[jillybean]

mike777, on 2026-October-10, 07:39, said:

After the limit raise, partner will definitely look for the slam.

I did look for slam, I am South

Let me be clear, I am not interested in learning Losing Trick Count.

[mike777]

 jillybean, on 2026-October-10, 07:51, said:

I did look for slam, I am South

Let me be clear, I am not interested in learning Losing Trick Count.

Then do hand building

As I said that is the ultimate learning valuation goal for everyone , yes? We stop being point counters and instead place cards.
🤠

[jillybean]

WasWinM, on 2026-October-10, 07:38, said:

Bob Hamman is claimed to have once said, If you need me to have one card for slam, I never have it, or something along those lines.

So we stop at 5, but still get the thrill of trying.

A little off-topic, but I’m having a blast playing with better players and am so grateful for the opportunity.
I see my next challenge is finding one of these better players who also wants to do something a little out of the ordinary, (post 80's bidding styles) and has the time!
John Kranyak Vince Demuy style.

[mike777]

1S-3D!
3H!-4D

After the limit raise by partner and their showing D shortness and their failure to control bid 4C, we really love our hand.

[mike777]

 jillybean, on 2026-October-10, 08:04, said:

So we stop at 5, but still get the thrill of trying.

A little off-topic, but I’m having a blast playing with better players and am so grateful for the opportunity.
I see my next challenge is finding one of these better players who also wants to do something a little out of the ordinary, (post 80's bidding styles) and has the time!
John Kranyak Vince Demuy style.

Way off topic.🕵️


I got to play against their team, I was at
Compton's table who could not have been more gracious, more fun, very funny.
We talked the whole match through ..
He told stories about great players
He knows the players who originally taught me bridge way back when and their stories..

Later, talking with my longest bridge friend, it turns out he is helping Compton, a lawyer, on bridge law stuff..

What a wonderful game.

[jillybean]

Sounds like a great experience.

Why are the good players no longer playing at the clubs?
It seems that the shift to online and pros playing strictly at tournaments where they are paid to play has emptied the clubs of top players.

[mike777]

 jillybean, on 2026-October-10, 12:35, said:

Sounds like a great experience.

Why are the good players no longer playing at the clubs?
It seems that the shift to online and pros playing strictly at tournaments where they are paid to play has emptied the clubs of top players.

I hardly play online.

At the local club we have a Grand Life Master or two who may play a couple of times a year. They attend the sectionals and regional.

A number of Platinum LMs play regularly

We actually have a good number of A level players who make the Barry Crane 500. They play all the time at the club.

The club does an excellent job as far as NLM , newer player games and teaching lessons. Bless them.

I would say the vast majority of players are intermediate such as myself.

----

Now way back when at the local school bridge club. We had two future world champions playing. If that is what you mean by good player. At least two others who are , I think active top 500 players all time in terms of MP.

Oh and I would add Kit Woolsey was a regular at the club a year or two before I joined but had graduated I think. So I forgot to add him to the list

-----

In terms of local players out in Southern California playing at the the local clubs.
Back in the day.

Yes plenty of excellent, really excellent players would occasionally show up but that was still rare
However I never saw Hamman or Soloway or Kantar at the local clubs.

[pescetom]

jillybean, on 2026-October-10, 12:35, said:

Sounds like a great experience.

Why are the good players no longer playing at the clubs?
It seems that the shift to online and pros playing strictly at tournaments where they are paid to play has emptied the clubs of top players.

Partly because many of them died and were not replaced, given the downturn in popularity of the game.
But I think the key factor is critical mass, at least over here where only a very few clubs in bigger cities can reach or exceed 10 tables.
Once the probability of partnering with (or even playing against) a top player has dwindled to near zero, the chances of a promising player becoming top or even good drastically diminish, as does their interest in continuing.

[akwoo]

It seems to me that top players stopped playing at clubs a long time ago.

I've heard some good players tell me that playing in club games in fact ruins their game, because when playing against other top players, they get to make inferences that their opponents are playing sensibly, and they can't make these inferences at the club, and so playing at the club gets them into bad habits of not making these inferences.

There are certainly clubs where top players are discouraged from playing with each other too frequently because the not-so-good players have made it clear they won't play if there are too many good partnerships playing. Top players might not be willing to partner weaker players because, again, it ruins their game. (Others are happy to, or frequently take money to.)

