IMP Pairs

[Rossoneri]

Maybe I wasn't searching correctly or hard enough, but didn't really manage to dig up anything....

 

So my question is: How do you play at IMP Pairs? Similar as you would to normal teams? Or would there be some differences here and there as it is pairs?

[Guest Jlall]

Just play it like a normal team game

[Rossoneri]

Ok. Conversely speaking what about Board-A-Match? Play the same as you would at MP Pairs?

[gwnn]

I asked this question a while back and got 2 very nice responses:

 

http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?showtopic=17357

[Rossoneri]

I asked this question a while back and got 2 very nice responses:

 

http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?showtopic=17357

Thanks! :o

[ArtK78]

I describe IMP pairs as matchpoints on steroids.

 

The play of the hand is like regular IMP teams. But the bidding is anything but.

 

In a regular team game scored at IMPs, if you win a match by 1 IMP, you win (I am not discussing VP Swiss Teams). In an IMP pair game, if you wind up a session +1 IMP, you lose.

 

You have to beat all of the other pairs in a limited number of boards. That requires the accumulation of a great number of IMPs. In IMP pairs, unlike matchpoint pairs, the boards do not all count the same. A tame board (a flat game contract or an obvious partial) will not produce many IMPs, so the deviation between the best and worst results will be small. But game/slam decision hands can produce double-digit swings. In order to win, you have to be on the right side of these hands. And that is where being active tends to pay off.

 

I find that you can create swings out of thin air by very aggressive preempting and overcalling at IMP pairs. If you are good at it, the vast majority of these swings will be in your favor.

 

The luck factor in IMP pairs can be very large. If your opponents are one of the few pairs that bids a vul game or slam, you will probably not be able to recover. However, if you force your opponents into difficult decisions in competitive auctions, their losing decisions will pay off for you much more at IMP pairs than at any other form of scoring.

[cherdano]

I find that you can create swings out of thin air by very aggressive preempting and overcalling at IMP pairs.  If you are good at it, the vast majority of these swings will be in your favor.

If the vast majority of them are in your favor, then certainly you should do the same in an IMP'ed team match?

 

The luck factor in IMP pairs can be very large.  If your opponents are one of the few pairs that bids a vul game or slam, you will probably not be able to recover.  However, if you force your opponents into difficult decisions in competitive auctions, their losing decisions will pay off for you much more at IMP pairs than at any other form of scoring.

Again, they would pay-off exactly the same in a team match. (In fact, that's exactly how many of the top pairs seem to be playing in team matches...)

 

I might agree if you were saying that one should try to play a high-variance game if you want to win an IMP pairs session. Certainly if you are trying to win a 12 board IMP pairs tourney on BBO you can't just sit and wait for your natural, let's say, + 1IMP/board advantage come in.

[jtfanclub]

If the vast majority of them are in your favor, then certainly you should do the same in an IMP'ed team match?

You can bluff a lot more in an IMP pairs match, bidding aggressively and having opponents believe you're serious.

 

In a teams match, they wise up pretty quick.

[ArtK78]

I find that you can create swings out of thin air by very aggressive preempting and overcalling at IMP pairs.  If you are good at it, the vast majority of these swings will be in your favor.

If the vast majority of them are in your favor, then certainly you should do the same in an IMP'ed team match?

 

The luck factor in IMP pairs can be very large.  If your opponents are one of the few pairs that bids a vul game or slam, you will probably not be able to recover.  However, if you force your opponents into difficult decisions in competitive auctions, their losing decisions will pay off for you much more at IMP pairs than at any other form of scoring.

Again, they would pay-off exactly the same in a team match. (In fact, that's exactly how many of the top pairs seem to be playing in team matches...)

 

I might agree if you were saying that one should try to play a high-variance game if you want to win an IMP pairs session. Certainly if you are trying to win a 12 board IMP pairs tourney on BBO you can't just sit and wait for your natural, let's say, + 1IMP/board advantage come in.

In a team match, the object is to win by one IMP, not rack up a huge margin of victory. Besides, in a team match, you have your partners at the other table to protect you. In IMP pairs, all you have is the field. So you must play more conservatively in a team match and much more aggressively in IMP pairs.

[gwnn]

Maybe in a KO teams event or if you bet 10 cases of beer on who wins. In a Swiss or Danish event, your assertion is far from true.

