[jjbrr]

Zar points will not improve your judgment. Improving your judgment will improve your judgment. There is no point-counting method that will make you a better bridge player, else everyone would be playing it.

Edit: And I know it won't matter whatsoever to you, but I've been playing much longer than 2 years, and I've never been bothered to learn Zar nor do I ever plan to. And I don't want to put words in Fred's mouth, but it sounds to me like he hasn't spent much time or energy worrying about it either, and he's been playing bridge longer than I've been alive. To me it should be clear that there are more important things to learn in bridge than this.

[hotShot]

The most important thing a beginner should work on is declarer play.
The ability to defend depends on your understanding of declarers play.
The ability to evaluate your hand, depend on your abilities in declarer play.
If you think you get much of the declarer play right, start working on your defense.
You are defending twice as much as declaring, so work on leads, signaling and the other aspects of defense.

Don't waste to much time on modifying your bidding system, there is not much sense in bidding contracts that you can't make because your declarer play is not good enough.

If you think that you are good enough at these, that you might want to study alternative evaluation methods.

Lets face it, there is a majority of player out there you can't properly evaluate distributional hands. Some even have decades of experience. I'm sure most of them usually don't post on this forum.
The usual 4321 point count with 321 extras for void,single and double is by far not good enough to deal with distributional hands.
Most experts have their instincts to rely on, their judgment works without numerical aid.


Zar-points are helpful for people who feel that their judgment with distributional hands is not good enough. They can learn from Zar-points that distributional hands are very strong. Once you have a feeling for it, forget about Zar-Points and trust your judgment.

[NickRW]

hotShot, on Feb 8 2010, 09:30 AM, said:

Zar-points are helpful for people who feel that their judgment with distributional hands is not good enough. They can learn from Zar-points that distributional hands are very strong. Once you have a feeling for it, forget about Zar-Points and trust your judgment.

Certainly what you and Fred and others have said in this thread about improving one's declarer play and then defensive technique are very true.

But your last paragraph is also very true and worth a lot of matchpoints to beginners and intermediates. I remember one hand when I was teaching my kids to play - I taught them about 4321 and all I knew about how to allow for fit - then one hand came up, 24hcp in the combined hands - good major fit - singleton in dummy and a worthless doubleton in hand - so decent ruffing value. Unfortunately the missing 16hcp were the four aces - one down in 4M. It was at that point that I decided that 4321 was actually complete rubbish on some hands and taught them other ways. Counting 6421 is not appropriate for all hands and it is not a panacea when you do - but if I paid $100 for every time it was wrong on suit contracts and got $100 for every time it was right - well I'd have quite a lot of cash in my pocket right now.

Nick

[vuroth]

NickRW, on Feb 8 2010, 01:24 PM, said:

I taught them about 4321 and all I knew about how to allow for fit - then one hand came up, 24hcp in the combined hands - good major fit - singleton in dummy and a worthless doubleton in hand - so decent ruffing value. Unfortunately the missing 16hcp were the four aces - one down in 4M. It was at that point that I decided that 4321 was actually complete rubbish on some hands...

Funny. I would have concluded that it's enough to bid reasonable games, and to not worry if you don't always make your contract.

Changing your system entirely works too, although I would guess you still go down sometimes in reasonable contracts.

0.02

V

[fred]

bab9, on Feb 8 2010, 02:30 AM, said:

fred, on Feb 3 2010, 09:50 PM, said:

You are getting some good advice from posters like Mbodell, Nigelk, and jjbrr, but it sounds like you are not listening

If being successful at bridge is an important goal for you, I would SERIOUSLY suggest that you not even think about Zar points (or anything else that is not 4321) at this stage of your career.

Fred, I'm a bit perplexed by your comment. I have been listening to the advise from all the posters, and to date I have not used Zar points in any fashion. I posted the original question to see if it was worth my time looking further into them. By the looks of it, Zar points is just a method to help improve your judgement especially on boarderline calls.

My comment was a suggestion that you not even think about Zar Points.

Even though you have not used Zar Points in any fashion, you have been thinking about them. It sounds like you are still thinking about them.

If the reason for your thinking about Zar Points is because you think they are interesting, that's your business. But if you are thinking about Zar Points because you think they might help you become a better bridge player, I (and several other knowledgable posters) are telling you that you this:

Studying Zar Points now will actually contribute to making you a worse bridge player than you otherwise might have been. Quite possibly significantly worse.

So unless this is a purely intellectual exercise for you, just get it out of your head and pay attention to all the important things the other posters have mentioned.

