Interesting Q from rec.games.bridge

[jtfanclub]

Hey, do you call Points Schmoints "Snake Oil"? Blasfemist!

 

Lol, tx for an excelent post Fred, what you said cannot be said often enough,

I love points schmoints and Larry Cohen's books on the LAW. But I don't think these are snake oil- they're just teaching you how to evaluate your hand. Learning Losing Trick Count doesn't hurt either.

 

I think the main problem with Bridge is that people aren't playing it in college any more- that's how my parents learned it, and I think how most people did. I don't think that any reason that doesn't apply to college students has anything to do with the declining popularity, at least in the U.S.

 

I do think that the unbelievable complexity of SAYC does hurt the game. Trying to teach beginners that this is forcing but this isn't, and the simple auctions that become very difficult. Again and again, playing in some low level tournament, I'll watch an argument develop between my opponents who have been playing standard for years together on some ridiculously simple auction.

 

We need an SAGC- a Standard American Green Card, with simplifications down to the silly level to teach raw beginners. Then we need a very simple computer program that will run it and bundle it in free with Windows.

[fred]

Probably there is some kind of relationship between the number of new books on bidding theory and the number of rubber bridge players.

 

But I doubt this is a causal relationship.

 

I think it is more likely that other factors  (such as the proliferation of conventions and systems and the way that bridge is taught) are primarily responsible for both of these things.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

Its somewhat disappointing to see you advance such a simplistic thesis after so many discussions about this topic. I'd be shocked if either system regulations or teaching programs had any significant impact (one way or the other) on the declining popularity of bridge.

 

The world has seen some phenomenal demographic changes over the last 50 years.

 

1. Rising real incomes

2. Dual wage earner families

3. Proliferation of alternative forms of etertainment (TV, video games, the Internet)

4. Cheap travel

5. Aging of the baby boomers

 

I believe that the significance of each of these factors swamps that of "system regulations" on bridge's overall popularity.

 

Furthermore, its very important to note that a wide number of traditional games are being affected by these same demongraphic trends. Chess players, checker players, wargamers, backgammon players, scrabble players are all lamenting the difficulty in recruiting new players. If we cast our net a bit wider, the same forces seem to be ripping apart civics organizations ranging from the Masons to local bowling leagues. Needless to say, I think that its far fetched to claim that proliferation of obscure bidding systems had much impact on the popularity of backgammon...

Richard,

 

Please reread my post.

 

It had nothing to do with "the decline of bridge".

 

It was about why the % of bridge players who are rubber bridge players is much smaller than it once was.

 

I agree with most of what you say in your post, but that is not the subject that jikl asked me to comment on.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[hrothgar]

Richard,

 

Please reread my post.

 

It had nothing to do with "the decline of bridge".

 

It was about why the % of bridge players who are rubber bridge players is much smaller than it once was.

 

I agree with most of what you say in your post, but that is not the subject that jikl asked me to comment on.

Here we get to a somewhat more interesting question:

 

Lets assume that there has been an overall decline in the popularity of "bridge". More over, this decline has been asymmetric in nature. The "Rubber Bridge" form of the game has declined much more significantly than the "Duplicate Bridge" form.

 

One potential argument is that the proliferation of systems and conventions has a pernicious effect and accelerated the loss of rubber bridge players. However, the converse might also be true. Its possible that the proliferation of bidding systems and conventions provides value to duplicate players and is arresting their attrition.

 

I've long argued that bridge will inevitably transition from a mass market form of entertainment to a niche game. Accordingly, I think that its important to focus on those elements of the game that are separate, unique, and distinct.

[kenrexford]

My grandparents were avid rubber bridge players of the old school variety. 25 cents to play, winner takes all ($1). Men's night, women's night, snacks.

 

They owned one book, from 60 years ago.

 

I doubt they ever heard of any new fangled bridge books, let alone would read them. They certainly would not have stopped playing rubber bridge because some people in the big city were reading weird books.

 

They knew I would read weird city books, but they thought I was funny. Bidding weird, like I do. Silliness. We made 2S last hand -- so why bid over 1NT, let alone some strange transfer? These city books are stupid. :rolleyes:

[WrecksVee]

Concerning basic bidding I would suggest Frank Stewart's "Becoming a Bridge Expert". I have not looked at this book in years but am now re-reading it. The sections on constructive bidding will help anyone looking for some discussion of basics. His explanation and examples of why he does not care for 2/1 should be of interest to everyone.

