BBo advanced and BWS

[cherdano]

Let me admit to my bias right away.

 

I estimate about 20-30% of BBO members are willing to play 2/1 with a pickup partner, mostly players of intermediate+ level and above. How many have heard of Bridge World Standard? My guess is at most 5%. How many know BWS? I guess less than 1%. How many know BWS in detail? Probably still way less than that.

(About a year or so ago I frequently played BBO tourneys with pickup partners, and my numbers are based on my experiences at the partnership desk at the time -- could be way off, of course.)

 

Hence I think there is a market for a BBO advanced system that is

1. based on 2/1

2. a lot less detailed than BWS.

 

I am aware that a lot of the lengthy text in BWS is not about conventions, but about partnership agreements; still I just cannot imagine those 20-30% of BBO members to ever read the full

BWS writeup.

 

I would imagine it being developed from the existing BBO advanced according to the consensus (or majority voting) of the forums here -- while we keep in mind that it is something that should work with a pickup partner of, say, advanced level.

 

Maybe I should give some examples to illustrate the level of complexity that I guess to be appropriate for this target audience:

- Lebensohl is fine, 3OM after 2♣ Stayman as slam try is fine

- BART is not, 4♠ as RKCB after hearts agreed (and 4NT as exclusion for spades) is not (this is part of existing BBO advanced), full xyz is not

 

Arend

[cherdano]

I forgot to add a link to some previous discussion on this:

http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?showtopic=10070

(in particular see Fred's post there).

 

Arend

[hrothgar]

As I've noted before, I am a strong advocate of switching over to Bridge World Standard.

 

1. The argument that BBO Advanced is in some way superior because it is less detailed doesn't hold water. In particular, given the introduction of "Full Disclosure" whatever 2/1 structure is adopted can and should get a lot more detailed than BBO Advanced is at the moment. Ideally, we want people to standardize arround a single system for pickup play. Specificity is necessary to achieve this goal. As I noted in the past, the great flaw of SAYC is not that its a crappy system. Its that no-one can agree what the system actually means.

 

2. If you accept my premise that having a well documented system is a positive development, they next obvious question is which system to document. I argue that BWS is going to be a lot better than whatever 2/1 variant we might create. Recall: BWS is intended to be a "standard" 2/1 system. The Bridge World has been working towards this goal for decades. They have done extensive surveys of the magazine's readership. The magazine editor's board reads like a "Who's Who" of professional bridge. Even if we were prepared to devote the same amount of effort, its unclear whether we could do as good a job or even why we would want to duplicate their efforts.

 

3. As I recall, Fred originally started work on BBO Basic and BBO Advanced under the premise that designed and promoting a bidding system would help draw membership to BBO. (Hey, it worked for Culbertson and Goren). I think that its become clear that promoting a bidding system isn't necessary for the success of the BBO site. Fred is certainly welcome to spend cycles designing and promoting a 2/1 system. However, I suspect that feature set enhancements like Full Disclosure will be far more successful in promoting the game. Ideally, I would hope that third parties would assume responsibility for designing and maintaining bidding systems. In all honesty, "organizations" like the ACBL, the Bridge World, the EBU, the Polish Bridge Federation, and the like are the ones who actually have a stake in designing and promoting bidding systems. Hopefully, they will see the value in supporting this new medium...

 

4. In an earlier positng, Fred noted that he wanted to hold off on rolling out Full Disclosure until he had all his ducks in a row. I VERY much agree with this philosophy. Full Disclosure will only succeed if we are able to make using Full Disclosure easier than not using it. In turn, this requires providing a good set of canned system files. If I were asked to prioritize system files, I'd list the following

 

1. Standard American

2. 2/1 GF

3. Polish Club

4. French Standard

5. Italian Standard

6. Standard English

 

I consider the first two files to be essential, with 1-2 Polish Club variants as highly desirable. The remaining 3 files are on the "nice to have" list.

[cherdano]

As a side note, whatever happens to BBO advanced, I agree that it would be highly desirable to create a FD-file out of BWS. I would also be willing to help with that, as I would like to get to know it in more detail.

 

Arend

[Gerben42]

3. Polish Club

 

I will post a more elaborate version of this soon, getting to 1000 lines now!

[Chamaco]

My opinion is that BB advanced should stay there in an "advanced" but simple way, keeping some indeterminations open.

 

There must be a middle way between play SAYC and competitive 2/1 systems, I think it's unfair to go tell to the improving players: "If you want to learn a sistem that is not plain, just learn the whole BWS".

Many improving players would like to start adding *some* conventions but not the entire BWS.

 

 

Perhaps it's just a matter of name: what about "Expert BBO system" ? :)