[barryallen]

Phil, on Apr 16 2009, 11:32 AM, said:

4♦ agrees spades. This isn't open for debate. Saying you can agree anything with your partner is meaningless.

3♦ OTOH does not agree spades and thats what I would bid.

There has to be debate, or at least explanation. As far as I can see you can have the 4♦ jump bid agreeing either ♥ or ♠. I can see some merits for both approaches and can see a possible edge here to agreeing ♠, but I cannot see it as no where near definitive without the rationale behind that conclusion.

So just exactly how do you justify that comment?

[gwnn]

Autosplinters apply when partner has bid no suit yet, like
1M-1NT
4m.
They don't apply when partner promised a suit. In this case he can have between 4 and 7 spades, so showing shortness in support of partner is generally accepted to be more frequent/useful than showing shortness with a very good one suited hand.

[mikeh]

what Phil meant, I believe, is that in standard bridge, as in sitting down with a real expert, with whom one has had no discussion of the sequence, if this 4♦ bid arose, your expert partner would take 4♦ as a splinter in support of spades 100% of the time.

It matters not whether there is merit or not in other interpretations. It's sort of like arguing that opening 2C, having agreed only to play 'standard' could usefully be used as a weak 2. Who cares? In standard, it's strong and artificial.

The problem is that we have, on this forum, a (very) few people who claim to be expert who are not... when they make bonehead comments that reveal that they don't know what they are talking about, they get aggressive towards the better players who point out their error. It doesn't make them more expert, but it may confuse the less experienced players who do not know which advice to follow.

[whereagles]

The difference, michael haargreaves, is that those real experts, in which category I would place Fred for instance, realize bridge situations aren't always clear-cut. Especially those situations where no explicit agreement exists. So they approach them with caution and speak out an humble way, characteristic of true champions.

People like you speak in an arrogant and dogmatic way so as to manipulate other people into creating a narcisistic, false image of you them [you] as holder of an (inexistant) "truth". To me, this attitude is a confession of mediocrity. There are very, very few world class players out there that are arrogant but truly good. In all sports.

Why? Because the inability to understand different points of view blocks the horizon of competent players like you and prevents them to ever become as good as a world champion.

[mikeh]

whereagles, on Apr 17 2009, 09:21 AM, said:

The difference, michael haargreaves, is that those real experts, in which category I would place Fred for instance, realize bridge situations aren't always clear-cut. Especially those situations where no explicit agreement exists. So they approach them with caution and speak out an humble way, characteristic of true champions.

People like you speak in an arrogant and dogmatic way so as to manipulate other people into creating a narcisistic, false image of you them [you] as holder of an (inexistant) "truth". To me, this attitude is a confession of mediocrity. There are very, very few world class players out there that are arrogant but truly good. In all sports.

Why? Because the inability to understand different points of view blocks the horizon of competent players like you and prevents them to ever become as good as a world champion.

oh... I've been put in my place

Josh and harald and appollo and gwnn and phil: are they as bad as me??

After all, they agree that 4♦ 'absolutely' agrees spades. Ummm... I rarely say this, but this situation deserves it....

LOL

[Phil]

barryallen, on Apr 17 2009, 05:58 AM, said:

Phil, on Apr 16 2009, 11:32 AM, said:

4♦ agrees spades. This isn't open for debate. Saying you can agree anything with your partner is meaningless.

3♦ OTOH does not agree spades and thats what I would bid.

There has to be debate, or at least explanation. As far as I can see you can have the 4♦ jump bid agreeing either ♥ or ♠. I can see some merits for both approaches and can see a possible edge here to agreeing ♠, but I cannot see it as no where near definitive without the rationale behind that conclusion.

So just exactly how do you justify that comment?

Sorry, there's no debate here.

We can discuss over a few beers how an autosplinter would be useful here. And we can talk about how:

1♥ - 1♠
4♣

or

1♦ - 1♥
1♠ - 4♣

might show 'just hearts'.

The fact remains is that these bids don't show single suiters.

If you and Nuno want to play these as autosplinters in a budding partnership, I won't stop you.

OTOH, if you are seriously trying to improve your game and want to listen (for free) to people like Mike Hargreaves on the interpretation of a standard auction, then your game will improve.

Frankly, I think many posters and readers of BBF would serve themselves well if they 'emptied their cup' before reading anything here.

[JLOL]

LOL

[gnasher]

Phil, on Apr 17 2009, 03:53 PM, said:

OTOH, if you are seriously trying to improve your game and want to listen (for free) to people like Mike Hargreaves on the interpretation of a standard auction, then your game will improve.

Why does being told the "standard" meaning of a sequence improve one's game?

One might learn something from being told *why* something means what it does, but I don't see how being told merely that "most people play 4D as promising spades" would make one a better bridge player, unless the objective is to become good at playing with pickup partners.

[barryallen]

mikeh, on Apr 17 2009, 08:40 AM, said:

what Phil meant, I believe, is that in standard bridge, as in sitting down with a real expert, with whom one has had no discussion of the sequence, if this 4♦ bid arose, your expert partner would take 4♦ as a splinter in support of spades 100% of the time.

