A new thread on conventions
#1
Posted 2004-July-30, 12:06
Answer 1: Yes
Rhetorical Question 2: Is it fun to be able to play with a long-term partner, hone one's system and understandings, and challenge equally equipped pairs?
Answer 2: Yes
Rhetorical Question 3: Are these two things compatible?
Answer 3: No. Not as things stand. There is no way I could sit down opposite a parter of equal strength and hope to compete long term against a well-seasoned pair of equal skill. This is especially true if their system is at all "unusual" to me or my partner.
What can be done about this?
The problem is that there is nothing published (at least nothing I know about) which shows how to defend against any new convention one comes across. While there is this lack, there is never going to be any hope for pick-up partners (especially if they come from different parts of the world) to adequately defend themselves.
Until an excellent set of general defenses is widely known, there is really no hope of reconciling these two types of bridge, and also no hope of National Sponsoring Organisations easing their system restrictions.
So all those in favour of easing restrictions, do your bit: write a book or web page or whatever demonstrating how best to defend against anything you may want to throw at us. Maybe a start would be to outline your general defenses in this thread.
Eric
#2
Posted 2004-July-30, 12:24
http://www.rpbridge.net/7g19.htm#65
His system has a number of generic defences that may be useful to pickups.
Paul
#3
Posted 2004-July-30, 12:48
When gunpowder was invented there was not available any defence. After that armour was invented. All progress of Humanity is similar and I believe new conventions and defences are good for the development of the game
Rado
#4
Posted 2004-July-30, 12:58
What can be done about this?
The problem is that there is nothing published (at least nothing I know about) which shows how to defend against any new convention one comes across. While there is this lack, there is never going to be any hope for pick-up partners (especially if they come from different parts of the world) to adequately defend themselves.
Eric [/QUOTE]
That's why we are here and play and learn.
Better run into it on BBO and start talking to people asking about possible defenses and learn from that.
Mike
so much the better. If there is restlessness, I am pleased. Then let there
be ideas, and hard thought, and hard work.”
#5
Posted 2004-July-30, 13:28
Rado, on Jul 30 2004, 06:48 PM, said:
When gunpowder was invented there was not available any defence. After that armour was invented. All progress of Humanity is similar and I believe new conventions and defences are good for the development of the game
Rado
I agree 100% with this.
But if these defenses are not published and made widely available how can I and my pick-up partner agree what to play in a few minutes. It is no good me having one set of defenses which I may have developed with my long term partner, and he another. We still won't be able to compete.
We need these things to be so well known that I could say to a fairly well-read random player "We''ll play 'Rado' against their two-level bids and 'Inquiry relays' over their transfer openings" (or whatever).
Eric
#6
Posted 2004-July-30, 18:56
Two simple defences against transfer openings Moscito style
eg
1D = H
X = opening vaues with D, 1H = t/o of H, 2D = normal overcall, 2H = Michaels
OR
X = t/o of H, 1H = opening bid bid with Ds-(get even by re transferring!!), 2D = normal overcall, 2H = Michaels
Against multi style 2 bids
If the multi can contain a weak 2 in S - ALWAYS assume that it does
(2D) X = t/ of S, 2N = 15-18, rest natural
(2D) X (P) (2H)
(P) X = penalties, you did have a t/o x of S after all
If a 2S bid comes back to you X = t/o
Ron
#7
Posted 2004-July-31, 00:42
The_Hog, on Jul 31 2004, 12:56 PM, said:
(2D) X = t/ of S, 2N = 15-18, rest natural
(2D) X (P) (2H)
(P) X = penalties, you did have a t/o x of S after all
I've played with partner's like that...
When they bid I want to double partner for penalties.
I guess you mean:
(2D) X (2H) P
(P) X
This is a good general rule:
If they bid a suit that we have shown or implied then double is for penalties.
I believe that the USA currently hold only the World Championship For People Who Still Bid Like Your Auntie Gladys - dburn
dunno how to play 4 card majors - JLOGIC
True but I know Standard American and what better reason could I have for playing Precision? - Hideous Hog
Bidding is an estimation of probabilities SJ Simon
#8
Posted 2004-July-31, 00:57
(2D) X (2H) P
(P) X
yes, I did!! You are right though, occasionally I want to double pd as well.
#9
Posted 2004-July-31, 01:03
The_Hog, on Jul 31 2004, 12:56 AM, said:
Two simple defences against transfer openings Moscito style
eg
1D = H
X = opening vaues with D, 1H = t/o of H, 2D = normal overcall, 2H = Michaels
OR
X = t/o of H, 1H = opening bid bid with Ds-(get even by re transferring!!), 2D = normal overcall, 2H = Michaels
Against multi style 2 bids
If the multi can contain a weak 2 in S - ALWAYS assume that it does
(2D) X = t/ of S, 2N = 15-18, rest natural
(2D) X (P) (2H)
(P) X = penalties, you did have a t/o x of S after all
If a 2S bid comes back to you X = t/o
Ron
So if I don't have a t/o of Spades but a 4441 shape, I must pass. I suppose then, that if 2S come round to me, double is penalties, and if 2/3 of anything else comes back to me, X is t/o?
