Quality of declarer play

[jjbrr]

While Hamman's preferences for general approach might not be everyone's cup of tea and "innovative" might not be a good way to describe his approach, there are definitely no loose ends in his bidding. I know for a fact he is still looking for ways to improve his agreements, too.

[mgoetze]

Of course go is played at a much higher level than bridge anyway, so the difference between the 19th century masters and today is not very big.

(ducks and runs)

So that's why you're concentrating on bridge nowadays... :)

[Jlall]

Moreover, when I think about "Hamman", the words "innovative bidding system" don't spring to mind. "Brilliant declarer" does. Same with "Fierce competitor" and "Great Judgement".

This is definitely the world view of Hamman, but it is false. Hamman is actually a mad scientist at heart, and thinks about bidding and systems much differently than most people. You should really see some of his stuff, it is both weird and logical/good.

 

His reputation does indeed come from his partnership with Wolff, who would not even play keycard or transfers let alone any more exotic stuff. Since he left Wolff though his true colors have shown (most notably, you should have seen some of the stuff he was playing with Compton, the one partner he had for a while who would actually induldge Bob with his ideas).

 

That being said, of course Adam is right that the reason the teams today are much better than the teams then is that bidding has improved greatly, as well as general knowledge/principles/theory. Hamman is a good example because his cardplay is probably worse now than it was back then (no knock against Bob, simply an age thing), and his bidding judgement is probably only a little bit better, but everyone's systems now are much better than 50 years ago.

 

The fact that you think of Bob as someone who is a great cardplayer/judgement goes towards Adam's point unless you think that Bob and people in general do not play bridge at a much higher level now than 50 years ago. It's not just Bob who plays better methods and has better fundamental knowledge of bidding, it's all good players now compared to players 50 years ago.

[Jlall]

This is almost laughable

 

The coaching staff of the Dallas Aces required that the players adopt well defined systems.

Yes but the point is card play theory then compared to card play theory now is basically the same, except signalling has improved on defense.

 

The best systems then are basically a joke now, and the general knowledge of the fundamentals of constructive bidding were not nearly as well known then as now.

 

The fact that the Aces and the Blue Team were required to have very well defined systems and lots of agreements doesn't matter much when their systems were so bad and they didn't know as much.

 

If you were to agree that the top teams now are much better than the top teams in the 60s (obv), and that Bob Hamman was a member of one of the top teams in the 60s, and is a member of one of the top teams now, then you would probably agree Bob Hamman is a much better player now than then.

 

Do you think it's because his cardplay or bidding judgement has improved? Obv no, it's because he has better agreements, more knowledge of constructive auctions, and bids better in general.

[Jlall]

Of course go is played at a much higher level than bridge anyway, so the difference between the 19th century masters and today is not very big.

(ducks and runs)

Yeah, that's the thing to remember, bridge is still not played very well by anyone. This is mainly bidding and signalling though, and probably leads (not sure how good leads can become since they are random by nature, but I'm sure they could be much better than they are now). General declarer play and defense is not going to get much better at the top though, in my opinion, and hasn't gotten much better in a long time.

 

However in 2060 when we look back on the bidding and leads in 2010 I'm sure we're gonna be like lol what a joke, similar to how we do now when we look back at the auctions and leads in the 60s even between the aces and the blue team. There is a LONG way to go in bidding and in how well bridge is played in general.

[Lobowolf]

It may be lol, but your conclusion in your first sentence is basically the same as I was making from my sports analogy.  Sometimes lol works?  ;)

Once I was playing chess and I made the same move a grandmaster would have. I explained my reasoning to him and he was like lol. And I was like...but we came to the same conclusion so my thought process must have been good!

1. e4?

[gwnn]

hm weird what jlall says. it seems to me that not much fantastical news is in bidding theory nowadays... nothing as revolutionary as 1/1 forcing or weak twos. the progress is surely slower and slower, it doesn't look like today's systems are so ridiculously far from optimal..

[billw55]

The fact that the Aces and the Blue Team were required to have very well defined systems and lots of agreements doesn't matter much when their systems were so bad and they didn't know as much.

I would be interested in examples of ways in which their systems were bad.

[billw55]

(regarding Go)

 

Hmm, I want to challenge that. Of course 3 hour time-limit games are played on a worse level than games without time limit. But on equal conditions, and playing with komi, I would take any of the Korean superstars against the oldtime masters.

(Just think about how much the level of go has improved in the last 25 years - it's not that the Japanese stars got worse, but they just got surpassed by new young players who are on a new level.)

 

Of course go is played at a much higher level than bridge anyway, so the difference between the 19th century masters and today is not very big.

(ducks and runs)

You are certainly not alone in thinking so. But you are not in such a large majority as the modernists in the bridge discussion, either.

