Counting And Playing

[AAr]

Are these always good advice to teach a Beginner:

 

1. Always count your winners/losers.

 

2. Always try to remember what has already been played and play/defend accordingly.

 

3. As declarer, always take the line of play that's most likely to result in a make, even if it gives up overtricks and/or risks extra undertricks when wrong (Esp. in IMPs, Rubber, and TPs).

 

Are there any good exceptions to the above rules?

[awm]

The first two seem pretty clear-cut and definitely good advice. I cannot imagine a situation where it is better to forget what's been played than to remember... :)

 

The third on the other hand is somewhat dubious. At least before online bridge, new duplicate players played a lot more matchpoints than anything else. This is really not good advice at matchpoints, where it is often better to play for the maximum number of tricks rather than to make. Even at IMPs, there are situations where it is better to try for a very high percentage overtrick at the risk of a very unlikely set (there was a long thread earlier discussing what the odds need to be). There are also cases where if your contract is very unlikely to make, you should play for down one (especially if vulnerable) rather than risk going down many.

[barmar]

I agree with Aar, since the advice is targeted at beginners. When you're first starting out, you have to learn how to walk before you can fly. Once you get the basics down pat, then you can start working on matchpoint strategy. There are times when it's appropriate to risk the contract for overtricks, and times when it isn't, and it takes a significant amount of experience to determine which situation you're in. Boehm has been running a series of articles for the past few months in the ACBL Bulletin on Matchpoint vs IMP strategies, and it can be very tricky. In particular, you have to be able to judge what contracts you think the field is likely to be in -- this is hard for many advanced players, and I certainly wouldn't expect most beginners to be able to do it well.

 

So, while just making all your contracts may not get you a win, I think you'll generally be above average (assuming you bid your games), which is a fine goal for a beginner.

[awm]

Perhaps the view on the third point is somewhat flavored by those who seem to think matchpoints is not "real bridge." They complain about how matchpoints de-emphasizes safety plays and encourages risking a contract for an overtrick.

 

Then again though, IMP play creates situations where it's best to bid to contracts that are substantially more likely to go down than to make. It encourages lazy thinking on some boards and heavily punishes the smallest mistake on others. It creates a situation where bidding and making one "lucky" slam can be worth more than finding the best play on three or four partscore deals.

 

I don't think teaching IMP bridge, and then treating matchpoints as a "second class citizen" is the way to go. This is especially true because for beginning duplicate players there are far more opportunities to play matchpoints at the local club than to play in sixty-four board knockout imp matches (or even in swiss teams, for that matter).

 

I'd tend to teach beginners to make plays that are "likely to work," such as playing for a 3-2 break but not for a 3-3 break... and to try to bid contracts that are "likely to make" (say over 50%).. and to play partscores especially for as many tricks as they can get. Then if they want to later learn imp strategy and read a book on safety plays, that's up to them.

 

And besides, we all know that BAM is the best and purest form of bridge. :rolleyes:

[barmar]

I didn't intend to suggest that Matchpoints isn't "real bridge". I'm just saying that for a beginner, the goal is to master the basics. I don't think you can make strategic decisions that depend on form of scoring if you don't have this foundation. If you can't figure out what the normal line of play is to make a contract, how can you possibly decide whether to use that line or go for the overtrick?

 

Bridge is a complex game, with many levels. You can't expect to handle the advanced concepts before you get comfortable with the basic ones.

[ArcLight]

> It creates a situation where bidding and making one "lucky" slam can be worth more than finding the best play on three or four partscore deals.

 

 

So what? Slams aren't all that common, compared to part scores.

I don't like it when Slams are valued the same as partscores (MPs).

I think Slams should be paid their due.

 

 

>Then again though, IMP play creates situations where it's best to bid to contracts that are substantially more likely to go down than to make.

 

While MPs encourages some speculative penalty doubles.

 

They both have their charm. Some people prefer one to the other.

 

 

MP is a different game from IMPs, and I think beginers should start out with IMPs.

