Which step in mastering bridge did you enjoy most?

[Rebound]

Mind you, declaring is a whole lotta fun when when you happen to get it right. :)

[ducky_rh]

Master, no, but I began to get some hope when, after some remarkable bidding (lol) I arrived in a slam contract off the A and K of trump and another ace! But I remembered someone's book saying "never give up and never give in", so off we went. I cashed some tricks and then began to draw trump by leading low to the Q in dummy. Well, LHO was having none of this finesse business, so she went up with her K, whereupon her partner played his singleton A, and confidently slammed down the other A, in which suit I happened to be void. I ruffed that, drew the remaining trumps, and cruised to my slam as though I knew I'd make it all along, even having the audacity to wink at my partner!

[cheech]

you probably realize that you are mastering bridge when yourealize that there are no right or wrong answers ;)

I really don't agree here. There are rights and wrongs when it comes to both bidding and play.

 

In card play I'd go so far as to say there is ALWAYS a right play or a wong play given a set of circumstances unless something is completely 50/50. Even "guesses" usually take into account math, the lead, etc. When you go down in a contract that could have made, or dont beat a contract you could have you really have to ask yourself if you made the right play and were unlucky or if you made a bad play. To say "there was no right or wrong here, it was just a judgement call on which inference I thought was more likely" is a copout.

 

In bidding, there is almost always a right or wrong in the context of your system and style. There is no "wrong" system or style (within reason), but the bids you make within that context can be wrong. In bidding there are more judgement calls, and it's harder to determine if you were unlucky or wrong sometimes. Occasionally, like in situations of tactics, there is no right or wrong really, but again if you make a bid that doesn't work out you should always ask yourself what happened. How often is your bid right vs another bid. Sometimes this is impossible to determine, but sometimes you will realize you made a mistake, other times you were definitely just unlucky and made the right call.

 

I think if you accept the premise that there are no right or wrong answers you do yourself a disservice because that is simply untrue, and it will be much harder to gain through introspection as you will think "well there really was no right or wrong here."

 

I do not claim to always know what IS right in a given situation, but 99 % of the time a "right" does exist.

I'm not great at the technical plays (I can just about manage a simple squeeze on a good day) and I don't know all the odds, but the hands where I'd disagree with you about there being right or wrong answers is the hands where I DO know which line has theoretically the best chance, but have some psychological factor inclining me towards another line (perhaps I think I detected a slight hesitation, or maybe it's just a hunch), and there doesn't seem to me to be any scientific way of weighting these factors, to see if they are sufficient to change the best line.

 

I remember 1 hand, a few months ago, when I was in 4 spades, and the contract could make on a simple finesse in spades, OR I could discard enough losers in the hearts broke 5-3 or better, but I couldn't do both, and so played for the hearts to split nicely (which I'm almost sure is better than a 50-50 chance. Now, when I played the second heart, 1 of my opponents discarded the highest heart out (the J, I think) and I was left having to figure out whether she was likley to play the J from J-10 or J-small (I had played with her before) In the end, I decided she as likley to play the J as the 10 from J-10, and just might have played it from J-small, so I played for the hearts to split, they didn't, and I went down when the finesse was on, and had I made the contract, we would have won the match. Now obviously, I wish I'd taken the finesse, but I didn't (and still don't) see any precise way in which factors such as these (which can include fairly delicate judgements of the people you're playing against) can beweighed against technical and mthematical knowledge of the a priori percentages of different lines of play, to discover which line is "right" (as in has the best chance of success) in a particular situation

[Guest Jlall]

You can measure these factors with math. The math depends on who your opponent is.

 

Take this common situation.

 

AQ9xx

 

Kx

 

You cash the K and rho plays the jack. You need 4 tricks in this suit and zero losers, what's your plan?

 

You might say this is restricted choice. Thus stiff J is more likely than JT tight. Which is true, however RHO might be getting tricky with JTx. This makes the percentage play low to the ace next. Does this make it the right play? Hardly. Against a little old lady at the club, I would rule out JTx as that would be beyond them. Indeed against most players at clubs/sectionals you could rule this possibility out. The correct play against them would be low to the 9 next. But what if your auction had gone 1N-3N and they hadn't led this suit on your left. They had led from a nothing suit, but led the 2 (fourth best). What if both suits were minors? This would mean they led from their 4 small instead of their 5 small. Very unlikely, so now we go up with the ace again. What if Hamman dropped the J on your right? Now you go up with the ace of course. What if you're playing a long KO match and twice previously when they had a JT combination they played the T? Now I would say the J is less likely to be JT. I would play to the 9 again (indeed this was what happened in real life, some people think the T is "trickier" so always play it from JT).

 

Obviously right and wrong is very situational and tough to figure out. That's what the game of bridge is about. But there is still a right and wrong. If you are taking a view based on a hitch and you have no other info on the opponent (you have never seen this hitch or the negative inference of it) and are going anti-percentage, I would be willing to say that you are making a wrong play. You have to have seen something that makes your play correct. If you have seen someone hitch twice before covering and NOT have it, and then see them play smoothly, well sure play them to have the critical card even if it's not "percentage."

 

Like I said, no one always makes the right play or the right bid. We overlook things. That's what keeps us coming back. But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.