Stretz. All the ingredients were to be found in this match to captivate the kibs : high quality bridge, excellent technique, good judgment and psychology coups. The last ones brought me here.

Bord 7. France leading (don't remember by how much, maybe 16 to some 1 digit number). The players pick up :

West dealer, NS vulnerable
STOPPA North : K10754,KQJ105,Q10,2,
BRAMLEY East : A62,3,KJ974,K1065
STRETZ South : J8,A876,A8653,A7][/
STANSBY West :Q93,942,2,QJ9843,

The auctions are rugged due to Stansby's unexpected opening which wrong-footed a commentator who didn't think he "was modern enough for 3C opening". Indeed I've heard about Lew's prowesses since I started playing and that was a sure long time ago. But the game is tougher and tougher as is real life and to survive you've got to adapt and these guys do understand that as they closely scrutinize the evolution of the game. Our best player by far in GPE is now a senior and is currently representing Gpe in Shanghai. Can't say the guy is consevative! But this is not my topic.

So Stansby opens 3C and Stoppa thinks and produces a most unexpected bid (at least to me it was). I envisaged only 2 possibilities : 4C with both majors (but confusedly felt I didn't have enough for that bid, especially with no aces) and 3S and if given the opportunity PERHAPS 4H. Nah, Stoppa bid 3H!!!! What, why, how?
Don't we bid the hiher-ranked suit 1st anymore so we could economically fight later on if needs be? It's really become a wild world out there.
Obviously he had come to the conclusion that the hand wasn't good enough for 4C, but why H and not 3S? I was thinking hard. Well probably because he thought that the hand was not necessarily theirs (vulnerable) and that a middle of the road approach was perhaps the best way : if they play 3NT he wanted a H lead and not a S 1. Fabulous! Because he found the perfect fit down there in South. Luck, experience, good judgment, intuition? All these things are what make experts so different from the baffled expert to be, that is the average bridge player, the absolute vast majority of us playing on BBO.

Now, what we want to understand is how the expert mind works, how she/he can apparently so easily find the "best" solution when we suffer martyrdom. And we rely on commentators to try and help us there. There wasn't any comments about that particular Stoppa's choice. if I remember.

So 3C 3H 5C 5H the final contract and there the commentators did congratulate all players for their good judment.

Play starts with the C5 from Bramley. Declarer (Stoppa) wins in dummy, clears trumps finishing in dummy and obviously, as duely noted by the commentators, success hinges on hooking the SQ (with west according to the "hypothesis of necessity" concept). And there Stoppa, methinks, makes a 1st mistake, he plays the S8 finessing the 10, trying to cater for queen stiff I guess, which was definitely possible but that hypothesis created too many other problems, and it's too late for me to even try to analyse them, to be taken into consideration! And we'll see that the play of the Jack was the 1st problem solver. So the 10 loses to the Ace and Bramley returns another C ruffed by declarer who gets back to board with a trump and Sjack. There Mr Stansby says no and plays the Q U E E N. Hehehe, who's got the 9? Ruffing finesse (ruffnesse, i'm tring to have that one coined if nobody else's already got the patent or play for split. There again the commentators alerted us. And indeed the play was psychologically brilliant and displayed Stansby's physical quickness (no hesitation whatsoever) and agility of mind. Was stoppa going to raise... to our expectations. He didn't and the commentators didn't understand why, said they didn't understand why but failed to explain why Jean-Louis (that's his first name I think) should've prevailed. This is perhaps what they might have said:

1) the 5 may come from 4 cards as the pair leads either 4th best or udca, which here coincides, I mean in french carding this 5 would come from 3 cards as leads are 3rd/5th. (And incidentally, there's one question that i've never been able to answer : how is count given on lead in the system since with 4 or 3 the smallest is led or attitude is shown with 3 small by playing the highest. Not in pure UDCA where it should be the 10 with K105. I have a very hard time when count is not clear in my suit on lead. I think the french scrupulously give count on lead in p's suit when a meaningful sequence (KQ, QJ) is not available. Understand me well, i'm not saying that the system is not viable, what i am saying is that with a hi-lo minded count it's difficult to follow track and readjusting is not easy. UDCA is not a problem as it is just the reverse of high-low). So Stansby would have just 6C. And this is where the commentator was probably right : given Stansby's generation with just 6C PERHAPS he would need a singleton!!!!! Not conservative ok, but not foolish either!

