[qwery_hi]

kenrexford, on Mar 21 2008, 04:54 PM, said:

When I face the problem of who to trust (Han, Echognome, or Garozzo?), I trust myself.  I find that I am the person who most agrees with me.

Then, I look at the ideas of the other folks (Han, Echognome. and Garozzo), understand them, and think through whether it works.  I might adopt any of these, or I might do my own thing.

If you want to use a default, because you do not have time to think about it, fine -- go with Garozzo.  Makes sense.  But, if you do have time to think about it, which you seem to have if you enjoy BBF, then think about it, referring to thoughts of others and analyzing with your own view of what makes sense, based on your own acumen at theory.

It seems rather silly to point out what you would do if you were lazy.  It seems rather more silly to object to people who are not lazy and do not therefore use defaults as crutches.

I understand and share your feelings.

I have been unable to get funding for a new car I designed. It has 10 mirrors instead of only 3 mirrors. All VCs I approach suggest I drive one of the standard cars. It is my contention that a 10 mirrored car will reduce the number of automobile mishaps in the US by 0.137 %. Simulations on my computer using stochastic processes and behaviorial economics were used to get this figure.

[fred]

kenrexford, on Mar 21 2008, 09:54 PM, said:

When I face the problem of who to trust (Han, Echognome, or Garozzo?), I trust myself.  I find that I am the person who most agrees with me.

Then, I look at the ideas of the other folks (Han, Echognome. and Garozzo), understand them, and think through whether it works.  I might adopt any of these, or I might do my own thing.

"Thinking it through" is not enough IMO. Even if you always get the theory "right", what happens in practice is obviously more important (at least in terms of your score).

You may recall 1 of the 2 boards I played against you in Boston (pleasure to see you there, by the way). You and your partner were dealt a very normal pair of hands. Each of you had roughly 12-13 points. Neither of you much in the way of distribution to speak of, but you had a 5-3 spade fit. 4S was a normal and good contract that might go down against a bad break and/or if declarer (your partner) was not careful. You were down off the top at the 5-level so you certainly did not want to be going there.

Your bidding started 1S-2C.

You and your partner agreed spades at the 2-level and then started some fancy cuebidding. After only a few fancy cuebids, you knew that 4S was the right contract so you bid it.

Well done - a victory for theory.

But this is not how it worked out in practice. Your bidding allowed me to find an opening lead that neither I nor the rest of the matchpoint field would normally make. This turned out to be the killing lead and, if my partner had been paying attention, 4S would have gone down. That would have been a bottom for you.

IMO it is all but impossible for bidding theorists to properly weigh factors like this (and many others) just by "thinking it through". Even if this were possible for some especially brilliant theorist(s), in my experience it is very natural for even the best of such people to fall in love with their creations, lose objectivity, and not be able to properly evaluate how their beloved offspring perform in practice.

For example, can you honestly say you even noticed that your system had earned you a bottom on that board in Boston? If yes, did this give you pause for thought?

This post is not meant as a knock on you, Ken. It should be seen more as a general observation regarding bidding theorists and the trouble many have with the theory/practice divide.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[jdonn]

Ha Ken, you thought you escaped just because 9 months passed!