 

The old classic "How to Win at Duplicate Bridge" by Marshall Miles has much interesting pre-gadget ideas though it is focused on duplicate.

[blackshoe]

Fred,

 

Thanks for you long and information packed reply. I was afraid you'd say there weren't any recent good books on bidding theory - I have a decent sized library, I pay attention to what's in print, and I haven't seen any lately, except perhaps for Robson & Segal's Partnership Bidding, which I've read twice now, and still haven't assimilated it all. :D

I've printed out your reply, and will give it some study.

 

This is kind of off-topic, so I'll stop here. B)

[blackshoe]

Hm. I recall reading somewhere that there are something like a couple million bridge players in North America who don't play duplicate, don't belong to the ACBL, and don't know more than about two conventions (Stayman and Blackwood). Maybe that info is wrong, or wishful thinking on somebody's part, I dunno. But if it's true, I don't think you can attribute a lack of good books on bidding theory to a lack of rubber bridge players.

 

Most of the players I talk to (almost all of them duplicate players) aren't interested in reading about theory - they just want to play. Maybe that's the reason. Or maybe not. B)

[awm]

There is some advantage to having a fairly simple and widely understood system.

 

As I understand things (I'm not old enough to remember), back in the days when bridge was wildly popular, certain books by Charles Goren were recognized as the bidding standard. This made it relatively easy to learn how to bid -- you read the Goren book. When teaching beginning or intermediate students, it was pretty clear what the standard agreements were (it didn't vary much from bridge teacher to bridge teacher).

 

Of course, even back then it wasn't as though all the top-class partnerships played Goren. Roth-Stone and Kaplan-Sheinwold's methods have been around quite some time, and even more unusual methods like Roman Club aren't all that new.

 

The point isn't that we should somehow force everyone to play the same methods -- it's that there are substantial advantages to the existence of a widely-recognized standard. These days you can't really sit down, agree to play "standard bridge" and have much of any idea what you're getting yourself into. Even if partner is a genuine expert player, there's no guarantee that his opinion of what's "standard" even in basic sequences like 1♠-P-2♥-P-2NT or 1♠-P-2♠-2NT will match yours. This makes it a lot harder to play bridge without substantial discussion and much harder to teach bridge to new players.

 

There is some relationship between this problem and the proliferation of conventions, and it's true that a lot of teachers focus too much on conventions rather than basic bidding sequences, but I don't think this problem is all that closely tied to "system regulations." It's more a lack of a single recognized authority.

[000002]

sorry,i don't know what u say really,but i hope u can undersatnd what i say:

 

i hate to see so many grey alert when i am watching the live broadcast.

 

about half years ago,i ever sent an massage to a famaous italian player(one of F-N) when i watch he is free to see their italian's teamate act on BBO.he was amuzed apparently and explain that is proffessional bridge.

but i hate this proffessional bridge if i have to accepted too many alert.

 

i hope we can limit the range of the new convention ,they must be required to indicate what is the fault in the "OLD" way,and what is real advantage in their new convention.

i think many poor players make many foolish convention now in this world,(include 3pairs of italian top players,but they are excellent player)they ought to accept the concept spare more time to study the OLD way , till they can point out the vice exist in the old way, excatly.

 

regards 000002

[cherdano]

There is some advantage to having a fairly simple and widely understood system.

 

As I understand things (I'm not old enough to remember), back in the days when bridge was wildly popular, certain books by Charles Goren were recognized as the bidding standard. This made it relatively easy to learn how to bid -- you read the Goren book. When teaching beginning or intermediate students, it was pretty clear what the standard agreements were (it didn't vary much from bridge teacher to bridge teacher).

 

Of course, even back then it wasn't as though all the top-class partnerships played Goren. Roth-Stone and Kaplan-Sheinwold's methods have been around quite some time, and even more unusual methods like Roman Club aren't all that new.

 

The point isn't that we should somehow force everyone to play the same methods -- it's that there are substantial advantages to the existence of a widely-recognized standard. These days you can't really sit down, agree to play "standard bridge" and have much of any idea what you're getting yourself into. Even if partner is a genuine expert player, there's no guarantee that his opinion of what's "standard" even in basic sequences like 1♠-P-2♥-P-2NT or 1♠-P-2♠-2NT will match yours. This makes it a lot harder to play bridge without substantial discussion and much harder to teach bridge to new players.

