To win the Bermuda Bowl

[Trumpace]

To win the Bermuda Bowl, please order the following requirements in order of importance.

 

1) Slam Bidding

2) Declarer Play

3) Defense

4) Game Bidding

5) Judgement in competition or otherwise.

6) Opening Leads

 

 

Please feel free to add any other requirement or change existings ones. Also, please give your reasons.

[awm]

Obviously all six are essential. But I think the top players are a lot closer in declarer play than many of the other aspects (in other words, the percentage of hands where the best declarer in the world would make it but another bermuda-bowl-caliber declarer will go down on the same auction and defense is extremely small). This is not to say that anyone whose declarer play is truly "bad" has even a remote chance in a bermuda bowl (they don't). I'd expect the swings to be (from most imps to least):

 

5. Judgement in competition

6. Opening lead

3. Defense after opening lead

1. Slam bidding

4. Game bidding

2. Declarer play

[mikeh]

As someone who once came 19th in the BB, I have the worms' eye view :P

 

For me, I'd rank:

 

1. Judgement in competitive auctions, especially at the 4 level and higher

 

2. slam bidding

 

3. defence

 

 

Declarer play is pretty much a wash amongst the top 100 players in the world. Yes, some are better than others, but the number of times that edge is actually relevant is quite small...they all get well over 90% of the hands 'right', in the sense of a play that is either best or so close to best as to make no difference.

 

Game bidding, in the sense of purely constructive auctions, also appears to me to be a wash. While some pairs may miss games bid by others, that will usually be on hands where, single-dummy, you can't tell whether you want to be there. And others will be system quirks that balance out (eg if you open 1N on 16 and play 14-16, you may miss a game when partner passes and the opps play 15-17 and responder scrapes up an invitation)

 

I don't know enough about Fantunes to know the extent to which their system works: I understand that Rodwell has said that their two-bids caused him problems, but obviously there are tradeoffs and it is tough to separate out their skill/judgement from their system advantages. I tend to think they'd be world class playing a more standard method as well B)

 

Opening leads: not since Katz-Cohen got caught (oh, they didn't get to the BB :P ) Not a big factor imo.

 

 

One factor not listed, and very important: consistency... the best players are incredibly focused and simply don't make the kinds of mistakes that bedevil the rest of us. Although, by the end of the BB, those mistakes are cropping up.. which is part of why I really like watching on vugraph. Relaxed at home, seeing all the cards... heck, I can almost play as well as those guys by then! :) :P :) :unsure:

[fred]

To win the Bermuda Bowl, please order the following requirements in order of importance.

 

1) Slam Bidding

2) Declarer Play

3) Defense

4) Game Bidding

5) Judgement in competition or otherwise.

6) Opening Leads

 

 

Please feel free to add any other requirement or change existings ones. Also, please give your reasons.

By far the most important requirement is: making very few dumb mistakes

 

Having tried and failed to win the Bermuda Bowl, I am in a good position to know this :(

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[han]

How about luck, shouldn't that be on the list as well?

[Trumpace]

How about luck, shouldn't that be on the list as well?

Why?

 

Let us only look at factors which are in our hands and have a chance to improve on those...

[Guest Jlall]

I now believe that the whole "the top 100 players in the world are all roughly equal at declarer play" thing is false, though I always used to believe it. I still see a ton of swings at the high levels revolving around declarer play. It seems like only when the very best play the very best (like italy vs usa) play each other that the declarer play does not become a significant factor. However I think when the best team plays even the 5th best team the 5th best team gets crushed in declarer play and cannot recover from that.

 

The best example I can give from personal experience is the cavendish. You wouldn't believe how many imps you could win from playing a hand correctly and how many pros capable of playing at the bermuda bowl level would misplay hands (and I'm not even talking about the clients). It was staggering to me.

[mikeh]

well, Justin certainly has more experience at the highest levels than I do. Maybe I should have said the top 20 or so B)

 

Bear in mind that the BB will not actually feature the top 100 players in the world, let alone the top 100 declarers.