Eric
#10
Posted 2004-July-31, 01:31
#11
Posted 2004-July-31, 18:22
Maybe the table creator could help out by putting in 'unusual methods' in the description of the table so the casual player could stay away
Eric - great idea, except that most of your random partners aren't going to be well read. A lot of random adv/exp partners appear not to have ever read a bridge book no less a book on defenses to obscure conventions and systems. Perhaps the people that want to play this system or convention would be happy to proivde you with a reasonable defense at the time? If they get tired of doing that, they'll try to seek out other opponents that already know their conventions.
#12
Posted 2004-August-01, 04:54
paulhar, on Aug 1 2004, 12:22 AM, said:
Maybe the table creator could help out by putting in 'unusual methods' in the description of the table so the casual player could stay away
Eric - great idea, except that most of your random partners aren't going to be well read. A lot of random adv/exp partners appear not to have ever read a bridge book no less a book on defenses to obscure conventions and systems. Perhaps the people that want to play this system or convention would be happy to proivde you with a reasonable defense at the time? If they get tired of doing that, they'll try to seek out other opponents that already know their conventions.
Most Advanced/Expert players (and even most intermediate players) seem to know a whole load of conventions. They must have picked these up from somewhere.
I want to reach a situation where there are similarly well known defensive conventions to all manner of things. Playing with a defense you have just been provided with by opps is not much of an improvement over trying to explain your own defenses to your partner on the spur of the moment.
Eric
#13
Posted 2004-August-01, 05:04
EricK, on Aug 1 2004, 10:54 AM, said:
Are you suggesting there should be a "standard" (unless explicitly agreed otherwise) also for defensive tools vs weird openings so no need to discuss them everytime ?
#14
Posted 2004-August-01, 05:54
Chamaco, on Aug 1 2004, 11:04 AM, said:
EricK, on Aug 1 2004, 10:54 AM, said:
Are you suggesting there should be a "standard" (unless explicitly agreed otherwise) also for defensive tools vs weird openings so no need to discuss them everytime ?
Yes, there should be (at least) one well-known, named standard. So you could easily put one (or more) on your profile.
Eric
#15
Posted 2004-August-01, 07:33
I think that you are making a major mistake if you you are focusing on developing optimal defenses against specific opening bids like MOSCITO's 1D opening. This type of approach doesn't scale. There are simply too many different bids and style that you could encounter to hope to create specialized defenses for each and every opening. I think that you would be much better served trying to develop a small number of meta defenses that can be applied against a wide variety of different bids.
For example, you might decide that you should adopt the same defense against any bids that show a single known anchor suit and constructive values. Examples might include
1. A Jacoby transfer
2. A MOSCITO 1D opening which promises 4+ hearts
3. A Bergen style "2-under" preempt
While the defense that you decide on might not be optimal against any one of this bids, I suspect that thoroughly familiarizing yourself with an appropriate meta-defense will serve you much better than having an optimal defense available that you need to learn at the spur of the moment. I'll note in passing that most strong pairs from parts of the world where unusual methods are common have adopted this same approach.
Comment the Second:
It has always struck me as perverse that the individuals who develop new methods bear responsibility for developing appropriate defenses. There is a severe incentive problem here - it not in a pairs interest to spend significant amounts of time providing defenses to their own pet methods. More significantly, pairs can't be expected to customize their suggested defenses to the unique bidding style of the pairs who are expected to employee them.
From my own perspective, pairs should be expected to provide complete disclosure regarding their methods to anyone who asks. In particular, advanced disclosure is more than reasonable. However, defenders have obligiations as well. More specifically, they need to be prepared to compete against a wide variety of different approaches.
#16
Posted 2004-August-01, 08:10
#17
Posted 2004-August-01, 09:39
I've never played against your "strange spade" opening, still I don't imagine it would be difficult to figure out what the first round defensive bids mean. More difficult would be to figure out what it means when partner doubles (takeout of spades), I advance in a new suit and partner now bids spades. Is that a cue-bid in support of my suit, or is that a natural bid in spades showing a hand that was too good to make a direct overcall in spades? If I double the 1C opening bid, 3rd hand passes and partner bids 1S, is that natural? With a little bit of discussion, it's probably not too difficult to come up with reasonable answers to these questions. But, I wouldn't want to place any bets on coming up with the same answers as partner at the table if the situations were undiscussed.
