Philosophy at Pairs

[Guest Jlall]

think you're right, my definition of bad was #2.

[mike777]

"Really bad pairs. These pairs can screw up virtually anything."

 

 

So level one is basically 99%+ of bridge games online and f2f? Anything outside "only" Flight A or stronger?

[jmc]

I have found everyone's comments interesting. Awm's characterization of the 3 types of players is helpful but, I'll freely admit, I am more a category one than a category three.

 

I am trying to prepare for the red ribbon pairs in St. Louis. My competition will be mainly B and C players. My thought is that eliminating zeros, bidding competently, and defending well should be enough to do ok. I'm always glad to find a little luck when I pick up the cards, too. We play precsion with transfer responses and a weak 10-13 NT. I think we try and be aggressive but not too edgy.

 

Considering the B competition, any further suggestions or elaborations?

 

Thanks again for all the great posts,

 

jmc

[Ant590]

Considering myself as a recent graduate from group #1 of Adam's ranking I was wondering what are the 'tells' that one can use to distinguish between group 1 and 2 (presumably in a local event 3 should be obvious)?

 

Are convention cards a good start? Age? Couples?

 

Ant.

[inquiry]

A lot of good topics have been discussed, and I may be the last person who should offer advice on pairs strategies. But here goes.

 

1) I try to bid down the middle (normal), picking the agressive low-level balancing, penalty double, land preferring 3NT to other game contracts more often at pairs.

 

2) I try to pick up most MP after the bidding is over, by taking percentage plays and not dropping tricks by adopting greatly against the odds lines of play (offense or defense). I even take lines that assure down one when there are some lines that will allow a contract to make if everything is right (but go down more when wrong). The advantage of going for MP in play, is it is easier to guestimate the odds of different lines than in bidding.

 

3) If I am out of competition, I play 100% down the middle.

 

4) If I am in contention, needing a board to "win" I take more chances trying to create a swing... late in an event, who wants to finish 3rd? I rather take an educated swing trying for First ending in Eighth.

[inquiry]

Oh, I just thought of a new strategy for pairs.. Try NOT to look like Adam's #1 group.... so your opponents will give themselves a chance to go wrong against you. If you can, try to give the impression you fall into category 3..

 

Best way to do this, don't come to the table arguing (or discussing the last hand), briefly look at your opponents CC, act like you are there for BRIDGE, not socializing. Bid in tempo and don't look like your are distracted. If you look confident, that will help in some odd ways.

 

Some sort of tricky ways to look (or sound) better than you are, might be

• Write some lifemaster pair like number somewhere on you CC (but don't say it is your!!!).
  
• talk about how you not quite a platinium lifemaster yet (even if you are 9999.32 Masterpoints short
  
• Mention to your partner that you are not "sure" where you stand on the latest Barry Crane list (of course you are not on it.... but you really haven't checked have you?.
  
• Talk about going to some obscure regional, in someplace no one would go for anything but bridge (not hawaii, not orlanda, etc). Only a serious player would treck to out of the way non-tourist places to play bridge.
  

Sadly these tricks will only work once, maybe twice against someone who discovers "our" real playing stregnth. :P

[Guest Jlall]

I am trying to prepare for the red ribbon pairs in St. Louis. My competition will be mainly B and C players. My thought is that eliminating zeros, bidding competently, and defending well should be enough to do ok.

Exactly right. They'll give you gifts all day long, your job is simply to capitalize on them and not return the favor.

[Gerben42]

Perhaps a 50% game is something you might want to get into, but usually 50% games are really 40% games. And that are the ones at MP you really want to stay out of. On the story about 3NT and 4M, try Kit Woolsey's book on MP. I guess the 10-card fit hands where Fantoni / Nunes bid 3NT instead of 4M are similar to the hands suggested there.

 

BTW I'd like to comment that I've also never won a regional stratified pairs. But since most regional tourneys in Germany have real prizes (money, or useful things like the pyjamas I am currently wearing) I prefer not to find out what a regional stratified pairs is :)

[mike777]

A superior series of posts so far. Just wanted to say thank you to all for taking the time to post.

[bid_em_up]

I am trying to prepare for the red ribbon pairs in St. Louis.  My competition will be mainly B and C players.  My thought is that eliminating zeros, bidding competently, and defending well should be enough to do ok.  Considering the B competition, any further suggestions or elaborations?

 

Thanks again for all the great posts,

 

jmc

Some other things that havent been touched on. Some should go without saying, but....