Let them not worry about overtricks and concentrate on making their contracts.

It may be lazy in that sense, but one has to start somewhere. Are begiiners up to evaluating their MP contract and reasoning "Hmm, Im in X, but the field is in Y. To get a good score (the field goes down) both finesses must be wrong, and that means West has the Ace of Clubs. So I'll play this way.

[Guest Jlall]

> It creates a situation where bidding and making one "lucky" slam can be worth more than finding the best play on three or four partscore deals.

 

 

So what?

The point is, matchpoints involves less luck than imps. People that think imps is "pure" bridge should keep this in mind. The "purest" form of bridge, one might argue, is the one that involves the least amount of luck. Because knockouts inherently involves less luck than pairs, and people associate imps with KOs and MP with pairs, imps is considered to have the least luck. In fact BAM KOs would have the least luck of any form of the game, strangely it is not played anywhere that I know of.

[awm]

Some other points:

 

(1) IMPs encourages some pretty exotic bidding systems. One of the big advantages to a natural style of bidding is the ability to stop in good partscores. Relay methods tend to do better at finding slams, at the price of occasionally playing silly partials. It might make more sense to encourage new players to play in matchpoint events where the lack of highly developed bidding systems will not place them at much of a disadvantage.

 

(2) Slam bidding is perhaps one of the hardest aspects of bridge to master. This is in part because slam hands are few and far between. The disproportionate rewards for accurate slam bidding make IMPs exactly the wrong type of game for new players.

 

(3) Counting your winners and losers and looking for a concrete plan to come to exactly the number of tricks you need works well when you have 9 tricks and need 10, or 11 tricks and need 12. But this is not the way to play a lot of routine partials where you need 8 tricks and have 4, and where making the contract is not necessarily even possible. But trying to make the most tricks you can works on every hand.

 

(4) Understanding the field is important in all parts of bridge. At pairs, it helps a lot to be able to guess where other pairs will be (even if it's IMP pairs). In BAM or Swiss it is important to be able to guess where the other table will play the hand. Personally, I had a somewhat embarrassing incident in the Spingold last year where I decided to bid a grand slam requiring only a 4-3 side suit break, only to discover that the pro pair at the other table missed the small slam. I agree that gauging the field/other table is too much to expect from beginners, but I disagree that this is somehow not a relevent concern at IMPs.

 

(5) The fact remains that most clubs play matchpoint pairs on a regular basis. Most people who play bridge prefer to play regularly with real cards at actual games. If you're teaching people so they can play on bridgebase only then maybe IMPs is okay (given the prevalence of IMP pairs for online play) but I submit that there are few true beginners logged in bridgebase and that most teaching opportunities happen face-to-face.

[Chamaco]

I think that on average, the "luck" term is not so much based on the form of scoring but rather on:

 

1- the field or table(s) we are playing against.

2- the number of deals

 

To minimize luck, I'd much prefer to play in a MP event where all the tables tend to bid/play at a reasonable level, than play a short (8-16 deals) Team match vs comparable teams.

 

The reason is that in a 8-16 boards team match, I can play better for 14 deals, gaining a handful of IMPS in partscore (or overtricks in game contracts), but lose a match on 2 slams.

 

Instead, in a 24 deal MP event vs comparable pairs, even 2 disasters can be recovered on virtually any hand.

 

The problem in this is that- unfortunately - most MP events nare quite unbalanced in force, and quite often a MP events sees a great variability of results.

So, the good/bad luck that we cannot control often depends by the fact that at other table people will bid or play or defend oddly, and there is nothing we can do about it.

 

Of course the strategy at MP will be different, but the IMPs players cannot complain they are unlucky if they adopt the same strategy at MP pairs: they should be able to adjust to the different form of scoring, and the bad results coming from the failure to do this is not "bad luck" or "anti-bridge at other tables", but just lack of flexibility.

 

I do believe that a MP event with selected participation will have a result quite close to the technical skill performed by the pairs.