 

In the year I played, we did have Fred on our team, and I like to think we were all pretty good, but (other than Fred) I doubt that many of us would have been in the top 100 (at anything :( ). And that would certainly have been true of several of the other teams. The fact is that the 5th or maybe the 8th or even the 10th best team in the US, especially if not playing with a client, would be as strong or stronger than many of the teams in the BB. The same could be said, to a lesser degree, of several other bridge powers.. their 2nd best would be better than some of the also-rans in the BB and so on)

 

But I remain of the view that to actually WIN the BB, rather than, say, to get to the actual event, declarer play is not a major differentiating factor. Let's look at a very common recent scenario: the Italians v USA I. Certainly the top two US pairs take a back seat to no-one in terms of declarer play, and we all know how good the Italians are. I am not knocking Nickel-Freeman... I just don't know enough to say if they are on par with the rest of the team in that area.... but they are hardly duffers :)

[Guest Jlall]

Looks like Mike and I are in agreement, basically I always overestimated the "everyone is good at declarer play" factor I think. I have been really surprised recently.

[glen]

On slam bidding, a lot of slams are close to 50-50 (on a finesse, or require a split+other good stuff etc.). So a factor in matches between good teams is slam bidding luck - bidding coin flip slams when they make, staying out of coin flip slams when they don't.

[Gerben42]

Let me add "mental toughness". Going on to the next board.

 

I don't know enough about Fantunes to know the extent to which their system works: I understand that Rodwell has said that their two-bids caused him problems, but obviously there are tradeoffs and it is tough to separate out their skill/judgement from their system advantages. I tend to think they'd be world class playing a more standard method as well

 

On defense they are maybe the best pair in the world. That helps.

[zasanya]

As fred has pointed out making "very few dumb mistakes".

It is my belief that dumb mistakes happen when you are tired.So Stamina seems to be an important factor.

Luck of course plays a large part when teams are evenly matched and the luck plays the largest part in the grey area of "judgement".

In my opinion in a long match between two evenly matched teams at any level stamina and "judgement in competitive situations" are the 2 decisive factors

[Walddk]

As fred has pointed out making "very few dumb mistakes".

It is my belief that dumb mistakes happen when you are tired.So Stamina seems to be an important factor.

Stamina is indeed an important factor in a long event like the World Championships. However, at no point will they be playing more than three stanzas of 16 boards per day. Considering that all teams have three pairs, this means that no pair is going to play more than 32 boards a day.

 

This is hardly much of a challenge at this level. For 14 of the 22 teams in each series the championships are virtually over after 7 days of play. The pairs on those teams will likely take part in the Transnational Teams after they are eliminated.

 

Roland

[Fluffy]

How about luck, shouldn't that be on the list as well?

Why?

 

Let us only look at factors which are in our hands and have a chance to improve on those...

Lol, why can't you improve your luck?, haven't you been to the water cooler latelly? :P

 

just j/k.

[sceptic]

I would have thought a good partner was the most important thing, followed by a desire to win and the ability to concentrate for long periods of time and a jolly good understanding of all aspects of the game

 

I also think the ability to behave well, not use drink drugs and prostitutes like the juniors do (lucky bastards) and maintain the dignity of the game and not manage to frighten away newcomers to the game with thier holier than thou attitude

[hrothgar]

Given that we are drifting somewhat from the original post that focuses on technical issues:

 

If I were trying to develop a model predicting performance in the Bermuda Bowl, I'd start by focusing on the size of the pool of players available to construct a team.

 

As a secondary consideration, I'd look at factors that caused elite pairs to graviate towards a single team or (alternatively) get distributed across multiple teams.

[Aberlour10]

Looking back to the last two battles in BB finals I would say....

 

7) mental strongness

 

Robert

[helene_t]

World Class bridge is beyond my grasp but as I understand it from more competent observers, the decisive factor in top bridge is card play, in particular the ability to avoid making stupid mistakes. While players at my level lose most IMPs messing up the easy boards (I mess up the difficult ones, too, but there the chance is good that the opps at the other table will mess it up as well) I suppose World Class players lose most IMPs messing up some moderately difficult hands.

[Gerben42]

I also think the ability to behave well, not use drink drugs and prostitutes like the juniors do (lucky bastards) and maintain the dignity of the game and not manage to frighten away newcomers to the game with thier holier than thou attitude

 

 

Let's quit that. They don't, just that what the perception is of unfortunately too many people.

[ArcLight]

>Looks like Mike and I are in agreement, basically I always overestimated the "everyone is good at declarer play" factor I think. I have been really surprised recently

 

 

Justin (and anyone else), what are some (non trivial) mistakes you have seen top level players make in major events (Cavendish, BB, etc)

 

Please give more detail than "Loser on loser"

 

 

Fred wrote "Don't make mistakes". Dang, most of us (at least me) probably wouldn't recognize some of those mistakes. Sure it can be something like ruffing with a low trump and not being able to reach dummy later.