 

1) Get a good nights rest the night before (no playing midnite zip swiss or watching late nite movies).

2) Do not eat a heavy lunch OR dinner.

3) Watch your alcohol intake (if you drink at all).

4) Arrive early. Get your entry with a fair amount of time remaining prior to the start of the event. Find your table. Have your CC filled out ahead of time. In other words, when you get there, be prepared to PLAY.

5) Make sure you use some of the extra time for a potty break. There is nothing worse than having to hold it for the first six to eight boards because you need to go and cant get a break. It also disrupts your concentration. :)

6) Spend some of the other extra time reviewing your CC. You dont need to study it in detail, just refamiliarize yourself with it.

7) If you happen to spot a flaw in your system that needs to be corrected, above all else, DO NOT attempt to change it now. Wait until after the event is over.

8) I have always found it to be of crucial importance to play for at least AVERAGE on board #1, unless you have real good reasons to do otherwise. A disaster on bd #1 can set the tone for the next several boards, if not the entire session. I have had many a good game destroyed by this. This is not saying dont take advantage of a gift (if one presents itself), but do you best to bid/play for average to average plus.

9) Do not discuss hands during the session. Save the mental energy for later hands.

10) See #9.

11) Above all else, try to have fun. Opponents who see you and partner enjoying yourselves, are inclined to let their "guard" down as well. Their mistake. Oh well. Also, if you are not having fun, you are less likely to concentrate or play well.

12) Lastly, if you have a disaster, do your best to forget it and keep playing your best game. Crying over spilt milk, so to speak, accomplishes nothing except to distract you into spilling more milk.

 

As always,

 

jmoo.

[glen]

Posting above, with comments below...

11) Above all else, try to have fun.

 

Ok

 

1) Get a good nights rest the night before (no playing midnite zip swiss or watching late nite movies).

 

Wait, that's taking away from the fun

 

2) Do not eat a heavy lunch OR dinner.

 

No fun at all.

 

3) Watch your alcohol intake (if you drink at all).

 

Reduced fun.

 

4) Arrive early. Get your entry with a fair amount of time remaining prior to the start of the event. Find your table. Have your CC filled out ahead of time. In other words, when you get there, be prepared to PLAY.

 

5) Make sure you use some of the extra time for a potty break. There is nothing worse than having to hold it for the first six to eight boards because you need to go and cant get a break. It also disrupts your concentration. :)

 

Well, we slept in, and drank a whole pot of coffee to wake up due to late night, so we had to buy the entry late, and now we need several coffee potty breaks.

 

6) Spend some of the other extra time reviewing your CC. You dont need to study it in detail, just refamiliarize yourself with it.

 

Glad partner has his name on our cc, because after that late nite couldn't remember it.

 

7) If you happen to spot a flaw in your system that needs to be corrected, above all else, DO NOT attempt to change it now. Wait until after the event is over.

 

Oh well, we are stuck playing Reverse Hsikok, whatever that is

 

12) Lastly, if you have a disaster, do your best to forget it and keep playing your best game. Crying over spilt milk, so to speak, accomplishes nothing except to distract you into spilling more milk.

 

Plus you get tears in the milk too, so watered down milk.

 

8) I have always found it to be of crucial importance to play for at least AVERAGE on board #1, unless you have real good reasons to do otherwise. A disaster on bd #1 can set the tone for the next several boards, if not the entire session. I have had many a good game destroyed by this. This is not saying dont take advantage of a gift (if one presents itself), but do you best to bid/play for average to average plus.

 

What happened to no crying over spilt milk? A bad board on the first one just gets the blood flooding (when will that pot of coffee kick in?).

 

9) Do not discuss hands during the session. Save the mental energy for later hands.

 

No fighting, no fun.

 

10) Opponents who see you and partner enjoying yourselves, are inclined to let their "guard" down as well. Their mistake. Oh well. Also, if you are not having fun, you are less likely to concentrate or play well.

 

Opponents who see you fighting will be enjoying Rocky VII too much to play well.

 

------

P.S. If trying to win the red ribbon pairs, one wants to cut down on errors as much as possible - so simple system (whatever makes the partnership the most comfortable), straightforward carding agreements, and spend all prep time on getting your D on the very same wavelength in all situations - discuss all prep boards where there was any confusion. If rich hire Kokish as coach. Play in a two session live event where you say nothing to each other (all smiles all the time) until the whole event is over.