Indeed, it is more difficult and tiresome to play MP, as every single bid-play can be crucial, so there are more occasion to use the technical skills, without playing instead several dull hands and a few crucial as in IMPS.

[ArcLight]

>>> It creates a situation where bidding and making one "lucky" slam can be worth more than finding the best play on three or four partscore deals.

 

>>So what?

 

>The point is, matchpoints involves less luck than imps. People that think imps is "pure" bridge should keep this in mind. The "purest" form of bridge, one might argue, is the one that involves the least amount of luck. Because knockouts inherently involves less luck than pairs, and people associate imps with KOs and MP with pairs, imps is considered to have the least luck. In fact BAM KOs would have the least luck of any form of the game, strangely it is not played anywhere that I know of.

 

BAM requires a lot of skill, I think thats the reason its not popular, no one but the best will win. I'm not saying MP is luck determined either. But I don't like the fact that Slams are devalued in a system that treats all boards the same. Its true a lucky slam can distort things, so there should be a minimum number of boards. One of the things I don't like about MPs is the fear of giving up an over trick, and thus not trying to set a contract at all costs.

 

Does IMPS invite "weird bidding systems"? If you have BAM and MP then the bidding systems reward part scores and competitive bidding, and perhaps destructive bidding. Is that any better?

 

 

MP and IMP are different. Best to realize their differences and enjoy both. Arguing taht one is better than the other is like arguing which is better Coke or Pepsi (they both suck).

 

 

>The reason is that in a 8-16 boards team match, I can play better for 14 deals, gaining a handful of IMPS in partscore (or overtricks in game contracts), but lose a match on 2 slams.

 

8 boards is very short. What about 24? Would that address your concern?

Thats 2 boards out of 8 or 16, where you got bad scores. How come? Did the opps bid and make a lucky slam? Did you go down in the wrong slam?

 

I think Slams are exciting, and part of the game. If they are worth no more than a contested part score then I think it takes away some of the games flavor.

[Chamaco]

>The reason is that in a 8-16 boards team match, I can play better for 14 deals, gaining a handful of IMPS in partscore (or overtricks in game contracts), but lose a match on 2 slams.

 

8 boards is very short.  What about 24?  Would that address your concern?

Thats 2 boards out of 8 or 16, where you got bad scores.  How come?  Did the opps bid and make a lucky slam?  Did you go down in the wrong slam?

 

I think Slams are exciting, and part of the game.  If they are worth no more than a contested part score then I think it takes away some of the games flavor.

24 boards match are closer; and yet, many non-professional weekend swiss teams do not have the time available for 24 boards events (I am not talking of big regionals/nationals). If every match lasts 24 boards, in a 2-days event there is little room for many matches, unless you have the players play 10 hours a day (e.g. in Italy, it is sacrilege to play in the morning... :P ).

 

Yet, I much prefer 24 boards MP (given the above cpnditions, e.g. all players are of comparable skills) than 24 boards team match, in terms of reflecting the actual skill reducing the pure "luck" term: the reason is, in a MP event EVERY single board counts, in a 24 boards team match, many of them are not relevant (e.g. even major slips or fantastic plays do not cause big wins/losses).

 

 

I don't care about the bidding system involved.

 

========================

 

I do believe that the main reason why team matches often show a better technical challenge is that there is an "a priori" selection: in fact when you go to a team event, because of its lenght and the stamina and time involved, one is pretty ure that many of the lesser players that we can meet at a normal club game will not want to play there.

 

So, in team event, there is an indirect a priori filtering in terms of players skill level.

[mike777]

Have started playing a few online ACBL MP tourneys.

80% of my poor results come from just poor play on my part.

20% seem to come from normal games and partscores bid by opp's that seem to get very poor results for unknown reasons.

90-100% of my good results seem to just come from pushing the MP basket under the table and collecting the points as they fall out of the opp's hands or good play by partner.

 

As for 8-12 board online tg, almost all the matches seem to revolve on just plain crazy bidding by opp's or my pickup partnership. :P