It matters not whether there is merit or not in other interpretations. It's sort of like arguing that opening 2C, having agreed only to play 'standard' could usefully be used as a weak 2. Who cares? In standard, it's strong and artificial.

The problem is that we have, on this forum, a (very) few people who claim to be expert who are not... when they make bonehead comments that reveal that they don't know what they are talking about, they get aggressive towards the better players who point out their error. It doesn't make them more expert, but it may confuse the less experienced players who do not know which advice to follow.

Fair enough, I can accept that. But stating "Saying you can agree anything with your partner is meaningless. " just lays everyone on here as meaningless pawns before the feet of Fantunes, no real need of any further discussion.

Bridge is not always a game of perfect and occasions arise where the same bid can have different meanings, with no one necessarily being the better. Partnerships look at the whole system to give themselves the maximum scope for the best possible outcome overall. In situations such as these you generally apply risk/reward, frequency, practicality and system fit to the different methods to justify their existence.

I feel to not consider 4♦ as representing ♥ may actually miss something here that is worthy of further discussion. I was just asking if this bid has far greater value over one interpretation than the other.

[mikeh]

Barry, I don't think that anyone was stating that 'absolutely' there is NO merit at all in treating 4♦ as an autosplinter.

What the expert posters were stating was that in an expert partnership with no special agreements, the standard treatment.. the treatment that virtually all experts would expect to be applicable... would be a splinter in support of spades.

Now, that is not the same as setting forth the arguments WHY this would be the preferred treatment in the view of the expert community, as a 'standard'.

Nor is it the same as arguing that 'standard' is necessarily equivalent to 'best'. Indeed, virtually all expert partnerships utilize various 'non-standard' treatments even if they play an ostensibly standard method because, in those situations, they see their gadgets as better than the standard treatment. That is not the same as them redefining 'standard'.. it is them consciously deciding to play a non-standard method.

This topic got off the rails because whereagles suggested that 4♦ was ambiguous. Several experts pointed out that there was no ambiguity.... and he attacked those posters.... to which I reacted, perhaps unfairly, altho that is for others to judge.

If I sat down with an expert and we had hardly any time to talk system... we said strong 2C, 5 card majors and strong notrumps, say... I open 1N and he bids 2♥.

What does that mean? Is there anyone out there who not assume it was a transfer? Yet I play in a partnership with a multiple national champion with 12,000 masterpoints with whom it would be weak, natural and to play.

So he would have some strong, cogent arguments as to why two way stayman is better than 'standard' transfer... personally, over strong 1N I disagree... but a partnership requires compromise... I play some of his stuff that I think less than optimal and he plays some of my stuff that I suspect he thinks of in the same way.

If you want a discussion of why 4♦ might be best used as an autosplinter, fine.. but don't attack those who say it 'shows spades in a standard method' on that basis... it DOES show spades.... even if some might consider that to be an inferior usage. You are free to change it in your partnerships

[mikeh]

gnasher, on Apr 17 2009, 01:03 PM, said:

Phil, on Apr 17 2009, 03:53 PM, said:

OTOH, if you are seriously trying to improve your game and want to listen (for free) to people like Mike Hargreaves on the interpretation of a standard auction, then your game will improve.

Why does being told the "standard" meaning of a sequence improve one's game?

One might learn something from being told *why* something means what it does, but I don't see how being told merely that "most people play 4D as promising spades" would make one a better bridge player, unless the objective is to become good at playing with pickup partners.

Let's say I travel to a Regional or a Nationals and a friend hooks me up with an expert I have never played with. We have one hour to game time.... a serious idiosyncratic method (which I have played) would take scores or hundreds of hours. Even reviewing all the sequences likely to arise over the course of the next 3-4 hours would take most of the afternoon or evening.

So we can't have that discussion... yet, with any North American expert, I would feel comfortable that we would be on the same page on the majority of undiscussed sequences because we both share an understanding of standard bridge. Will our views be identical on all sequences? No. Will we likely be aware of where the ambiguities exist.. and thus try to avoid them? Yes.

Sitting down with someone like whereagles who doesn't know standard would be far different.. as in this hand... if he bid 4♦ I'd either assume, wrongly, that it showed a splinter in support of spades or I assume that we might be heading for a major disaster because I would have no idea what it meant.

So learning that something is standard does have a utility in and of itself.. altho I agree that understanding why a 'standard' meaning has arisen is even more useful.

[hanp]

Wereagles just gave me a phone call asking for a true expert to give his opnion here. Let me read this thread carefully before I do so.

[Phil]

gnasher, on Apr 17 2009, 01:03 PM, said:

Phil, on Apr 17 2009, 03:53 PM, said:

OTOH, if you are seriously trying to improve your game and want to listen (for free) to people like Mike Hargreaves on the interpretation of a standard auction, then your game will improve.

Why does being told the "standard" meaning of a sequence improve one's game?

One might learn something from being told *why* something means what it does, but I don't see how being told merely that "most people play 4D as promising spades" would make one a better bridge player, unless the objective is to become good at playing with pickup partners.