It strikes me that, compared with 70 years ago, there is a much bigger disparity in skill between the best and worst players. (Partly this is due to top players being willing to memorize 100 pages (or more) of bidding notes, but I think there are also a lot more players who are capable of simple squeezes and counting on defense, and a much wider but not universal understanding that -100 is better than -110.) This is what has really ruined the popularity of the game.

[mike777]

Top players in fact say quite the opposite.
The gap has narrowed noticeable the last 70years.
The results in the top team games confirm this.

Bob Hamman has discussed this issue often
Online play, Cbids and other apps that allow bidding and play of thousands of hands

Just more knowledge accessible to more people.

The weaker club players are better than the weaker club players 70 years ago.

Ditto your average club player, etc, up the line.


I mean even at the very very top
The bidding was horrible, just horrible.


As for the clubs you do know that not only was smoking everywhere, it was common to drink at the table during the play.
It was common at the tournament.
Imagine bridge players drinking for three hours

[mikeh]

I live in Victoria, population probably a little under 400,000…I haven’t checked in decades. We have two vibrant clubs, usually close to 100 tables a week, spread over 4 sessions, plus some ‘duplicate lite’ tables once a week. We have 8 Grand Life Masters, although one is struggling with dementia so no longer plays up to his/her former standard. All of the GLMs play at least a few times a year and most play at least once a week. Two of them play almost exclusvely with each other, but this is relatively recent. I play with a variety of partners, but they’re all experts…most of them are GLMs.

A good friend of mine (a GLM) regularly plays with weak players….I’m not sure (because I’d never ask) but I think he gets a small payment.

akwoo’s comments resonate with me. There’s no question but that it’s impossible to play at one’s best when one’s partner is far less skilled than one is. I liken high level bridge to high wire trapeze artists. One lets go and flies through the air, hands extended, and is caught by partner. But if partner misses, your acrobatic move ends in disaster. So playing with a significantly less skilled partner means holding back…never make a bid or a play that partner won’t understand.

Defence, in particular, is almost impossible…in terms of the two players working in unison to defeat a close contract. Often the best defence requires that both defenders know what’s going on…when only one does, he’s wasting his time making subtle plays.

I still play because I love the game, and because I don’t travel to tournaments much…never have. I read a lot, especially copies of The Bridge World…I have a complete set from the mid 1970s on…when Kaplan and Rubens took over and the magazine entered its golden age in terms of match reports, The Master Solvers Club etc.

However, the game is dying. I agree that the gulf between the average club player and a true expert is far greater than it was 50 years ago. I think it’s at least partly because young people simply stopped learning the game in any significant numbers, once the video game was invented. ‘Newer’ players these days are 50+ They are never going to be good…they’re too old to acquire the skills needed and have too much going on in life to develop the monomania that I think most experts suffered from in their youth…I know I did.

Also, we don’t have 20-30 players at the bar after the game, discussing the hands. And virtually none of these ‘new’ players read books!

So we have a diminishing number of old players who are very good, a large number of ‘social’ players who not only aren’t very good but also don’t care, and very, very few in-between.

Here, where I play, I think we have maybe 9 A flight players, maybe 8-10 B flight players and the rest are simply not strong…but they enjoy playing and have no hunger to get better. That isn’t me, but it works for them and without them, our two clubs would be like the clubs I hear about in bigger cities…struggling to get an 8 table game.

[akwoo]

It's true that there are a lot more players within a million dollars of a Spingold win. (I have played in a Swiss against a top pro team with the client at my table. The client was competent, but I didn't think he was a better player than me.)

But, at least proportionally, there are also more players not within a million dollars of winning any regional open event. They might be better than the intermediates of 50 years ago, but the good Flight A player has improved much more.

[mw64ahw]

I put North's hand into the good mixed raise category with its 8 mod. losers, which for me is also 3♦ up to about 9hcp. 4+, Lim+ raises ~9+hcp would go through 2N. Now 25-8-4.5=12.5 tricks so I try for the low hcp slam starting with a 3♥ cue.
The other bids: 3♣ Is a ♣ IJS, 3♥ 8.5 mod. losers and 3♠ pre-emptive.

[awm]

There’s been a big increase in the opportunities for good players to compete against other good players over the years — due to increasing numbers of tournaments, more flighted events at tournaments, and then via online bridge. It’s now pretty easy to get more/better practice without playing at the local club. In addition, the attitude of club players has changed somewhat, and there are now more who wish the good players wouldn’t show up than those who want to learn from them.

The professional game has also left its mark — if bridge is your full time job you may want to do other things in your free time (and if you have a non-bridge job, most club games are scheduled at times when you can’t play anyway).