[MFA]

I really think estimating what the field will be doing is overrated..

 

So right!

Bridge is so difficult that just focusing on the evaluation problems and the card play problems is more than enough. Much of the deep MP talk about percentages and tops & zeros is just useless theoretical babbling.

In practice those textbook examples where you need to take an extreme matchpoint decision come up much less frequently than people realize.

 

Play tight/aggressive (as in poker? :rolleyes: ) and be sure not to get mentally disturbed about bad boards. This is actually much harder to accomplish in MPs because these tourneys tend to be more hectic to play than IMPs due to the frequent shift of opponents.

[whereagles]

Best strategy is: "either we play the hand or they play doubled" :rolleyes:

[barmar]

We have a tendency to stratified pairs in acbl-land, with usually only one flighted pair game per tournament. I have NEVER won a regional stratified pairs, altho I have won a number of the supposedly tougher Flight A events. Friends of mine of comparable skill and similar methods (usually more mainstream than mine, if anything) have had considerable success at both, and I think I know why.

There may be another explanation for this. If you've studied books like "Inferences at Bridge", these inferences generally assume that the opponents are playing "correctly". But flight C players don't always do the right thing, and your inferences will frequently be wrong as a result. As a result, you're more likely to be "fixed" by weak players.

[Gerben42]

I think Glen summarized the best strategy: Just like when you are trying to play winning poker, you are not there "to have fun"! You are there to win!

[pbleighton]

"If you've studied books like "Inferences at Bridge", these inferences generally assume that the opponents are playing "correctly". But flight C players don't always do the right thing, and your inferences will frequently be wrong as a result. As a result, you're more likely to be "fixed" by weak players. "

 

I'm guessing that Mike is already aware of this. This is a WILD, WILD guess, but I'll go out on a limb ;)

 

Peter

[pclayton]

(1) Against weak pairs, you usually just want to let them "do their thing." Don't make wild preempts or psyches against them. If you have a close decision though, err in favor of doubling them or bidding game. If half the field is in game and half isn't, you want to bid the game opposite the pair who will probably misdefend and hand you the making trick. Also weak players sometimes get flustered when doubled and go down in an otherwise makeable spot.

 

(2) Against the strong pairs, it can pay to create some action. If they bid themselves to a normal contract you will often get average-minus because they will play it correctly and much of the field will not. So some aggressive bidding that gets them out of their comfort zone and possible puts them in a non-field contract can easily pay off.

Interesting, I think the opposite. I like to preempt more and overcall more aggressively against weak opponents. When you make them use they're judgement that's when they're really screwed. And if you give away clues because of your hyperactivity, they won't figure them out in the play.

 

Against good opponents if I preempt or bid they're more likely to play the hand better and more likely to double me and less likely to go horribly wrong.

Preempting is a double edge sword.

 

My opinion is that wide ranging, single suited preempts are effective against all opponents. What you lose in giving away information, you make up in hogging the bidding space. A great player will judge the auction better than a so-so player, but no one likes 3 levels of bidding taken away. There is a certain class of weaker of opponents that will overcompete as well, which gives extra benefit to preemption.

 

The information one gives away is partly illusory anyway. With a single suiter, its likely the play will reveal the distribution at an early point anyway, so the bid doesn't really affect the play that much.

 

Two suiters are a different story. You are tipping 9 or 10 cards in your hand (versus 6 or 7) and use caution against the best in the field. Unless you have good prospects of a sac, or buying the hand, don't make noise with 2 suited preempts.

[awm]

In my opinion the issue with wide-ranging preempts, as with any aggressive action taken in the bidding, is that you're reducing the importance of the play/defense in determining your score. For example, suppose I bid 3♠ when the field is bidding 2♠. A fair amount of the time, the field was buying the contract in 2♠-1 and I am in 3♠-2 for a bottom board. Balanced against this, sometimes opponents will judge wrong and I will play 3♠X-2 when they should be in 4♥= or the like. But in any case, because I made a non-field preempt decision I will often end up in a non-field spot. This will frequently give me a top or bottom board almost regardless of whether my declarer play is better/worse than the field or the opponents defense is better/worse than the field.

 

Of course we can argue endlessly about whether KQJTxx x xxx xxx is a 2♠ bid or 3♠ bid, or at what seat/colors or after which opening bid it is a 2♠ or 3♠ bid. The point is though, that if I know most people are bidding 2♠, when I bid 3♠ that decision in itself will often determine my result on the board, one way or another. Even if I believe that 3♠ is a better call 60% of the time, if my opponents are so bad that my expected score against them was 75% if I just play "normal bridge" then why did I bid 3♠? On the other hand, even if I believe 3♠ is usually a worse call, but I admit it works better 40% of the time, maybe I should bid 3♠ against opponents where my expected score is 25%?