[ArtK78]

The object in a Swiss Team event scored at VPs is (1) win the match; and, secondarily (2) win by the greatest margin possible.

 

There should be no reason to create swings in a Swiss Team match. You and your teammates should be able to win the match (and, at the same time, win by a considerable margin) by playing sound bridge.

 

That is not true at IMP pairs. If you play sound bridge, you should be plus IMPs, but if you get unlucky, you could easily be minus. As with matchpoints, you can play sound bridge and score 53%, 55%, 57% fairly regularly. But you will not score 60%, 63%, 66% - in other words, enough to win the event - unless you step out and force the opponents to err. That is even more true at IMP pairs, where it takes, on average, about +3 IMPs per board to have a reasonable chance to win (the total may be less in a multiple session event).

 

There is a similar comparison between matchpoint pairs and BAM teams. You need a big score to win a matchpoint pair event. At BAM teams, you expect that you and your teammates will do well by playing sound bridge (both pairs being aware of the normal tactics of BAM teams). There is no reason to step out of line when you have teammates protecting you. Everyone knows that having "field protection" in a matchpoint pair event is more myth than reality.

[Stephen Tu]

In a team match, the object is to win by one IMP, not rack up a huge margin of victory.

 

That's not right, even in a KO. The object is to win, not win by one IMP. Creating a large margin between you & the other team is a goal, the bigger a gap you can create the better your chances of victory in the end, leaving room for errors or simple bad luck. During the bulk of the match, if you have these aggressive actions that you think will swing IMPs in your favor a vast majority of the time, you have to be taking them. I.e. it's right to be aggressive & try to provoke opponent's errors in a team match also, if you think it's +EV.

 

It is only for the last few boards of a match holding a substantial lead that your strategy should change into a don't go for 1100 mode, passing on +EV situations that have large downside if you are wrong.

[jdonn]

As with matchpoints, you can play sound bridge and score 53%, 55%, 57% fairly regularly.  But you will not score 60%, 63%, 66% - in other words, enough to win the event - unless you step out and force the opponents to err.

This is something I often hear from people, but I have to disagree. My experience is the opponents will err regardless, and if you are regularly getting 53% and 55% when you feel you should be doing better it is from making your own errors. I don't get to go to NABCs as often as I like any more, but whenever I go I am absolutely struck by the vast number of gifts I receive in even extremely tough fields or the final rounds of events, and all the more at local tournaments. I don't go out of my way to try and induce errors, whenever I win something it is simply because I made very few errors myself that day.

 

Sound bridge (not necessarily the same as sound bidding) is underrated at all forms of scoring.

[cherdano]

I find that you can create swings out of thin air by very aggressive preempting and overcalling at IMP pairs.  If you are good at it, the vast majority of these swings will be in your favor.

If the vast majority of them are in your favor, then certainly you should do the same in an IMP'ed team match?

 

The luck factor in IMP pairs can be very large.  If your opponents are one of the few pairs that bids a vul game or slam, you will probably not be able to recover.  However, if you force your opponents into difficult decisions in competitive auctions, their losing decisions will pay off for you much more at IMP pairs than at any other form of scoring.

Again, they would pay-off exactly the same in a team match. (In fact, that's exactly how many of the top pairs seem to be playing in team matches...)

 

I might agree if you were saying that one should try to play a high-variance game if you want to win an IMP pairs session. Certainly if you are trying to win a 12 board IMP pairs tourney on BBO you can't just sit and wait for your natural, let's say, + 1IMP/board advantage come in.

In a team match, the object is to win by one IMP, not rack up a huge margin of victory. Besides, in a team match, you have your partners at the other table to protect you. In IMP pairs, all you have is the field. So you must play more conservatively in a team match and much more aggressively in IMP pairs.

Protecting? When I find teammates that never come back with random good or bad results (like their opponents bidding a 15% game cold on the lie of the cards) I will consider your strategy of playing conservative, until then I will just play to maximize my EV (except in special situations), thank you.

[awm]

One thing that seems to distinguish the very good from the merely solid bridge players is the ability to decide when it's worthwhile to create action at the table versus when it's better to just "play it down the middle", combined with the knowledge of how to create action without destroying your results.

