[ochinko]

Walddk, on Feb 15 2005, 01:16 PM, said:

Secondly, if you think that intermediates benefit from learning Zar-count, LTC, LOTT, etc., you are mistaken. They have plenty to do with learning opener's rebid after 1-over-1 or 2-over-1.

I happen to know what I'm talking about. I have been teaching bridge for about 35 years and run a successful bridge centre with more than 1,000 members.

Ok, Roland. Take the example of Ben's last hand where you'd open 1♠. I know I would but I can do that only after I learned Zar. How are you going to explain to your students why it is the right bid with only 9 HCP without resorting at least to LTC or number of controls? For you perhaps it just feels right. But what about the rest of us that don't have your experience?

[fred]

ochinko, on Feb 15 2005, 06:06 PM, said:

Admit it, you don't like your RHO to open 1♥ when you cannot be sure whether to place him with 9 or 19 HCP

I depends a lot on the hand (and who my opponents are).

If the partner of the player in question is going to have to make a judgment call, I would be delighted for him to have a wide-ranging opening bid to contend with (since this will make his problem harder and he will guess wrong more often).

If I end up as declarer my problem will sometimes be harder and sometimes be easier. For example, if a critical Queen is the only outstanding high card, I will not be able to place that card if the opener has already shown up with 10 HCP, but I will be able to place that card if the opener has shown up with 8 HCP. If my problem as declarer is more complex, in general the light opening bid will be a winner more often than not (because I will have to take more hands into account for my mental "simulation").

If the light opening bid deprives my partner and I of our normal constructive methods and if this turns out to matter on the hand in question, the light opening bid will be a winner. Sometimes, however, the light opening bid will backfire (the player will go for a number or his partner may not be able to make a penalty double out of fear that the opener has little defensive strength).

Overall I would certainly prefer that opponents with good judgment just sit there and pass against me. If my opponents have poor judgment they are welcome to take as many bids as they want!

I don't think any of this has to do with how you count your points - you can use a style of light-opening bids regardless of how you choose to evaluate your hand.

Please note that I never claimed that Zar (or any of the other evaluation methods I mentioned) are "bad" - just that overreliance on them is bad.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[Walddk]

ochinko, on Feb 15 2005, 01:40 PM, said:

Ok, Roland. Take the example of Ben's last hand where you'd open 1♠. I know I would but I can do that only after I learned Zar. How are you going to explain to your students why it is the right bid with only 9 HCP without resorting at least to LTC or number of controls? For you perhaps it just feels right. But what about the rest of us that don't have your experience?

I don't have a problem with that hand. In our textbook 'Den Komplette Lærebog i Bridge' ("The Complete Textbook on Bridge", 378 pages, only available in Danish) which I wrote in 1991 together with Lars and Knut Blakset, also from Denmark, we recommend that you open with as little as 9 hcp as long as you have a very shapely hand.

We consider 6-1-5-1 as shapely and will open the hand as long as the honour cards are in your long suits. But we do not recommend that you open with

J87653
K
Q10875
K

I will be happy to teach any student that method. My e-mail address is on my profile (Walddk2)

Roland

[ochinko]

fred, on Feb 15 2005, 01:41 PM, said:

Please note that I never claimed that Zar (or any of the other evaluation methods I mentioned) are "bad" - just that overreliance on them is bad.

Yes. And the more methods of evaluation a player knows, the less likely s/he is to overcommit to any of them.

Tysen also made a good point about reevaluation in competitive bidding when you have to evaluate whether the strong hand in opponents' line is behind or in front of yours.

Petko Boukov

[Flame]

Jlall, on Feb 15 2005, 06:45 PM, said:

Bridge is not a game of rules. That's why it's such a great game. Try bidding unbalanced hands without using zar or HCP or LTC for 1 session. It will be hard at first. Keep trying it, it will get better and more accurate. On almost all unbalanced hands that i play, i never count HCP (unless it is relevant when i become declarer).

I wish i could get into your head once to see how you do it.
You dont count points and losers, you dont count the cards(atleast not the way i do).
Its sounds great.

[ochinko]

Jlall, on Feb 15 2005, 06:45 PM, said:

Bridge is not a game of rules. That's why it's such a great game. Try bidding unbalanced hands without using zar or HCP or LTC for 1 session. It will be hard at first. Keep trying it, it will get better and more accurate. On almost all unbalanced hands that i play, i never count HCP (unless it is relevant when i become declarer).

Funny, for me bridge is a game of rules. Every new rule that I learn helps me to eliminate a blind spot. It's not important that I remember the exact rule, just to be aware of yet another aspect of the game. Rules aren't carved in stone but only those who know them have the right to break them

Perhaps it's a matter of what part of the brain a player predominantly uses during the bidding - the creative or the rational one. I do agree with you and all the others that the ultimate goal is to think in patterns, not numbers. But even a rule that produces a number (like Zar) can help you achieve a better understanding of what makes a hand strong because the ingredients of the formula show you what's important in a hand. And I find it to be a nice formula.