 

There is some relationship between this problem and the proliferation of conventions, and it's true that a lot of teachers focus too much on conventions rather than basic bidding sequences, but I don't think this problem is all that closely tied to "system regulations." It's more a lack of a single recognized authority.

It also makes it a lot more difficult for advancing players to pick up stuff automatically when, e.g., they are playing against better opponents, but those are using different methods. I found it quite remarkable that Chip Martel in his bridgematter interview mentioned as a disadvantage of weak NT for himself that these days almost everybody else is playing strong NT, and thus weak NTers don't benefit as much from the community (and general progress of bidding theory). If that's a concern for Chip Martel, it must certainly be a concern to the rest of us...

 

In Germany the situation is (as far as I can tell) a lot worse than in the US.(*) According to some, part of the reason is the ego of some of the teaching professionals who rather teach their own stuff, as otherwise their students might end up buying competitors' books, or even go to their courses... (The German bridge association has been trying to set an SEF-alike system as the standard, but it isn't really accepted yet.)

I can't judge this myself at all, but I know some who think this is the main reason why German bridge (aside from the women's team) isn't even close to the international success of nations like Sweden, Norway etc. which may have a similar, or smaller, number of bridge players.

 

Arend

 

 

(*) I once played in a club in a very small town, where more than half of the LO ladies and gentlemen played a pretty weird strong diamond system... That was an exception, of course, but in a typical tournament you will play vs, play polish club, various short clubs, Swiss Acol, the SEF-like Forum D, SAYC-like structures, a few 2/1ers, ...

[mike777]

Arend, thank you very much for your post, this was quite fantastic. Again ty for taking the time to post this.

[Gerben42]

The big problem in Germany is not that people play or teach what they like, but that they teach a bidding system at all. Too much emphasis is placed on system and the federation is supporting this by publishing all this material based on bidding system.

 

The German teaching method works very well if you teach people in their 60s and because they don't learn as fast as when they were young but still want to learn all, they will come back to the next course (or to the same one!), thus providing a living for the teachers. Of course this is important work also, but to make Bridge more popular you need to teach younger players.

 

Now to teach YOUNG players, the German system is hopeless. I've taught some students and in lesson 2 we were playing bridge, not minibridge, not learning how to count who knows what kind of points, and also not learning what is sequence A and what is sequence B but seeing what was possible in the game.

 

After 8 lessons I let them play in the club, and not in a beginner's line but the real thing. They really liked it, and they even dared to play the club individual :)

 

Maybe if you teach your group of older students you have to explain that 1♥ - 2♣ shows 11 points and that 1♥ - 2♥ shows only 6 to 9, but younger students need to understand the logic. So my short bidding notes had things like:

 

* If partner opens and you have a weak hand you should not go past 1NT without a fit.

 

* You should not bid 2NT unless you almost have the combined strength for game.

 

The standard way of teaching is "this is how it is", how would you ever understand WHY it is how it is?

 

In contrast a year earlier someone else in my club tried to teach students following the books from the bridge federation, and it simply didn't catch on. I am not surprised...

[microcap]

Thanks Fred-- I am sending this email to Rex, who knows every convention ever invented and some that haven't been. He does have trouble counting to 13 more often than not though! LOL

[Vilgan]

Hrmm, perhaps a tad late to chime in.. but as a young player I am not at all surprised that rubber bridge is declining faster than duplicate. I love duplicate bridge and am completely uninterested in ever playing much rubber bridge. Rubber bridge is (imo) closer to a regular card game than duplicate. Its a past time that a few decades ago appealed to the masses, but over time a lot of other things (video games and tv being big ones) have appeared as alternate ways to relax and have fun.

 

Duplicate is (for me) a completely different cat completely. It eliminates the luck of who got the "good cards" inherent in most games and is very competitive. The demographic of people (imo) who enjoyed rubber bridge has a lot more competition for their attention now. The demographic for duplicate players really doesn't have much competition as there really isn't anything like duplicate bridge. Rubber bridge isn't just for casual relaxed players, a lot of experts seem to enjoy it. However, the average rubber bridge player is a lot more casual, relaxed, and is more likely to wile away hours doing all the various other entertaining things that have appeared over the years than a duplicate player who really only has one outlet for their competitive appetite.

 

Eric

[helene_t]

(Relating to his own assertion that the best beginner's bidding books were written 50 years ago) I think it is more likely that other factors  (such as the proliferation of conventions and systems and the way that bridge is taught) are primarily responsible for both of these things.