 

I'm curious about what mistakes experts (the real ones) make.

[Finch]

That famous 7♥ hand from, I think(?), the Cavendish.... now you're going to want me to remember it exactly and I can't, but dummy was something like

 

AKxxx

AJx

x

KQxx

 

and declarer was something like

 

J10x

KQ9xx

AJxx

A

 

and LHO had entereed the fray with a jump overcall in clubs

 

(someone will be able to remember the hand I'm talking about and point to the thread that discussed the play, at length).

 

Declarer took what was close to a 0% line, and definitely missed some much better lines.

 

The defence mis-defended twice.

[bhall]

Strong partnerships are most important. You will more consistently reach good contracts, even in the face of competition, and you will defend more accurately. Also, the occasional dumb mistakes and missed opportunities will not cost so much in terms of partnership morale.

 

The problem for pros who spend most of their time playing with weak clients is that they have to shed their ingrained tendency to bid and play both sides of the table, if they are going to get the best out of a partner of equal skill. The emergence of more team sponsors in the U.S. has definitely improved the performance of U.S. teams by providing the opportunity for more top-level partnerships to form and play frequently together.

 

So I would add to Hrothgar's list the number of top pairs in a given country that play primarily as a partnership.

[cherdano]

Obviously all six are essential. But I think the top players are a lot closer in declarer play than many of the other aspects (in other words, the percentage of hands where the best declarer in the world would make it but another bermuda-bowl-caliber declarer will go down on the same auction and defense is extremely small). This is not to say that anyone whose declarer play is truly "bad" has even a remote chance in a bermuda bowl (they don't). I'd expect the swings to be (from most imps to least):

 

5. Judgement in competition

6. Opening lead

3. Defense after opening lead

1. Slam bidding

4. Game bidding

2. Declarer play

I wonder whether you are answering a different question Adam. There is the question

• (A) "Which skill area will cause most IMPs to be swung?" and
  
• (B) "In which skill area will the better teams gain the most IMPs over the average teams?"
  

I agree that opening lead choices will swing many IMPs, but do you also think these swings will usually go to the better team?

 

Well actually I am pretty sure Adam is aware of this difference and maybe he is right that e.g. the Italians win more IMPs on the opening lead than on the subsequent defence, but I would have thought otherwise. In fact I think many overestimate the importance of bidding due to mixing up the two question. Iif the better team bids 60% slam and the other table doesn't the kibs will see a 10 IMP swing every time but in fact the other team is only EV -2 IMPs due to the bidding. However, if one table is in a vunlerable game and the other not, and declarer takes a 30% line instead of a 40% line, then kibs might not even notice but in fact declarer lost EV -1.6 IMPs on the play. These kind of EV swings happen pretty often, I think.

[awm]

A lot of imps are going to fly back and forth due to "luck" -- one table bids a close slam and the other doesn't, or two declarers take different lines where one makes and one doesn't. There will even be times when the technically inferior action wins a bunch of imps due to luck, but the matches (at least in the KO stage) are long enough that this should tend to balance out.

 

So I assume the question being asked is "which skills are most likely to make the difference between who wins and who doesn't." I may be in a minority in this, but I believe that the different results from opening leads are not "mostly luck" (i.e. they swing a lot of imps but it's mostly randomness) but in fact have a large element of skill, and that there is a substantial difference in opening lead style between the partnerships who are most successful on defense (i.e. Fantoni and Nunes) and the less-successful pairs. Also, good partnerships play a lot of complex defensive signals, and I think most bermuda-bowl-caliber pairs are not that likely to misdefend at trick ten (for example). Of course fatigue is a factor and maybe I'm wrong about these things.

[han]

Also, good partnerships play a lot of complex defensive signals....

Is that true, and is it complex signalling methods that makes the difference between a top and a mediocre partnership's defense?

 

I didn't know that most good partnerships use complex signalling methods, I rather thought that rather they would make optimal use of the signals they do play. For example, I'd expect them to know more often when they should give what kind of signal, and when they should refrain from signalling. Of course, they also know better what signal partner is giving and what they should do with the avaliable information.

 

So what are these complex signals that good partnships play? Should I start studying them?