2) Does that "fine" reasoning really stand in the face of this other factor :
The C K. Extremely important. If Stansby got KQJ the pre-empt becomes again
justified and the soundness of the suit doen't make the absolute presence of a
singleton crippling anymore and if you add to all this that Stansby was simply
determined to make things very difficult for opps (the commentators did say
that too) Stoppa had a lot to deal with and Stan had done a fine job!!!

3) If SJack played instead of 8, Stanby can no longer try and fool him : either he
plays it right away or doesn't and case close. And of course when Queen
captured the same play of the S9 would be a gag that would relieve all average
kibs :"oh, them too!"

It is absolutely out of the question that commentators should go so extensively as I just have netless, they don't have the time and it is, no doubt, tough, and they're doing a fine job but in this show world it's a show and the risk is worth taking : you gotta explain if you assert and when interesting things happen kibs heavily count on them and appreciate all the more their efforts. The basic idea being : help see things differently, bust clichés, demonstrate and convince that each situation is specific due to a specific context and that the game is physical, mental and psychological... nothing is ever given and so on...

Early morning in GPE right now : 6.37. Going back to Venice Cup on bbo and then hopefully to bed. Nice day

[Gerben42]

Please note there are special buttons to allow you to show a full hand:

Scoring: IMPs

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[kenberg]

I suppose thorough analysis really has to be done later with time to think. It's not unusual for commentators to analyze on the spot, and a minute later take it back either because they thought better of it or someone else (maybe a kib even) supplies a further thought. I'm fine with this. It would sometimes be nice if we could stop the action a bit while we try to figure out the reasons for what just happened but it won't happen.


Even for an expert it seems to me that seeing all four hands, analyzing the actions of four very talented people, finding good lines of play, figuring whether it's reasonable for the players to work out those lines from the information available to them, chatting amiably with fellow commentators,all in real time with hundreds maybe thousand watching, well, it's a challenge.

I take the poster's point that he is not really criticizing, just hoping for more extensive or deeper analysis if possible. I guess no one is so good that he could not in some way be better, but I'm a very happy camper with the current format.

[hrothgar]

One possible explanation for Stoppa's decision to introduce Hearts rather than Spades: The quality of the Heart suit means that its going to be a lot more difficult for the opponents to find a penalty double. Furthermore, you'd much rather get a Heart lead than a Spade if you're defending.

I'm assuming that Stoppa figured that his hand was only worth one call and that if he was going to introduce a 5 card suit at the three level he should introduce his better suit. (Bidding Spades makes much more sense if you're planning on taking a second bid)

[kenberg]

Along the same line of thinking

3C 3M 4C ?

In such situations, fourth hand may well be called upon to bid 4M on good values and a modest holding in M. Best if second hand has a decent suit.

[mikeh]

As a sometime commentator (I'm not doing any Shanghai work partly because of the time difference and mostly due to work pressure) I can attest to the difficulty of coming up with cogent comments.

We are severely handicapped by a number of factors including, in my case:

1) lack of familiarity with methods... many pairs on vugraph have detailed agreements or systems that I don't really know

2) we see all 4 hands, and while we try to place ourselves in the seat of a particular player, it is not always easy to disabuse our mind of what we know and he doesn't

3) typing skills: I am not a quick typer

4) incompetence I simply don't see all of the options during play.

5) trying not to be rude. In most events, the players are playing very well, but occasionally, usually in 'lesser' events, a player or pair is playing very badly, and we don't like to be rude or harsh but may have trouble not coming across that way. Worse yet, from my perspective, is when one commentator is clearly out to lunch. That rarely happens (a credit to Roland) and there can be a host of reasons for it other than incompetence (fatigue, multi-tasking etc) but it makes, in my experience, for acerbic private comments and strained public comments

6) trying not to be stupid (ties in with creating no. 5 issues for the other
commentators and ties in with no. 4 for me)

7) trying to fill the silence. Especially when there are only 2 or 3 commentators, things can get very quiet, and I feel (and I suspect most feel) some pressure to say something, so what gets said is sometimes banal and sometimes wrong, etc.

[han]

I'd say the main argument for introducing hearts is that the hand is worth only one call and that it is easier to get to spades over 3H then to hearts over 3S.

The suit is also better of course.

