[sceptic]

Quote

I guess its the level of bridge and the organization that determines this.
What we here in USA need to remember is that the ACBL is selling a product, so they are trying to protect not so good players from obtuse systems or they wont pay to play in their events.

I copied this from another posting by pigpenz (hope I got that right)

I am curious, if you all play the same system defences signals etc etc, surely the best player is easily determinable in a tournament.

then there is the issue, if they are all the same standard, do they all end up in the same contract scoring 50% each hand?

if you play all different systems, unless you are a systems freak you cant have defences against everything the opps throw at you?

if you are a casual player, maybe a few tourneys a year, what difference does it make if the opps throw at you a brown sticker convention as opposed to a convention they do not know?

not sure where I am going with this question, I just want to hear some opinions on the subject.

[pigpenz]

yes i posted that....but was referring to the fact that acbl doesnt allow certain types of bids.

as to your question most likely yes....but t here is always a human element to bridge....if everyone did everything the same we would all score 50% or 0 imps. But the expert tends to understand certain card combinations, endplays, squeezes and defensive combinations that other would not think of.

So generally I think the better players will tend to show up in KO's or imps events at matchpoints thats a different story.

[badderzboy]

Hi Wayne,

Not really, the better players will tend to win a tournament but there is also some element of luck involved if the quality of the field isnt uniform or people are playing different systems.

For example, you face the weak pair on the 'easy' hands where 10 tricks come home and no chance of an 11th vs a swingy type hand where you tend to get a good result against a weaker pair.

Also you find the odd hand suitable to a certain system will produce a swing board against that pair.

A typical example is an ACOL pair playing on BBO you get a lot of swingy results anti-field when you open weak NT.

Now if everyone was equally good with the same bidding judgement playing the same system then the person who makes the right guesses wins eg two way finesse or AKJxx vs xxxx - drop or finesse etc...

Steve

[pigpenz]

badderzboy, on Sep 7 2005, 03:29 AM, said:

Now if everyone was equally good with the same bidding judgement playing the same system then the person who makes the right guesses wins eg two way finesse or AKJxx vs xxxx - drop or finesse etc...

yes its the human factor or ego! Not everyone evaluates hands the same way, plays cards the sameway or evaluates opening leads the same way.

Look at Master Solvers in Bridge World...they all use Bridge World Standard....very seldom are there only two answers only by the panel let alone one. And these are probably the best players in the World.

[han]

Just a thought:

If we all had to play the same system, the ACBL could not allow transfers over 1NT. Why? because there are many players out there who don't understand transfers, and forcing them to play transfers would take away the fun of the game for them.

Similarly, you would not be allowed to give suit preference signals, and probably not even count signals. Only attitude on the first trick and first discard must be from a suit you like, no matter what card you throw.

The best players would still win, but I doubt that they would enjoy the game as much as they do now.

As I see it, the ACBL is trying to come to a consensus that will make most bridge players happy, and will make very few bridge players seriously unhappy. In my opinion this has little to do with selling a product. I do not particularly like the exact regulations right now, but I still enjoy playing in ACBL games.

[Echognome]

Han's point reminds me greatly of Arrow's Impossibility Theorem. It says that no voting system can meet all of the following criteria when there are three or more choices.

unrestricted domain or universality: the social choice function should create a deterministic, complete societal preference order from every possible set of individual preference orders. (The vote must have a result that ranks all possible choices relative to one another, the voting mechanism must be able to process all possible sets of voter preferences, and it should always give the same result for the same votes, without random selection.)

non-imposition or citizen sovereignty: every possible societal preference order should be achievable by some set of individual preference orders. (Every result must be achievable somehow.)

non-dictatorship: the social choice function should not simply follow the preference order of a single individual while ignoring all others.

positive association of social and individual values or monotonicity: if an individual modifies his or her preference order by promoting a certain option, then the societal preference order should respond only by promoting that same option or not changing, never by placing it lower than before. (An individual should not be able to hurt an option by ranking it higher.)

independence of irrelevant alternatives: if we restrict attention to a subset of options, and apply the social choice function only to those, then the result should be compatible with the outcome for the whole set of options. (Changes in individuals’ rankings of “irrelevant” alternatives [i.e., ones outside the subset] should have no impact on the societal ranking of the “relevant” subset.)

I should note that Arrow won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1972.

[jdeegan]

Many moons ago I used to play the opponents convention card when playing with one of my regular partners. We could not agree on a system. One of our cards read: 'We play what you play' the other read: 'See partner's card'. No doubt you can guess our ages at the time.

Funny thing was that it did not appear to hurt our results. We won several tournament pairs events, and generally received the number one seed in our section. Overall, we scored about the same as with our regular partners.

Opponents generally seemed bemused by out antics, and they may have relaxed a little too much. Every once in a while an opponent would get a bad board against us due to the bidding and remark: "I would not have made that bid, and you are playing our system." My partner had a standard reply: "We play WHAT you play, not LIKE you play."

[han]

I'll take that as a compliment Matt!

jdeegan, somehow I suspect that you didn't win any major events playing your opponents card, no matter how good you were.

[pigpenz]

Hannie, on Sep 7 2005, 11:34 AM, said:

In my opinion this has little to do with selling a product. I do not particularly like the exact regulations right now, but I still enjoy playing in ACBL games.

They are selling a product! They are selling masterpoints, alot of people make a living working for the acbl and alot of people make aliving off of the acbl tourneys.They have to keep the tourneys geared more to the lesser players which is probably guessing 85% of the acbl players. There never used to be flighted events and never used to be swiss team events.

Now there are sometimes 24 brackets in KO's and multi flighted events and stratified events. It used to be that you took your knocks against the best players. Now days i bet some players actually become Life Masters without ever playing against the best players available. just my cents worth

[Fluffy]

jdeegan, on Sep 7 2005, 05:07 PM, said:

Many moons ago I used to play the opponents convention card when playing with one of my regular partners. We could not agree on a system. One of our cards read: 'We play what you play' the other read: 'See partner's card'. No doubt you can guess our ages at the time.

Funny thing was that it did not appear to hurt our results. We won several tournament pairs events, and generally received the number one seed in our section. Overall, we scored about the same as with our regular partners.

Opponents generally seemed bemused by out antics, and they may have relaxed a little too much. Every once in a while an opponent would get a bad board against us due to the bidding and remark: "I would not have made that bid, and you are playing our system." My partner had a standard reply: "We play WHAT you play, not LIKE you play."

I had this idea at some point, and the wondered about the ethics with screen if you ask about a specific relay position to an opponent, that you are gonna use, and you missunderstand partner because different explanations on each sid eof the screen... who's on fault? .

I guess these kind of system is just forbidden, what would you do when the opponents play the same as you do otherwise?

[slammer]

Screen are diagonal across the table thus N&E are on one side and S&W the other. There is NO TALKING only pointing among opponents N&E or S&W. Each player has an exact copy of their system notes to point from or to. Bids are placed in boxes and slid under the screen so the opposing side sees the two bids at the same time.