 

There are a fairly large number of bridge players who play a solid game (although perhaps not that many play at the local clubs). They're not going to misplay an easy hand, or throw away obvious tricks on defense. Some of these people have won national championships at some point just by playing a solid game... but they're not the folks who seem to always be in contention in the top flight events, even though they usually play with favorite partners rather than clients.

 

I really think one of the big factors distinguishing these players from the real elite is knowing when and how to go against the field. I see a lot of younger players going against the field left and right, their results are usually worse than those of the "play a solid game" crowd -- you really need judgement to succeed at this. Meckstroth and Rodwell are good at it -- they bid some ridiculous games, but contrary to popular belief they don't bid game on every hand -- they know at which point in the match, against which opponents, and on which hands to apply the pressure.

 

Anyways, the thing I find amusing is that of the partners I've played with fairly extensively, jdonn is probably the best at this sort of thing, and here he's arguing that all you need to do is "play a solid game."

[Rossoneri]

So how would your strategy change at IMP pairs if it was:

i) A small field say 10-12 pairs vs a bigger field say 24+ pairs

ii) 2 session event vs a longer event say spanning over 2 days

[han]

I'd probably try harder in the big game. No other differences.

[awm]

Sometimes it's important to decide what your goal is. Obviously the first goal is to have fun, but you have to prioritize how you feel about:

 

(1) How would you feel if you did really badly, much worse than you think you "rate" to do given the field?

 

(2) How would you feel about finishing near the top but not winning the event?

 

(3) How much is winning the event worth to you?

 

(4) How do you compare to the other pairs in the event?

 

If you're playing in a short event with a big field, someone is going to rack up a lot of imps. If you play a solid game but don't do anything weird, you will probably end up positive and in the top quarter of the field, but you're pretty unlikely to win a 12-board tourney. So if you really want to win and don't really care between placing 5th (say) and placing last since they are both "not winning" then you probably should take some swingy actions.

 

If you're playing in a longer event, then doing consistently well should eventually land you near the top. Often it's better not to do anything wild or swingy unless you're one of the weaker pairs in the field, although again if you "really need a win" the last session can involve some gambling...

[ArtK78]

I apologize if I misspoke earlier.

 

The object in a team match is to win by one OR MORE IMPs. Sure, if you can be ahead by 75 at the half in a 32 board match, then you can relax in the second half. But you can only win the match - no extra credit for winning by 100.

 

In Swiss Teams scored at VPs, it is obviously better to win by a large amount. Still, you get most of your VPs for the first 10 IMPs of your winning margin. The remaining 20-30 IMPs needed for a blitz gives you very few additional VPs (certainly fewer VPs per IMP). So, the main objective, even in VP scored team games, is to win your match.

 

In IMP pairs, you need to accumulate a large score to be in contention for the win. If you play in the ACBL IMP pair games on BBO, in a 12-board session, you usually need +30 IMPs to have a chance to win your section, +45 IMPs to have a chance to win the event. In longer events (and there are very few IMP pair events) you need to average about +1.5 IMPs per hand to have a chance to be in contention.

 

As for the discussions of what makes a good bridge player and why certain pairs seem to be consistently at the top, most of that is good, sound bridge. Only some of that comes from creating action "at the right time." Most top bridge players have a good feel for the game beyond the technical, and can tell when they should step out. Some of that comes from being unwilling to accept a bad result.

 

In one of the most recent North American championship pair events that I played in, near the end of the first final session my partner and I scored 100% on three consecutive boards. On the second board of a two-board round our opps let us score up 3♦x for no obvious reason. Then, in the next round, our opps gave away two consecutive boards - we had virtually nothing to do with the results on those two hands. Yes, our opps certainly gave away the boards. But at least we were good enough to sit there and collect our tops.

 

Sure, players make mistakes even at the highest levels. The key to doing well in these events is to play well on the hands that few mistakes are made and collect the gifts that will be thrown at you.

[mycroft]

In a ACBL 30-VP scale event, (which I frequently call "win-loss with tiebreaks for the directors"), the first 3 IMPs make most of the difference - -3 is 10, 0 is 15, +3 is 20. Yeah, in that case, play it win-loss.

 

In either the WBF 30-VP scale (with a 25 top) or the ACBL 20-VP scale, a small win is just that - a small win. Win by 3 on the 20-VP scale, and it's 12-8, or 18-12 converted to 30 VP. Getting several 16s (24 on a 30 scale) instead of several 12s (18) can make a big difference - much more than getting several 25s instead of several 20s on the 30 scale will.