Tim
#18
Posted 2004-August-01, 09:40
hrothgar, on Aug 1 2004, 01:33 PM, said:
I think that you are making a major mistake if you you are focusing on developing optimal defenses against specific opening bids like MOSCITO's 1D opening. This type of approach doesn't scale. There are simply too many different bids and style that you could encounter to hope to create specialized defenses for each and every opening. I think that you would be much better served trying to develop a small number of meta defenses that can be applied against a wide variety of different bids.
For example, you might decide that you should adopt the same defense against any bids that show a single known anchor suit and constructive values. Examples might include
1. A Jacoby transfer
2. A MOSCITO 1D opening which promises 4+ hearts
3. A Bergen style "2-under" preempt
While the defense that you decide on might not be optimal against any one of this bids, I suspect that thoroughly familiarizing yourself with an appropriate meta-defense will serve you much better than having an optimal defense available that you need to learn at the spur of the moment. I'll note in passing that most strong pairs from parts of the world where unusual methods are common have adopted this same approach.
...
I agree wholeheartedly with this suggestion. A good meta defense is the best way to handle an unrestricted convention environment.
For a detailed meta defense, enemy strength can be classifed as weak, construtive, game invitational, or game forcing. (This does not imply that every strength range needs a different defense).
Enemy distribution can be classifed by how many suits? how many are known? is the suit bid one of the known suits?
A detailed meta defense may be suboptimal against every single convention it faces but be a big winner because the partnership has a method that comes up often enough to repay a lengthy design porcess ands to give the partnership lots of practice.
Also, you can alway develop an optimal defense against methods you find yourself facing frequently. A multi defense if you play in circles where almost everybody plays it, for example.
If MOSCITO were to become a national standard in some country, people who play there would devise optimal defenses to the transfer openings.
#19
Posted 2004-August-01, 09:56
hrothgar, on Aug 1 2004, 01:33 PM, said:
I think that you are making a major mistake if you you are focusing on developing optimal defenses against specific opening bids like MOSCITO's 1D opening. This type of approach doesn't scale. There are simply too many different bids and style that you could encounter to hope to create specialized defenses for each and every opening. I think that you would be much better served trying to develop a small number of meta defenses that can be applied against a wide variety of different bids.
For example, you might decide that you should adopt the same defense against any bids that show a single known anchor suit and constructive values. Examples might include
1. A Jacoby transfer
2. A MOSCITO 1D opening which promises 4+ hearts
3. A Bergen style "2-under" preempt
While the defense that you decide on might not be optimal against any one of this bids, I suspect that thoroughly familiarizing yourself with an appropriate meta-defense will serve you much better than having an optimal defense available that you need to learn at the spur of the moment. I'll note in passing that most strong pairs from parts of the world where unusual methods are common have adopted this same approach.
Comment the Second:
It has always struck me as perverse that the individuals who develop new methods bear responsibility for developing appropriate defenses. There is a severe incentive problem here - it not in a pairs interest to spend significant amounts of time providing defenses to their own pet methods. More significantly, pairs can't be expected to customize their suggested defenses to the unique bidding style of the pairs who are expected to employee them.
From my own perspective, pairs should be expected to provide complete disclosure regarding their methods to anyone who asks. In particular, advanced disclosure is more than reasonable. However, defenders have obligiations as well. More specifically, they need to be prepared to compete against a wide variety of different approaches.
I am not looking for optimal defenses. I want there to be one (or more) all-purpose meta-defenses which become so well known that people can agree to play with pick-up partners.
I suggest that it is the people who devise new bids (or want to play them) who should also publicise the counter-measures, because having well-known counter-measures is the only way (as I see it) that system restrictions will be lifted or eased. So it is in their interests to show that these bids (and indeed any new bids) can be defended by rank-and-file players.
Your comments seem to be addressed at the sort of players who form long-term partnerships and yet still don't want to have to learn to defend against "unusual" stuff.
I am more concerned with two lots of people
1) Pick-up partnerships - If there are no well publicisied general defences there is no way they can compete against stuff they've never seen before.
2) Long-terrm partnerships who aren't very good at system design - I don't think it is right that they should be left to their own devices when it comes to constructing meta-defenses. After all they are not left to their own devices when it comes to constructive bidding because there is so much published material.
Eric
#20
Posted 2004-August-01, 10:47
Quote
Quite true! Isn't that interesting that if someone plays against a strong 2/1 pair plays, they know how to defend against their system and conventions optimally, and if someone plays that system named after an annoying bug, they AT BEST play sub-optimally and otherwise in a morass of confusion!
Looks like the road to winning is obvious - develop a well-tuned system with components that nobody has heard of and keep changing it often. At best people will be able to play a suboptimal defense against your system. CRASH 2-bids, anyone?
The poor pair that really thinks that 2/1 is the system for them (and it may be because of their country's tournament constraints) suffers a distinct disadvantage in tournmanets that have NOTHING to do with the value of the system, but only to do with the effectiveness of the defenses played against them, and the relative lack of confusion suffered by their opponents.