[barmar]

What ruffing finesse is there? At the point where he had to ruff a ♠, he had 754 and the opponents' remaining spot cards should be 96, and the only way to pick up the suit is to hope for 3-3. Or did Bramley play the 6 on the second ♠ trick? That's a great false card, because it gives declarer the losing option of trying the ruffing finesse.

[pclayton]

mikeh, on Oct 2 2007, 10:51 AM, said:

As a sometime commentator (I'm not doing any Shanghai work partly because of the time difference and mostly due to work pressure) I can attest to the difficulty of coming up with cogent comments.

We are severely handicapped by a number of factors including, in my case:

1) lack of familiarity with methods... many pairs on vugraph have detailed agreements or systems that I don't really know

2) we see all 4 hands, and while we try to place ourselves in the seat of a particular player, it is not always easy to disabuse our mind of what we know and he doesn't

3) typing skills: I am not a quick typer

4) incompetence I simply don't see all of the options during play.

5) trying not to be rude. In most events, the players are playing very well, but occasionally, usually in 'lesser' events, a player or pair is playing very badly, and we don't like to be rude or harsh but may have trouble not coming across that way. Worse yet, from my perspective, is when one commentator is clearly out to lunch. That rarely happens (a credit to Roland) and there can be a host of reasons for it other than incompetence (fatigue, multi-tasking etc) but it makes, in my experience, for acerbic private comments and strained public comments

6) trying not to be stupid (ties in with creating no. 5 issues for the other
commentators and ties in with no. 4 for me)

7) trying to fill the silence. Especially when there are only 2 or 3 commentators, things can get very quiet, and I feel (and I suspect most feel) some pressure to say something, so what gets said is sometimes banal and sometimes wrong, etc.

I might do a match tonight.

I echo a lot of what Mike says. As a commentator, I never use the GIB button, although I occasionally will watching a match. Sometimes I will put my foot in mouth, but I think by not becoming dependent on it, you become a better analyst.

I will also try to analyze things from the POV of the person making the key decision and what factors they are facing. I find that sometimes commentors make silly suggestions looking at all four hands that do not reflect reality. I also think its very easy to misanalyze a deal looking at all four, when you can actually figure it out only looking at two. I know this sounds surreal but I've found it to be true.

The Bermuda Bowl is a very high standard of play, especially the matches on VG. If a player makes what I consider to be a gross error in bidding or play, I will be cautious about the words that I choose. For starters, its very possible that I'VE got something wrong. Even then, I will be very guarded. There have been times in other tournaments where the level of play is pretty substandard, and a little cynicism will creep in, but not in this event.

The players are on Day 4. Stamina will slowly start to take a toll, even though they are only playing 48 boards (maximum) per day.

I don't think there's anything wrong with filling dead air with some relevant comments. I do it myself and I hope the others I'm commentating with will chime in.

[Stephen Tu]

Quote

1) the 5 may come from 4 cards as the pair leads either 4th best or udca, which here coincides, I mean in french carding this 5 would come from 3 cards as leads are 3rd/5th. (And incidentally, there's one question that i've never been able to answer : how is count given on lead in the system since with 4 or 3 the smallest is led or attitude is shown with 3 small by playing the highest. Not in pure UDCA where it should be the 10 with K105

I think you are a bit confused here. UDCA is only referring to agreement how to signal when playing third hand to partner's lead, or giving count when following suit as 2nd/4th hand when declarer leads. It is independent of lead agreements, which are separate decisions entirely. Leading the T from KT5 is just weird, it has nothing to with UDCA. From KT65 one leads either 6 or 5 depending on whether 4th best or 3rd/low agreed, how partner signals as 3rd hand is irrelevant. Apparently Stansby/Bramley are leading 4th best, which entails leading bottom from either 3 or 4 (if low from 3 is agreed) and is thus ambiguous for both partner & declarer. This has nothing to do with whether UDCA agreed or not.

[irdoz]

I like to watch one hand only (either the declarer or one of the defenders). It's a lot more instructive (and when viewed like this sometimes it is easy to see how the expert commentary is influenced by being able to see all 4 hands). I usually put the movie on and review the bidding for the last hand while they are bidding the next - then set options to view the declarer.

Currently the only options are to see all 4 hands or view one hand only. It would probably make for more interesting commentating and viewing if you had an option to view one particualr pair.