[babalu1997]

at what point in one's bridge life, without any kind of verifiable performance success, is one convinced that he can devise his own system and then impose on every one of hid friends?

[hrothgar]

Depends on the friends, I suppose...

[mtvesuvius]

We have a guy at our club who does that... He has like 200 MPs and cannot play a hand to save his life, but he forces all his partners to play his Home-Cooked system... Forcing ♣, Intermeadiate 2s and a few other odd twists that need hours of discussion, it's really quite amusing. I have written my own precision notes, however I play 2/1 with a lot of my partners and the ones who I do play my precision with, know the system and want to play it. IMO you should never force your partner to play a system he doesn't want to play... Then you have 3 opponents.

[matmat]

depends on the system and the person in question.

[fromageGB]

I think the answer is "never". By all means suggest to a friend they might like to play something new, but it needs their desire. I have a good friend who won't discuss the finer points of what to do in circumstances beyond the commonplace, and while after reaching the wrong contact we might have a conversation along the lines of "I didn't know you had that" and the riposte "but you would if we modified the system a little", if the occasional such nudge produces no effect, you leave it at that if you value the friendship.

[Chas_P]

I think the keyword in the question is "impose". The implication is, "OK pard, here's this wonderful system I've devised and you can either play it with me or I won't play with you anymore." Good bridge partnerships are like good marriages imo...if both sides don't see the benefit it ain't gonna work.

[CarlRitner]

So then, the next logical question:

Does one first pick a system and then go looking for a partner wanting to play it, or does one first find a good partner, and then search together for the right system?

Carl

[JanM]

Carl, on Mar 8 2009, 04:45 PM, said:

So then, the next logical question:

Does one first pick a system and then go looking for a partner wanting to play it, or does one first find a good partner, and then search together for the right system?

The latter. A good partner is FAR FAR FAR more important than what system you play! Of course, that's not completely true, because often someone who likes the same approach you do will be a good partner for you. But if you haven't yet chosen a preferred system and are flexible, you'll do better to look for a partner who has the same goals and thought processes as you than to worry about what system to play.

[CarlRitner]

That sounds right. It was perhaps a bit rhetorical.

Of course, for the sheer enjoyment of the game, anyone is better than staring at an
empty seat.

[rbforster]

babalu1997, on Mar 7 2009, 09:05 PM, said:

at what point in one's  bridge life, without any kind of verifiable performance success, is one convinced that he can devise his own system and then impose on every one of hid friends?

I think people design systems because they like to, for the same reason they play them - for fun. If your system is sufficiently fun, perhaps you can get other people to play it. Perhaps it is even good, but that's harder to tell and arguably less important.

I've designed lots of stuff, some of it seems good; some was clearly not (the "constructive pass" system where pass promised 8-12 was pretty bad, frankly). But I couldn't tell which were good or bad until I played them, and I appreciate my open-minded partners for trying them out with me. I think if you're interested in designing systems, it pays to play a bunch of them, just to get a feel for how different people have approached the same problems.

[mikeh]

babalu1997, on Mar 7 2009, 09:05 PM, said:

at what point in one's  bridge life, without any kind of verifiable performance success, is one convinced that he can devise his own system and then impose on every one of hid friends?

It depends.. i suspect that every large club has a player or two who reaches that stage without ever learning to be a good player. We have one such 'rocket scientist' in our club... he was like that 22 years ago when I moved here.. he has a very bad big club method.. if he had put half the energy required for that system into learning to play, he'd be a much better player than he is. We have a couple of 'young' players (early 30's) who have their own canape big club.. it is much better than the rocket scientist's but, again, they'd be doing better if they focussed more on fundamentals and judgment.

But I am not one to talk critically... 20+ years ago a friend and I 'invented' a big club method, with 4 card majors, transfer responses to 1♣, 10-12/14-16 1NT and lots and lots of gadgets... it was not that good, altho we won a few modest events with it.

So the answer is... it depends.

However, if the question is how far one 'should be' before doing this with the expectation of it being a good method.... I'd guess about 2 or 3 years after one started winning consistently at moderate to good tournaments.

[TimG]

mikeh, on Mar 9 2009, 11:00 AM, said:

if he had put half the energy required for that system into learning to play, he'd be a much better player than he is. We have a couple of 'young' players (early 30's) who have their own canape big club.. it is much better than the rocket scientist's but, again, they'd be doing better if they focused more on fundamentals and judgment.

This seems to be a common train of thought (with which I agree). But, at the same time, not everyone has the same bridge goals. Some people think it is more fun to duff along with unusual methods than to slowly reach mediocrity (or better) through focusing on fundamentals. If the extra fun in system design and tinkering keeps them coming back, that's great.

As something of an aside: It seems to me that whether you are playing something rather standard or something unusual, it is a worthwhile exercise to write and maintain a set of system notes.

[keylime]

For me once I stopped playing the home brewed strong club, and went to a very regimented structured natural based method, I was able to go into my current partnership as a much better player. I had to find that maximum amount of "technicality" to then get to the best amount of "playability" which is often, much less technical!

[ASkolnick]

I tend to like to be a tinkerer and some of our systems are good, some not so good. But as long as you and your partner have the same principles in mind, the actual system may not matter.