[Guest Jlall]

My opinion is that wide ranging, single suited preempts are effective against all opponents.

Yes and no. At some point you have to think some preempt becomes -EV. Where you draw that line depends on your philosophy and experience, but everyone draws that line somewhere. Well, I claim that you should draw that line at different places against different opponents. The line is farther against intermediate opponents than against expert opponents in my opinion.

[whereagles]

Preempts introduce an element of randomness. You don't want randomness against weaker opps. You'll beat them by playing straight-down-the-middle, so why give them a chance to guess right?

[Guest Jlall]

Preempts introduce an element of randomness. You don't want randomness against weaker opps. You'll beat them by playing straight-down-the-middle, so why give them a chance to guess right?

It's not random if you have a higher expectation, it's just higher variance. I don't delude myself into thinking that I'm so good that I can win a matchpoint event by consistently pass on what I think is a +EV action (there are many hands where you should preempt) in order to reduce variance.

 

I'm not arguing against EVER preempting against good players and always preempting against bad players. I simply believe that the benefits are amplified against intermediates and the risk is amplified against good players. This changes our expectation, and makes some hands a preempt against intermediates that are not against experts.

 

BTW, you're not trying to beat the pair you're playing, you're trying to beat ALL pairs.

[mikeh]

Preempts introduce an element of randomness. You don't want randomness against weaker opps. You'll beat them by playing straight-down-the-middle, so why give them a chance to guess right?

One of the main differences between a good player and a poor player lies in the area of competitive judgement. Simply put, a poor player will tend to be at his or her worst in competitive situations. So getting in the face of a weak player will maximize the chances of the weak player making a huge mistake.

 

In a club game or a small tournament, simply taking your 75% board expectancy on the majority of hands played against weak pairs may work, but in a large, weak field, you have to try to take 90% boards or better. I speak from years of experience when I say that back to back 63% games get you 3rd overall, three or more boards back of 1st B) If you want to destroy the weak opps, get into their auctions, early.

[whereagles]

Poor players will anyway make mistakes in the play if they get to play the hand. What I'm saying is there's no need to push your preempts vs weaker players as much as you would push them against good players.

 

In a weak field you can play a solid straight-down-the-middle preempt style and do fine. You're automatically in AVG+ mode by doing so because a. you don't slop as many tricks on defense as opps do and b. opps are likely to slop tricks against you. In a good field opps will reach their par contract and play it for your AVG-. In this case you have to try and stop them from reaching that contract, with a twisted pree if necessary. (I speak from experience as well.)

 

Finally, a higher variance vs weak players is what you DON'T need. The sharper that peak is, the better for you because your peak is higher than opps' peaks. If you take measures to smear out that peak, you risk losing your statistical advantage :)

[mike777]

If the definition of level one is a field that includes non flight A players that is almost all of bridge except the very top games, yes?

[pbleighton]

"Poor players will anyway make mistakes in the play if they get to play the hand. What I'm saying is there's no need to push your preempts vs weaker players as much as you would push them against good players.

 

In a weak field you can play a solid straight-down-the-middle preempt style and do fine. You're automatically in AVG+ mode by doing so because a. you don't slop as many tricks on defense as opps do and b. opps are likely to slop tricks against you. In a good field opps will reach their par contract and play it for your AVG-. In this case you have to try and stop them from reaching that contract, with a twisted pree if necessary. (I speak from experience as well.)

 

Finally, a higher variance vs weak players is what you DON'T need. The sharper that peak is, the better for you because your peak is higher than opps' peaks. If you take measures to smear out that peak, you risk losing your statistical advantage"

 

Whereeagles, if you haven't done so already read Adam's post in this thread on what is a weak player, and Justin's reply. When Justin is talking about "weak" players, he means compared to him, as in the majority of duplicate players - and I suspect that I (and maybe you) are in this category :)

 

He's not talking about beginners (or Life Beginners) who manage to screw up even basic non-contested auctions and simple declarer play. Against those folks, you're right, just let them bid and play. However, against the average-to-above-average duplicate player, preempting works quite nicely. I also do it against the best players, because I WANT to randomize against them.

 

Peter