Some observations:

- When I was new to duplicate bridge I found it great fun to invent crazy conventions.

- I was well aware that the crazy conventions gave me bad results. I didn't care much until I reached a level were I would actually be able to win a few small tournaments if I didn't play the crazy conventions.

- At that point I tried to convince partners to scrap the crazy conventions, but that could be difficult. New partners would insist on playing multi, bizarre notrump structures etc.

- Opponents were impressed by our crazy convention card. Many said explictly that we must be very good players since we played all those sophisticated conventions, and I am sure they weren't sarcastic.

- It is much easier to learn step responses such as Gerber by heart than learning to use logic to assess whether 4♣ is to play or a slam try in clubs.

- Authors of popular textbooks, as well as good teachers, admit that beginners shouldn't learn crazy conventions but they teach them anyway because the market demands it.

[Jlall]

I miss the old days

[G_R__E_G]

(Relating to his own assertion that the best beginner's bidding books were written 50 years ago) I think it is more likely that other factors  (such as the proliferation of conventions and systems and the way that bridge is taught) are primarily responsible for both of these things.

Some observations:

- When I was new to duplicate bridge I found it great fun to invent crazy conventions.

- I was well aware that the crazy conventions gave me bad results. I didn't care much until I reached a level were I would actually be able to win a few small tournaments if I didn't play the crazy conventions.

- At that point I tried to convince partners to scrap the crazy conventions, but that could be difficult. New partners would insist on playing multi, bizarre notrump structures etc.

- Opponents were impressed by our crazy convention card. Many said explictly that we must be very good players since we played all those sophisticated conventions, and I am sure they weren't sarcastic.

- It is much easier to learn step responses such as Gerber by heart than learning to use logic to assess whether 4♣ is to play or a slam try in clubs.

- Authors of popular textbooks, as well as good teachers, admit that beginners shouldn't learn crazy conventions but they teach them anyway because the market demands it.

You're not alone. When I first started I had delusions of inventing a new system and conventions. I actually came up with one convention that I called Coles Unusual No Trump (Coles is my last name), but I dropped it due to the unfortunate acronym.

[gwnn]

I miss the old hrothgar :)

[Phil]

I miss the old days

I didn't miss this thread, although its vintage KRex.

[pooltuna]

I miss the old days

I didn't miss this thread, although its vintage KRex.

as an aside is he related to TRex? :lol:

[kenrexford]

I had forgotten how brilliant my logic was!

[junyi_zhu]

Fred,

 

What would you recommend to the student of basic bidding theory? Any particular good books or articles? Anything else?

I am sorry, but the only good books I know of on this subject were written more than 50 years ago. Probably for some they would still be interesting to read, but the game has changed so much since then that I expect most non-experts reading such books (if they could even find a copy) would end up becoming confused.

 

I see most of today's books about bidding as analogous to those spam-like ads "work part time from your home and earn $100,000+ per year!" or "eat all the chocolate you want and never gain any weight!". Most modern books on bidding I have seen are nothing but hype and what they are hyping is some bidding system or collection of conventions that will "improve your results by 10% without you having to learn the basics!".

 

Here is what I would suggest:

 

Don't give a great deal of consious thought to this subject in your first few years of serious play. Learn a simple bidding system and only the few conventions that are so popular that they have essentially become part of "standard bidding" (unfortunately there are now quite a few conventions that fall into this category).

 

Keep your mind uncluttered with conventions that you don't really understand and play as many hands as possible, ideally with either a keen regular partner who is at roughly the same level as you or with a much better player who understands that it will help you more to spend your time discussing concepts like "a jump shift is forcing to game but a reverse is not" rather than the latest flavor of modified DONT.

 

Your brain is a remarkable machine. You will learn a lot of what is important by osmosis, especially if you manage to avoid distractions (like trying to come up with the best possible scheme of rescues when the 10-12 1NT opening that you shouldn't be using get doubled).

 

If you can afford to hire a professional player to be your partner or to give you online lessons (or whatever) you should do so, but do not hire anyone unless they are highly recommended by a person you trust and respect. If the pro or teacher starts by telling you that you must learn to play "4 of our minor is always 1430 Keycard Blackwood with specialized followups to the trump Queen ask" then find someone else - this person is trying to sell you snake oil.