 

Yeah the Koreans are astonishing. But there is some hope for Japan in the latest generation of young stars, for example Iyama Yuta, having taken the Meijin title at only 21 years old.

[Jlall]

hm weird what jlall says. it seems to me that not much fantastical news is in bidding theory nowadays... nothing as revolutionary as 1/1 forcing or weak twos. the progress is surely slower and slower, it doesn't look like today's systems are so ridiculously far from optimal..

This could not be more wrong. Funny you mention 1/1 forcing, how many top natural pairs play transfers over 1C now compared to 10 years ago? How many do you think will in the future?

 

Playing natural bidding over 1C in combination with walsh is just clearly not even close to optimal. You bypass diamonds almost always...gee that's awesome you almost never get to bid the first step over 1C. How can that be right? It's not, obviously re-ordering the steps so that 1D shows hearts and 1H shows spades is better if your entire system is geared around showing the 4 card majors first etc.

 

Walsh was an improvement over "up the line." Transfers are an improvement on Walsh, etc etc and so it goes.

 

How many good natural-based pairs bid 2C over 1M with all balanced GFs now? How many did 10 years ago? I remember when it was like zomg, maybe with 4-4 in the blacks we should bid 2C over 1H. Then it was like wow maybe with 4333 and stuff we should still bid 2C, etc etc.

 

This is a pretty obvious improvement, but still most pairs don't play artificial bids over the 2C bid which is another obvious improvement. Not saying that you are bad if you don't do this or that you can't win, I'm just saying it's clear that

 

1) Bidding is evolving in major ways in a lot of fundamental situations.

2) Bidding has a long way to go.

 

These are not even the "details" they are huge basic structural things.

 

This is not to even mention polish club or strong club etc. I know nothing about polish club or how evolved it is or how far it can go, but strong club auctions are pretty much in their infancy still. Meckwell do a lot of stuff, but few of the other top pairs who play strong club do much at all.

 

Of course memory issues will always exist. I'm not even talking about having completely artificial systems necessarily, I'm just talking about the right bids in basic situations similar to 1H p 2C wtih 3343 or 4324 etc etc.

 

The real innovations lately are coming in competitive auctions and slam bidding. Slam bidding and understanding of slam bidding/cuebidding now compared to even 10 years ago let alone 50 years ago is just soooooooooo much improved it's ridiculous. But it still has a long way to go.

[Jlall]

The fact that the Aces and the Blue Team were required to have very well defined systems and lots of agreements doesn't matter much when their systems were so bad and they didn't know as much.

I would be interested in examples of ways in which their systems were bad.

Lol, they played 13-17 NT and control showing responses to their strong club...give me a break. Did they even play keycard?

 

None of this is meant as a knock against any of these guys, they were the best players of their era and got even better as times changed and there was more knowledge etc around. It's not like people now are born knowing bidding, we just don't have to figure most of it out since others have done it for us by studying the old systems and building on that etc.

 

It is completely natural in all games that people start off knowing nothing, they try things out, some sticks, some is proven to be bad and is adapted, and then it keeps building on itself etc. I'm not sure why this is such a surprising concept.

 

It's not even about the exact system, there are many auctions like 1S-2C-2H-2N-3S-4C which are now obviously cuebids for spades but before people would probably be like wtf?

 

edit: Did I mention 4 card majors?! Of course I cannot prove that 5 card majors are better than 4 card majors, but given that probably none of the top 20 pairs in the world play 4 card majors when it used to be dominant at the top levels, one could rationally assume that people came to the conclusion that 5 card majors are better.

[billw55]

The fact that the Aces and the Blue Team were required to have very well defined systems and lots of agreements doesn't matter much when their systems were so bad and they didn't know as much.

I would be interested in examples of ways in which their systems were bad.

Lol, they played 13-17 NT and control showing responses to their strong club...give me a break. Did they even play keycard?

 

None of this is meant as a knock against any of these guys, they were the best players of their era and got even better as times changed and there was more knowledge etc around. It's not like people now are born knowing bidding, we just don't have to figure most of it out since others have done it for us by studying the old systems and building on that etc.

 

It is completely natural in all games that people start off knowing nothing, they try things out, some sticks, some is proven to be bad and is adapted, and then it keeps building on itself etc. I'm not sure why this is such a surprising concept.

 

It's not even about the exact system, there are many auctions like 1S-2C-2H-2N-3S-4C which are now obviously cuebids for spades but before people would probably be like wtf?

 

edit: Did I mention 4 card majors?! Of course I cannot prove that 5 card majors are better than 4 card majors, but given that probably none of the top 20 pairs in the world play 4 card majors when it used to be dominant at the top levels, one could rationally assume that people came to the conclusion that 5 card majors are better.