I hope you are not perplexed anymore.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[fred]

jjbrr, on Feb 8 2010, 02:43 AM, said:

he's been playing bridge longer than I've been alive.

You know you are getting old when...

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[babalu1997]

[quote name='fred' date='Feb 8 2010, 01:54 PM'] [/QUOTE]
My comment was a suggestion that you not even think about Zar Points.

Even though have not used Zar Points in any fashion, you have been thinking about them. It sounds like you are still thinking about them.

If the reason for your thinking about Zar Points is because you think they are interesting, that's your business. But if you are thinking about Zar Points because you think they might help you become a better bridge player, I (and several other knowledgable posters) are telling you that you this:

Studying Zar Points now will actually contribute to making you a worse bridge player than you otherwise might have been. Quite possibly significantly worse.

So unless this is a purely intellectual exercise for you, just get it out of your head and pay attention to all the important things the other posters have mentioned.

I hope you are not perplexed anymore.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com [/quote]
i hear fred.

And the others, like declarer play, study, study etc...

All these are lonely activities, including hand valuation.

The best thing one can do to better their bridge is think about partners cards.

support partner suit and he will be happy.

keep bidding your own hand and soon you will not have a partner.

i bumped into oen of these zar palyers the other day, they complete ygnore your passes, your nt bids, and in fact rob you of the contracts you have been waiting for for a very long time because they must play the hand.

by the second round, the td had mercy and removed me at my request.

[helene_t]

Sorry for hijacking but here in Lancaster lots of people have an obsession with LTC. Which is somewhat similar to ZAR points if you adjust, i.e. you subtract half an LTC for each non-sec ace and add half an LTC for each queen. (You can also subtract fractional LTCs for honors which are not accounted for, i.e. a quarter of an LTC for a working jack or Qc or stiff K). You should also subtract for extra trump length and ideally reduce the value of shortnesses if you only have an 8-card fit but now it because mind-boggling.

This is completely ridiculous. Once I saw a player who had enough experience and playing skills to exercise reasonable judgement make a limit raise in spades based on Qxx-xx-Qxxx-Qxxx because it is only 8 (unmodified) LTC. Then a told her about modified LTC. No that was too complicated. Sigh. If the uncomplicated version is worse than a gozzila's judgment and the complicated version is, well, too complicated, then maybe it was an idea to trash the method. And they even teach this nonsense to beginners. Sigh.

[ArtK78]

helene_t, on Feb 8 2010, 02:47 PM, said:

Sorry for hijacking but here in Lancaster lots of people have an obsession with LTC. Which is somewhat similar to ZAR points if you adjust, i.e. you subtract half an LTC for each non-sec ace and add half an LTC for each queen. (You can also subtract fractional LTCs for honors which are not accounted for, i.e. a quarter of an LTC for a working jack or Qc or stiff K). You should also subtract for extra trump length and ideally reduce the value of shortnesses if you only have an 8-card fit but now it because mind-boggling.

This is completely ridiculous. Once I saw a player who had enough experience and playing skills to exercise reasonable judgement make a limit raise in spades based on Qxx-xx-Qxxx-Qxxx because it is only 8 (unmodified) LTC. Then a told her about modified LTC. No that was too complicated. Sigh. If the uncomplicated version is worse than a gozzila's judgment and the complicated version is, well, too complicated, then maybe it was an idea to trash the method. And they even teach this nonsense to beginners. Sigh.

Sounds like the old adage "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing" applies here.

I happen to like modified losing trick count (MLTC) as described by Rosenkranz in his Romex books. But one must understand that Qxx-xx-Qxxx-Qxxx is a lot different than Axx-xx-Axxx-Axxx, even if the losing trick count is the same.

[peachy]

You being new to bridge, I would recommend other ways to improve your bridge where the impact is much greater than using Zar points for hand evaluation. YOU DO NOT NEED ZAR. Judgment comes from experience, analysing hands afterward, watching top level bridge, reading bridge books, paying full attention while playing or kibitzing.

We defend on average twice as many hands than we declare. That is where a wealth of improvement is available and even some very good players still find defending difficult. Counting the hands (partner's as well as declarer's, or both defenders' when declaring) as early in the hand as possible is a surefire way to get more tricks. That's what it is all about, tricks! You can practice declarer play alone, there are programs for that.

Good luck and have fun!

[jdonn]

If you are advanced enough to understand and apply zar points, then you are advanced enough to have good judgment and not need them. They would only come in handy for someone not experienced enough to benefit from them. In short I consider them a waste of time for practical use and believe their only interest is academic.