If being up to speed on basic bidding sequences is a prerequisite to being a good player, then, yeah reading this kind of stuff does improve one's game.

I don't feel like going into all of the reasons why its better played as a splinter than an autosplinter and besides, I don't think it serves any purpose.

[hanp]

Nuno, it shows spades.

[cherdanno]

gnasher, on Apr 17 2009, 01:03 PM, said:

Phil, on Apr 17 2009, 03:53 PM, said:

OTOH, if you are seriously trying to improve your game and want to listen (for free) to people like Mike Hargreaves on the interpretation of a standard auction, then your game will improve.

Why does being told the "standard" meaning of a sequence improve one's game?

One might learn something from being told *why* something means what it does, but I don't see how being told merely that "most people play 4D as promising spades" would make one a better bridge player, unless the objective is to become good at playing with pickup partners.

Learning bidding on your own is HARD. If it wasn't hard, those great card players in the 50s or 60s would not have been so horribly bad (by today's standards) at bidding.
Learning bidding from a bigger community requires knowing what bids mean for that bigger community.

[barryallen]

gnasher, on Apr 17 2009, 01:03 PM, said:

Phil, on Apr 17 2009, 03:53 PM, said:

OTOH, if you are seriously trying to improve your game and want to listen (for free) to people like Mike Hargreaves on the interpretation of a standard auction, then your game will improve.

Why does being told the "standard" meaning of a sequence improve one's game?

One might learn something from being told *why* something means what it does, but I don't see how being told merely that "most people play 4D as promising spades" would make one a better bridge player, unless the objective is to become good at playing with pickup partners.

You only have to go and look at other posts to see the irony here. Where the best of the standard bids / conventions fail to provide an answer, a deviation from the standard is recommended to obtain the best result. I appreciate the responses, just disappointed they cannot be extended further.

[mikeh]

barryallen, on Apr 18 2009, 05:53 AM, said:

gnasher, on Apr 17 2009, 01:03 PM, said:

Phil, on Apr 17 2009, 03:53 PM, said:

OTOH, if you are seriously trying to improve your game and want to listen (for free) to people like Mike Hargreaves on the interpretation of a standard auction, then your game will improve.

Why does being told the "standard" meaning of a sequence improve one's game?

One might learn something from being told *why* something means what it does, but I don't see how being told merely that "most people play 4D as promising spades" would make one a better bridge player, unless the objective is to become good at playing with pickup partners.

You only have to go and look at other posts to see the irony here. Where the best of the standard bids / conventions fail to provide an answer, a deviation from the standard is recommended to obtain the best result. I appreciate the responses, just disappointed they cannot be extended further.

I don't see any irony at all.

No good player would seriously suggest that the 'standard' treatment of alll sequences will be the best usage... otherwise all the top players would play 'standard'.

But not everyone plays in a high-level, long term partnership in which both players have the time and ability to develop and master idiosyncratic non-standard treatments. Bear in mind that any departure from standard in one area may and usually does have a ripple effect on the rest of the sysyem...indeed, the problems that bedevil lesser players who come up with tweaks to their methods are usually the result of failure to appreciate this effect.

Thus for most of us, when we play with a partner, even on a fairly regular basis, we simply don't get to the level of detailed discussion that having 'our own fully developed system' requires. So we need to have a common understanding of what is standard in those areas where we have not developed our own methods.


This simplifies even a regular partnership, but makes casual partnerships reasonably effective as well, while greatly smoothing the formation of a new partnership...even one that is going to develop its own methods has to have a shared understanding of 'standard' in order to discuss where and why to depart from it.

There are many examples from national Championships of new partnerships winning major events (not so much on team games in recent years), and this wouldn't happen if the two players did not have a shared knowledge of 'standard' to fill in the gaps in their system discussion.

As for why 4♦ is best played as splinter in spades in this auction, I can think of a number of arguments, but probably the most cogent are: frequency: how often are we going to hold an autosplinter compared to how often are we going to hold a spade splinter? I think the spade support hand will be far more frequent... and utility.. when we hold a self-sufficient suit and a stiff diamond, maybe we can more usefully play 3N than we can embark upon a high-level slam try opposite an undefined hand with no assurance of fit... and necessity... with the self-sufficient suit, we can bid 3♦ and hope to be able to do something useful next time after we learn more of partner's hand...whereas with the splinter in support of spades, if we have to start with 3♦, which does not promise spades...we may be awkwardly placed next round.

These are just thoughts off the top of my head, and I don't claim that they are all of the same weight nor that they constitute all of the arguments... but I think they are representative of the thought processes that underly the 'standard' approach here.

[whereagles]

hanp, on Apr 17 2009, 11:46 PM, said:

Nuno, it shows spades.

Liar. At the phone you told me it shows hearts

By the way, sometimes you don't have 4 spades when you double. You usually do, but sometimes you don't. This is the main reason why I say 4♦ as spades is ambiguous.

[jdeegan]

3♦.
Pretty easy first bid. Lay the predicate for the subsequent auction.