 

On a 8-match 20 VP scale, 50-table event, expect to need 115 of 160 VPs - i.e. on *average* a 12-IMP win (hmm - that's about 1.5 IMPs/board, strangely enough). On a similar sectional on the 30 scale, expect to need about 170 of 240 - "win 'em all, a couple big" should do it. Obviously in a bigger game like the National Pairs, more will be required - I don't have 20VP comparisons, though.

 

It is a different game.

Michael.

[barmar]

While the goals for the entire match or session may be different between IMP Pairs and Teams (either VP or win/loss), the strategy for individual boards should be pretty similar.

 

In IMP Pairs, it's pretty obvious why you want to get a big score on as many boards as possible. As Art pointed out, you need to average at least+1.5 IMPs/hand to win.

 

But I maintain that it's similar in teams. Unless your team performs perfectly, you're going to have some boards with big losses, and you need to make up for those defecits. If the match is long enough it's possible that you could inch your way back with lots of small wins, but that's a pretty risky strategy since you can also expect to have some small losses. So unless you're confident that you're way ahead, you generally have to play each board with the goal to get a big plus (or, equivalently, avoid a big minus).

[ArtK78]

There is nothing worse than having one pair of a team trying for a "big score" and accomplishing exactly the opposite (which is what usually happens) only to find out that their teammates have had a very good round. The team would have done just fine by playing sound bridge, taking advantage of the other team's mistakes, but the attempts for the big score lost the match.

 

This usually happens when one pair has a bad result or two and thinks they are way behind, and tries to create a swing to catch up. The result is to turn a win into a loss.

 

Many posters are advocating routinely trying for big scores in regular swiss team events. I suggest to you that this is losing bridge. For every success, you will have two failures.

 

There is an old saying - team matches are lost, not won. If you play sound bridge and don't lose the match, you are likely to win it, and often win it big.

[cherdano]

ArtK78, don't you see how you are contradicting yourself?

I find that you can create swings out of thin air by very aggressive preempting and overcalling at IMP pairs.  If you are good at it, the vast majority of these swings will be in your favor.

There is nothing worse than having one pair of a team trying for a "big score" and accomplishing exactly the opposite (which is what usually happens)

Leaving 12 IMP pairs tourneys on BBO aside, I really don't see a difference between a long IMP pairs event and a long KO team match.

[han]

Sometimes it's important to decide what your goal is. Obviously the first goal is to have fun, but you have to prioritize how you feel about:

 

(1) How would you feel if you did really badly, much worse than you think you "rate" to do given the field?

 

(2) How would you feel about finishing near the top but not winning the event?

 

(3) How much is winning the event worth to you?

 

(4) How do you compare to the other pairs in the event?

I recommend ignoring all this and always playing to win.

[Stephen Tu]

Many posters are advocating routinely trying for big scores in regular swiss team events. I suggest to you that this is losing bridge. For every success, you will have two failures.

 

That is not what we are advocating. We are not advocating swinging just for the sake of swinging as a normal course of action. We are advocating going for +EV actions whenever possible, in non-late match situations. Take the action that maximizes IMP expectation, instead of trying to minimize variance. It depends to some extent on the relative skill of you & your opponents. If you greatly outclass your opponents in a long match, and you can count on them to make many big mistakes, then you can bypass some aggressive actions that you think are +EV but have occasional large downside, since you expect to beat the opps on the other normal boards anyway & want to minimize risk. But against roughly equal opps, you can't really afford to not take +EV opportunities whenever you see one. If you think such an action is +EV at pairs, why would it not be +EV at teams? You have to build an IMP cushion to try & win the match.

 

Now, a lot of the time the normal action is the right action, anything else is -EV, we are not saying to try & create action every board, a lot of the time you are just supposed to avoid errors. But we just don't see why if you think an action rates to work well on average in the IMP pairs situation why you shouldn't take it at team IMPs.

 

You seem to be saying that pairs IMPS bridge is significantly different from team IMP bridge. We are saying that it's not, they should be approached similarly. Play sound bridge, but that includes taking aggressive potentially swingy actions *if* the percentages favor you gaining IMPs by doing so.

 

Pairs simply requires more luck than teams, since you can't control the field. But your own strategy need not change much. It's not like the need to change strategy for MP vs. IMPs.