[slothy]

ochinko, on Feb 16 2005, 03:21 AM, said:

Jlall, on Feb 15 2005, 06:45 PM, said:

Bridge is not a game of rules. That's why it's such a great game. (left Justin in coz i like the letter 'l' - and coz he was right )

Funny, for me bridge is a game of rules. Rules aren't carved in stone but only those who know them have the right to break them

I do agree with you and all the others that the ultimate goal is to think in patterns, not numbers. ... And I find it to be a nice formula.

i wasnt sure whether to agree or disagree with you, Ochinko: Therefore i have replied in order to remove the tortuous mental embarrassment of having a Platonic dialogue with myself in front of the computer.

From my experience in and understanding of bridge, albeit one much shorter than some of the longer-living members of this vibrant community i believe that the bridge theoreticians are trying to develop systems which are about telegraphing to your partner your hand pattern, or the smallest subset possible of distributions you can have.

The Holy Grail of bidding, especially it seems with the spate of modern bidding systems that are pupating, is to develop a system where you can tell your partner your shape, whether it be a 5-5-2-1, a 4-4-4-1, a 6-2-2-3, with the minimum number of bids. Once your partner has pin-pointed your shape, it is so much easier for him to assess the quality of his hand - with, it seems, your HCP playing the 'poor cousin': they know he lives in the same town, but the family decides to ignore him.

So with this in mind, many try to inseminate their systems with an appreciation and an evaluation of ones high card strength! At some point or other one of these 2 has to be sacrificed, as i believe no system can be developed that will allow you to finitely include bids to show both. Statistically impossible: it is like buying Roseanne a size 8 dress and telling her to wear it to the ball.

We all seem to learn through HCP evaluation, and perhaps tend towards the pattern-showing systems as we evolve. I have a lot to learn in bidding, and want to; it just seems to me that more and more one comes to realise that there arrives a point where ultimately one has to rely on ones judgement, ones instinct , ones trust of partner and distrust of opps, and as Roland said ( the man who last night tried to convince me that Shakespeare was Danish hee hee), ones common sense.

Alas, there is no replacement for experience/intuition: you cant buy it and you cant teach it. Those that have a 'feel' for the hands and sense that cards are working or not are the ones who seem to get to the right contracts. All this within a finely-tuned system where a balance has been reached and the system is constructed with elastic steadfast rules and, ultimately, as many bids as possible have a meaning to their partners to distinguish one hand shape and one point range from another....

Alex

PS If anybody finds the Holy Grail, would ya please inform me. Last i heard it was rumoured to be near a goat stud-farm in the hills of Anatolia.

[Walddk]

slothy, on Feb 16 2005, 05:56 AM, said:

... and as Roland said ( the man who last night tried to convince me that Shakespeare was Danish hee hee), ones common sense.

Alas, there is no replacement for experience/intuition: you cant buy it and you cant teach it.

Alex

Quote 1. I actually said he was half Danish. Why else would he write Hamlet and let it take place at Elsinore (Helsingør in Danish)?

Quote 2. Well said young man!

Roland

[slothy]

Walddk, on Feb 16 2005, 06:04 AM, said:

Quote 1. Well said young man!

Quote 2. I actually said he was half Danish. Why else would he write Hamlet and let it take place at Elsinore (Helsingør in Danish)?

Roland

Quote 1: From the Guru himself: i feel that the Holy Grail has been put gift-wrapped and hand-delivered in a stage-coach hee he

Quote 2:

oh yes, and his grandfather was Egyptian (Anthony and Cleopatra), his sister-in-law a Greek (Coriolanus), his next-door-neighbour-but-one spoke Latin (Julius Caesar), his wife was Jewish (Merchant Of Venice), his daughter married an Italian (Romeo and Juliet) and

...his brother was a fairy (Midsummers Night Dream).

[Walddk]

slothy, on Feb 16 2005, 06:16 AM, said:

Quote 2:

oh yes, and his grandfather was Egyptian (Anthony and Cleopatra), his sister-in-law a Greek (Coriolanus), his next-door-neighbour-but-one spoke Latin (Julius Caesar), his wife was Jewish (Merchant Of Venice), his daughter married an Italian (Romeo and Juliet) and

...his brother was a fairy (Midsummers Night Dream).

.... and his bridge partner was Lord Yarborough, you know the man who constantly picked up

973
642
8753
432

.... and made a fortune. By the way, I am not sure this qualifies for a Zar-count evaluation

Roland