Thanks Justin. I wasn't trying to argue with you, I was actually asking ;)

 

Regarding "Did they even play keycard?" ... I thought it was called "Roman Keycard" precisely because the Blue team played it. :lol:

[bluecalm]

However in 2060 when we look back on the bidding and leads in 2010 I'm sure we're gonna be like lol what a joke

 

There are 2 other possibilities:

 

a)The game of bridge will continue to be like today, ie. nobody will get serious training (at least compared to other sports/intellectual sports) and everybody will continue to suck. Those who suck the least will win (like today).

 

b)People will improve big time and the edge will be that small that the game will not be worth playing anymore as it will be reduced to almost purely variance (I believe variance in bridge is quite a factor if teams are at similar level)

 

I hope it will be a) if anything :lol:

[Jlall]

The fact that the Aces and the Blue Team were required to have very well defined systems and lots of agreements doesn't matter much when their systems were so bad and they didn't know as much.

I would be interested in examples of ways in which their systems were bad.

Lol, they played 13-17 NT and control showing responses to their strong club...give me a break. Did they even play keycard?

 

None of this is meant as a knock against any of these guys, they were the best players of their era and got even better as times changed and there was more knowledge etc around. It's not like people now are born knowing bidding, we just don't have to figure most of it out since others have done it for us by studying the old systems and building on that etc.

 

It is completely natural in all games that people start off knowing nothing, they try things out, some sticks, some is proven to be bad and is adapted, and then it keeps building on itself etc. I'm not sure why this is such a surprising concept.

 

It's not even about the exact system, there are many auctions like 1S-2C-2H-2N-3S-4C which are now obviously cuebids for spades but before people would probably be like wtf?

 

edit: Did I mention 4 card majors?! Of course I cannot prove that 5 card majors are better than 4 card majors, but given that probably none of the top 20 pairs in the world play 4 card majors when it used to be dominant at the top levels, one could rationally assume that people came to the conclusion that 5 card majors are better.

Thanks Justin. I wasn't trying to argue with you, I was actually asking ;)

 

Regarding "Did they even play keycard?" ... I thought it was called "Roman Keycard" precisely because the Blue team played it. :lol:

Yeah I don't know at what point it was invented, not sure if they played it during the beginning of their run. They def invented it though.

 

That being said, I'm sure when they invented it they hadn't thought of what all the bids mean after queen ask/specifically 5N bids, and what non queen/king ask bids mean, etc etc. RKC is also a convention that evolved, and now people play kickback.

 

I always wonder how "everyone" at the top level can not play for instance that 4N-5C-5S is not the king ask when hearts is trumps, (5D Q ask, 5S king ask), that way you can bid 5N over 5S with the SK and you don't have any issues, and you can use 5N over 5C as your 3rd round spade control ask.

 

Then I remember that people who care about stuff like this probably played kickback.

 

Anyways knowledge of situations like this and how to handle these auctions has advanced a ton. There is no way the blue team from then could ever compete in slam bidding against a team of today, and from what I gather no one could compete with their slam bidding back in the day.

[Jlall]

However in 2060 when we look back on the bidding and leads in 2010 I'm sure we're gonna be like lol what a joke

 

There are 2 other possibilities:

 

a)The game of bridge will continue to be like today, ie. nobody will get serious training (at least compared to other sports/intellectual sports) and everybody will continue to suck. Those who suck the least will win (like today).

 

b)People will improve big time and the edge will be that small that the game will not be worth playing anymore as it will be reduced to almost purely variance (I believe variance in bridge is quite a factor if teams are at similar level)

 

I hope it will be a) if anything :lol:

B has not happened to basketball, baseball, chess, running, anything. B is theoretically possible but we are so far away from it that it is not even worth considering. Right now we all suck. Once we all get good, then people will make small improvements and get better and better. The small edges will be enough to win long matches most of the time (of course luck is a factor).

 

Bridge is too complicated for this to happen for a long long time.

 

Certainly A is the most likely with less and less people beginning to play bridge though. Still, even with a smaller player pool, the good players will obviously become better than the best players of today, becuase they have their knowledge and experience to build upon.

 

People talk about B happening in poker a lot. It basically happened in heads up limit which has kinda died, but I doubt it will happen ever for deep stacked no limit play for instance. Even that is too complicated.

[junyi_zhu]

The fact that the Aces and the Blue Team were required to have very well defined systems and lots of agreements doesn't matter much when their systems were so bad and they didn't know as much.

I would be interested in examples of ways in which their systems were bad.

Lol, they played 13-17 NT and control showing responses to their strong club...give me a break. Did they even play keycard?