 

After each session you play you should think about the hands and talk them over with your partner. If your partner is at the same level as you, try to make friends with an experienced player who is willing to discuss the hands you are not sure about (and who is the type of player whose idea of good advice does not involve teaching you that you would not have had a problem if you used his preferred variety of Extended 2-way Reverse Drury).

 

If you are fortunate enough to have access to an experienced player who is willing to help you, do not waste this opportunity by asking him questions that are designed to boost your ego (by trying to convince him/her to agree that your disaster on a particular hand was your partner's fault for example). LISTEN to your expert friend/teacher even if you disagree with him or her. Then THINK about it later. Do not get defensive when you are told that one of your bids was horrible. Instead try to understand what went wrong with your thinking process so that you can learn from your mistakes.

 

Once you get to the point that you consider yourself to be solid intermediate player (this should take 2 or 3 years of hard work) you should buy a subscription to The Bridge World magazine (and if you have friend who has a collection of back issues try to borrow them). Each month this magazine has a feature called The Master Solvers' Club. Read it and think about what you read. Re-read it and think about what you read.

 

You may find the other features of this magazine to be interesting as well, but it is fine if you read only The Master Solvers's Club in each issue.

 

This will help you to learn things like:

 

1) That bidding is not just an exercise in language, it is also an exercise in logic

2) How strong players apply logic to solve unfamiliar problems

3) The axioms that form the basis of this logic (which are "the basic principles of bidding theory" that I referred to in an earlier post)

4) You will also learn plenty about the language aspects of bidding, but most of these lessons will not involve learning the names and mechanics of new conventions.

5) That bidding situations in which the "right" answer is not at all clear are far from rare, regardless of how well you play.

 

This will also help you to improve your bidding judgment. Good bidding judgment is largely a function of experience. Reading what a bunch of good players have to say about a bunch of interesting bidding problems allows you to benefit from their vast experience without having to experience the same hands yourself.

 

Keep in mind that in many ways "learning the basics of bidding theory" is similar to things like "learning the basics of probability theory" or "learning the mechanics of compound squeezes" - these are all just parts of the game. On any given hand any given part of the game is unlikely to matter. You can survive (and you can certainly enjoy bridge) without learning such things.

 

All players are better at some parts of the game than others. For most parts of the game it is not necessary to be highly proficient in order to achieve reasonable results at the table.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

One of the reasons you see a lot of conventions is due to the awarding structure of duplicate bridge. 50 years ago, bridge is more like Poker, people may get famous and rich if they play high stake rubber bridge. Now bridge players can only get famous at bridge tournaments, which usually are in the format of duplicate. Again, due to the horrible structure of those tournaments, there is no money prize involved, so it's impossible to truly become an independent professional player. One has to be hired by the rich to be "professional". That kind of professional in my opinion is very different from the professionals in Poker. It's kind of a pet, a toy of the rich. They hire you just because they want to get famous or have an unrealistic ego that they believe that they can be world champion and therefore the best players if they hire 5 top players or play with a top player. To get famous and attract such kind of client, one has to win some tournaments. So now, the tournaments are the tools to get famous in the bridge world for ambitious players. And you may participate a lot of tournaments and shine a few times. Since the registration fee to attend those tournaments is rather low and you get no return in prize if you win, the tournament structure now favors those who play a highly variant game to get famous. And nobody would care how many times you have lost and how sever your loss is. They only see how good you ever placed in a tournament. If one plays in such a style in money prized tournaments for living, he should go broke fairly soon. However, he can get quite famous in bridge. So overall, bridge is not a game format to award overall effectiveness any more like the old rubber bridge. That's also the key difference between bridge and poker. In my observation, professional poker players actually work much more harder than professional bridge players to improve their game. Also, that's why bridge is a hopeless game comparing with Poker if the current awarding structure keeps. It is indeed very similar with the awarding structure on Wall street. If you are a trader and make a lot of money on a year, you get a huge bonus. If you lose a lot of money, you don't return your bonus. And nobody would care what a risky position you have put yourself in when you make that much money to get the bonus. The only difference is that on Wall street, traders manage others' money and in bridge, the registration fee can be ignored and you make no money prize even if you win.

Therefore, bridge players tend to play differently and invent conventions that may allow them to have a shot in big tournaments, even if those conventions may not be profitable ones in long runs cause bridge isn't a profitable game at all. One day, my wife asked me, "why do you go to those tournaments and burn money?" "why don't you only play money bridge at bbo, since it's the only profitable game format in bridge", I found that those questions are difficult to answer.

[Trinidad]

removed

 

Rik