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cherdano, on May 2 2008, 03:07 PM, said:
TimG, on May 2 2008, 12:28 PM, said:
I've never lost a match after the other team made an issue of seating. Now, maybe this is because players only make an issue of seating when they are behind or when they think they are a weaker team. But, I have to think that some part of it is that they are worrying about ancillary matters.
When we played Meckwell last year in the Spingold, they cared about the seating.
My memory might be fading, but I think they won...
If it's a regional event and you're an unknown to them they'll def let you sit around them (as will all pro teams playing unknowns). However in the spingold/vandy they will always take 2nd and 3rd seating rights, then see how you play in the first and decide their best line up.
However, if you are known to them, or if you have a client yourself, they would almost always prefer to play against your client. Which leads me to this:
Action pairs do best vs clients. If you have one action pair and one non action pair always put the action people vs the client. This is not to suggest changing your general bidding style for the purpose of playing against the client; most people are not good enough at changing styles and being just as effective. It is almost surely better to play your normal game. However if you regularly play a style where you open a lot of hands/overcall with a lot of hands/especially preempt with a lot of hands then that is a great style to exploit weak players. It puts them in a lot of situations they're not used to and makes every auction competitive which can throw them off.
Also, not that I would suggest changing methods for playing against the clients, but there is one thing I totally HATE to play against when playing with a client. Weak NT. Honestly I want to cry and think about how much we are going to lose on average every time the opps open 1N, and how frequent that will be. I have discussed this with the people I live with and they all seem to agree, weak NT is a killer. It's just so hard to bid constructively against with no agreements and partner having no experience against it. Other methods that are alien to the client will work too, but weak NT is the best.
The last thing I would say is that putting pressure on them in the defense by bidding lots of games on uninformative auctions is a good way to go. However, I think that's always the best style, it's especially effective against the client. For instance if you hold xx xxx KQxx KTxx and partner opens 1N I would definitely recommend bidding 3N even if that is not normally what you would do. This kind of pressure is really tough and they will almost always give you at least one game.
If this is your normal style you are the perfect candidate for playing vs a client. It is no coincedence that when meckwell, grue/cheek etc have the rights they sit vs the client almost 100 % of the time (the exception being to protect their own client from another action pair, they may put the clients against each other).
), because we know they exist. We all know it happens and if you've played this game long enough you learn to expect it when you play against a pair like this. I don't want these side issues to be the focus here.