Team strategy also at MP?

[42]

Hiya all!

After playing a big f2f MP tourney, my partner, a very experienced player who plays since more than 40 years and also in our senior national team, said, that he is more and more convinced to play clean team bridge also at matchpoints. He saw too many hands where this playing for overtricks led to a bad result. Do you agree?

 

Look at this hand: http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?showtopic=10251 :

Do you risk the contract by playing the double finesse (at IMPs you would not, but at MP??)? BTW: it fails :P

 

Another point is, that in most books of card play technique they play for safe, never mentioning a MP strategy.

 

To be honest: I hate this slaughtering at MP for a lousy 10 or 30 points more B) I am often unsecure what to to when there are (too many) options. So it also happened that I played an unnecessary deep finesse just to hope for an overtrick (what should I say? Of course for a zero, so something was obviously wrong with my decision or the others played "IMP"...).

 

:) Please help me :)

Caren

[Guest Jlall]

MP and IMPs are different games, I don't see why they should be played the same. I don't agree with your partner, it just doesn't make sense. Say you are in a normal contract. You play safe instead of taking a finesse for an overtrick that risks going down on a 5-1 break and them getting a ruff or something. Your expected value is definitely going to be a poor board, etc. There are times to play safe in MP, but that's only when you're in a great contract that will not be duplicated often.

[inquiry]

[it] is more and more convinced to play clean team bridge also at matchpoints. He saw too many hands where this playing for overtricks led to a bad result. Do you agree?

 

Look at this hand: http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?showtopic=10251 :

Do you risk the contract by playing the double finesse (at IMPs you would not, but at MP??)? BTW: it fails :P

 

Another point is, that in most books of card play technique they play for safe, never mentioning a MP strategy.

 

To be honest: I hate this slaughtering at MP for a lousy 10 or 30 points more B) I am often unsecure what to to when there are (too many) options. So it also happened that I played an unnecessary deep finesse just to hope for an overtrick (what should I say? Of course for a zero, so something was obviously wrong with my decision or the others played "IMP"...).

 

:) Please help me :)

Caren

No. I do not agree... not even close to agree... unless I am in an exceptional contract.

 

 

On the hand you gave. the correct IMP play is to go for the spade ruff in dummy (be sure ot cash your side suit winners early enough).

 

At matchpoints this line of play is crazy. Why when it is a virtual lock at 10 tricks? Because the field will not play it. You can win 10 tricks if ♠ are 3-3 with either line, and at least tricks anytiem one spade honor is onside, and sometimes 11 tricks (both honors onside, or one honor and 3-3 split). Matchpoints is a different game. You may feel well about yourself for findind the spade ruff in dummy at MP(giving up on the hooks (can't afford first round hook at imps, someone might ruff the second round), but the technically correct play will be more often than not punished at MP. IT is a sad fact of life that "winning" bridge with the technically correct play is often poor at matchpoints. This is exactly why I asked what type of game the hand was played in.

[mike777]

Over the years I have read of players winning the LM pairs and Blue Ribbons playing IMP style because they wanted to practice for the Team Match. My guess is for 99.9% of us it will not matter if we are playing in the Blue Ribbon Pairs and just not making basic errors will take up all of our energy.

 

 

It just seems to me that count/visualize will result in a much better game for us by reducing simply errors than any other energy taking lessons :).

 

I would just suggest that after this f2f session with your good partners go over the hands and see if your lack of counting or visualizing the hands caused most of your errors, or your lack of balancing or knowing system or what and try and focus on one area to improve on, best wishes.

 

My guess is the play on the posted hand in long top class MP is not going to matter much and your limited energy could have been used on 10 other easier hands that you lost MP on?

[Fluffy]

I don't have this problem, before joining BBO 97% of the bridge I played was MP, then I am so used, that had to learn about security later when I Started to play IMPs seriously.

[Chamaco]

Hiya all!

After playing a big f2f MP tourney, my partner, a very experienced player who plays since more than 40 years and also in our senior national team, said, that he is more and more convinced to play clean team bridge also at matchpoints. He saw too many hands where this playing for overtricks led to a bad result. Do you agree?

I think your patner have certainly seem a lot of reckless bids/plays "justified" by the MP form of scoring.

 

I think that recklessness is not the name of game even at MP, although occasionaly it scores well.

 

Nonetheless, calculated risk pays off at Mp pairs.

 

The point is: are we able to calculate which risk is worth being taken ? The anwer to your question lies all in here.

 

Players who are capable to sniff the danger and sniff when taking a risk, are Matchpoints winners.

This includes good hand evaluation skills, great card play in every hand, and table presence.

 

Do we have that ? I wish I had it.

 

Another way I might try to interpret (very personally) the words of your pard would be:

"He who masters the Tam Game technique, may stretch to deviate in MP gamnes. But if you even do not master the straightforward IMPS techniques, better play normal"

 

There is a point in what some pople ay: if you play normal in some boards you'll lose, but - in long MP tourneys - you'll save mental energy and avoid bad blunders that will give a few zeroes and destroy pard's trust

[barmar]

Since this is a Beginner/Intermediate forum, I think you have to put this in perspective. To be a consistent winner at MP, you have to adopt this strategy, but at this level you should just be striving not to be a loser, not to hit home runs every time at bat. To make another sports analogy, an intermediate tennis player should concern himself with getting all his serves in -- only after mastering this do you worry about placing them precisely and trying for aces.

 

Getting back to bridge, most boards are lost not by failing to strategize properly, but by making simple mistakes; these turn average and av+ boards into bottoms. If you can avoid these, and take advantage when the opponents hand you gifts, you should end up with at least a 55% game -- not usually enough to win, but a decent result that you can feel happy about.

 

One or two boards in a session may present you with an opportunity to try matchpoint strategy, the rest of the time just make sure you don't screw up. Matchpoints is a particularly tough form of the game, because you frequently don't know what your objective is, especially on defense. Sometimes you're just supposed to cash out, to keep declarer from making overtricks, but many of these times it's difficult to tell until it's too late. But the rest of the field will usually be in the same situation, so if you play normally you should still get an average, which is OK. If you shoot for tops on every board, you're going to get lots of bottoms, and it will still average out to an average game -- you could have done that without as much hard work, just by getting lots of average boards.

 

BTW, there's a particular type of hand where matchpoint thinking is relatively easy. Last week I was in a 3NT contract, and when dummy came down it looked pretty obvious that the field would be in 4 of a major, which looked to be an easy make. I also had an easy 9 tricks, but if everyone else is making 420, my 400 would be little better than -50. So I had to play risky to make an extra trick in NT (the opponents were nice enough to screw up their discards and I made 11 tricks, so I also beat the pairs making 5 of the major, turning my av+ into a top).