Also, even if you choose to design a system, occasionally you will figure out that you were wrong. So it is OK to realize, hmm, that didn't work, and change it.

As for the people who keep saying"Why don't you just spend the time to become a better player?", the answer may be "I don't have the ability to do that". No matter how hard I try, I will only be a B+ declarer, so where else can I win the boards. I am good at designing systems.

Let's take the Miami Dolphins this year. Much of the success was the unusual style (or throwback) of playing the "wildcat" formation (Used to be known as the Winged-T). So, am I supposed to tell them "You need to play in a standard set offense and play straight up". No, instead they used their resources for better uses. Now knowing this, against great teams, they are still going to get there butts kicked in, but they may be able to expose some of the weaknesses of the bad/mediocre teams

[jtfanclub]

I don't enjoy playing Standard American. I find it a giant pain in the ass for an auction to have meaning A for one partner and meaning B for another partner and have them both be right. Everybody has their own opinion of what Standard American is, and they ain't changing. I consider it grotesque to read what I consider to be very ordinary bidding questions here and get a wide variety of answers, each of which considers their answers to be Standard American.

I prefer to play my system because it's simple, easy to learn, and cuts down on confusion. Lots of people who insist that their meaning of of an auction is Standard in Standard American will happily assign some other meaning to it if what you're playing is not Standard American. I understand why this is, and I respect that. If I can write up a two page system that a person can read, sit down with me, and play and have fewer bidding misunderstandings the first time we play it together than if we both play "Standard American", well, why shouldn't we play my system?

If I don't like SA, and I don't want to play SA with regular partners because I don't find it to be fun, why is this a problem? Why do you think this makes me stuck up, or imposing, or whatever? Maybe the question should be asked

"at what point in one's bridge life, without any kind of verifiable performance success, is one convinced that their version of Standard American is the only system and then impose on every one of his friends?"

In my own defense, with about half my regular partners I've played their favorite system instead. And with a number of people I play Standard American because, well, they're good people and I like spending time with them whether it's playing Bridge or Go Fish.

As far as I'm concerned, everybody who plays "Standard American" above a certain level IS playing their own custom system, with this part they liked from one person and this other part they've liked from some other person and some parts that just make sense to them and finally some parts that are just what their club does. And what I find is that the difference between playing my custom system and their custom system is that they won't write down what their system is ("it's just standard"), and they won't make changes to it (because it's standard). And they expect you to know it perfectly, because it's Standard American.


Of course, real experts do write down what they're actually playing, with dozens or sometimes hundreds of pages of notes, and they do make changes to it to fit their temperments. But at that point, it's really a custom system, and no longer Standard American.

Whether it's my custom system, or my partner's, or a joint effort, or a bridge writer's, I'm going to enjoy it a lot more than a partner who has no references for what his bids mean or how he evaluates hands. And I honestly can't imagine why I should apologize for that.

[FrancesHinden]

There's no answer to the question exactly as posed, it depends on the person, I can't tell you when someone else will be convinced of something.

If you mean, "at what stage are you good enough to devise your own system and then impose on every one of your friends", the answer is "never". You should never enforce methods on your friends and/or partners, it has to be a matter of discussion and negotiation (unless you are paying them to play your method, which probably comes under 'negotiation'). If your partner will play worse if he has to play your pet methods, should you be playing them? (the answer is it depends how much better you play as a consequence...). If your partner will object strongly and stop playing with you, then you may find yourself playing with the GIB instead, and he certainly won't play your system.

If you mean "at what stage are you good enough to devise your own system that is good enough to compete with (or even outbid) standard systems, that all your friends would do well to play", the answer (IMO) that, subject to knowing something about the game, it's got very little to do with your overall bridge ability.

The skills required to write a self-consistent, effective, memorable (etc) system are not really the same as those required to win major bridge events. I know very good players who should be banned from ever inventing new methods. I see stuff they play and it is full of gaping holes (e.g. a 2/1 structure in which opener can't show a balanced 18-19). I know some not great players who play extremely complicated stuff but they know it perfectly and it does all fit together.

I also know a few pairs who play horribly complicated stuff that one of the partnership knows and the other one keeps forgetting. This is the worst case...

I've been writing bits of system since soon after I learned to play (university mathematician type bridge players always do). I'm still writing new stuff every now and again. The only differences between then and now are
- More consultation with my partner and interested observers to look for holes
- A lot more thought about competitive auctions
- More selectivity in actually playing stuff, combined with a greater tendency to go for ease on memory rather than absolute efficiency. There's all sorts of things we've written for the fun of it that have never been played seriously (a whole strong diamond system, for one).

But I don't think that what I'm writing now is in any absolute sense better than what I was writing then (other than due to seeing more good ideas thought up by other people over time), although I'm certainly a much better player.

(I'm not deliberately giving unhelpful answers, honest)

Whenever you ask the question "should I play a home-grown system" you always get two answers:
1. It's better for your bridge to try and develop your judgement
2. It's more fun to write and play unusual methods

Both of these are (IMO) true. But if your partner doesn't want to play the stuff you make up, it's only fun for half the partnership, which is definitely less good.

[H_KARLUK]

babalu1997, on Mar 8 2009, 04:05 AM, said:

verifiable performance success

I was not thinking same with my father. Now my 27 y.o. son doesn't thinking same with me.
Think what will comes next