 

None of this is meant as a knock against any of these guys, they were the best players of their era and got even better as times changed and there was more knowledge etc around. It's not like people now are born knowing bidding, we just don't have to figure most of it out since others have done it for us by studying the old systems and building on that etc.

 

It is completely natural in all games that people start off knowing nothing, they try things out, some sticks, some is proven to be bad and is adapted, and then it keeps building on itself etc. I'm not sure why this is such a surprising concept.

 

It's not even about the exact system, there are many auctions like 1S-2C-2H-2N-3S-4C which are now obviously cuebids for spades but before people would probably be like wtf?

 

edit: Did I mention 4 card majors?! Of course I cannot prove that 5 card majors are better than 4 card majors, but given that probably none of the top 20 pairs in the world play 4 card majors when it used to be dominant at the top levels, one could rationally assume that people came to the conclusion that 5 card majors are better.

4 card major could be slightly worse than 5 card major because of the scoring method and nature of bidding. The basic trend I observe in bidding is that the higher the bidding is, the more precise the bid has to be defined. In that sense, 4 card major openings don't distinguish the difference between 1C and 1S and define 1S to a much narrower range, which is a key problem. In that sense, 4 card major systems should play better with strong clubs.

Still the major reason for no top players play 4 card major is that really few theorists study it.

[jdonn]

Still the major reason for no top players play 4 card major is that really few theorists study it.

Um, what? I second that the reason is simply because it's worse. I think your comment is just untrue.

[Jlall]

Just had the following convo at work fwiw:

 

Me: How would you rate the best team of the 60s vs the best teams now?

Hamman: It would be an absolute slaughter.

 

Me: How would you rate the card play of the best team of the 60s vs the best team now?

Hamman: Close to equal, and if you don't allow modern signalling then it's equal or the old guys are slightly better because they're more used to "playing in the dark"

 

Me: Would you say the 40 seed of the vanderbilt would beat the best team of the 60s?

Hamman: Yes, but it's not really like that because given a month to study the new stuff, the old team would win easily.

 

Me: So you would say the only reason this difference is so large is because of bidding?

Hamman: Yes, but it's completely natural for newer generations to be better than older ones because they can build upon the older one.

[junyi_zhu]

Still the major reason for no top players play 4 card major is that really few theorists study it.

Um, what? I second that the reason is simply because it's worse. I think your comment is just untrue.

Of course, it's worse. I am just saying that it's unpopular which makes it worse. Do you know any strong players play 4 card major with 2/1 scheme and a lot of gadgets and relays? If nobody studies and plays this system, this system can't be good. Still, if everything is quite optimized with a lot of people study and improve this system, 4 card major shouldn't be much worse than 5 card major. Just slightly worse IMO.

[bluecalm]

Just had the following convo at work fwiw:

 

Me: How would you rate the best team of the 60s vs the best teams now?

Hamman: It would be an absolute slaughter.

 

What kind of work is that that you have Hamman to talk to ? :lol:

I am jealous...

[jdonn]

Still the major reason for no top players play 4 card major is that really few theorists study it.

Um, what? I second that the reason is simply because it's worse. I think your comment is just untrue.

Of course, it's worse. I am just saying that it's unpopular which makes it worse.

I'm saying it's worse which makes it unpopular. Chicken and the egg?

[Hanoi5]

Just had the following convo at work fwiw:

 

Me: How would you rate the best team of the 60s vs the best teams now?

Hamman: It would be an absolute slaughter.

 

Me: How would you rate the card play of the best team of the 60s vs the best team now?

Hamman: Close to equal, and if you don't allow modern signalling then it's equal or the old guys are slightly better because they're more used to "playing in the dark"

 

Me: Would you say the 40 seed of the vanderbilt would beat the best team of the 60s?

Hamman: Yes, but it's not really like that because given a month to study the new stuff, the old team would win easily.

 

Me: So you would say the only reason this difference is so large is because of bidding?

Hamman: Yes, but it's completely natural for newer generations to be better than older ones because they can build upon the older one.

I want your job.

[gnasher]

Of course, it's worse. I am just saying that it's unpopular which makes it worse. Do you know any strong players play 4 card major with 2/1 scheme and a lot of gadgets and relays?

Four-card majors aren't competely dead:

Helgemo-Helness

Saelensminde-Brogeland

Townsend-Gold

[bluecalm]

I don't think Norwegians play 4 card majors. They just sometimes open 1♥ with 4♥ but their style is basically standard 5M and most hands are bid the way standard 5M bidders do.

[nigel_k]

[hv=d=w&v=n&n=s76hak2dqj764c874&w=skj9hj8653d8ckj96&e=saqh1097d932caq1052&s=s1085432hq4dak105c3]399|300|Scoring: IMP

P 1♦ X XX

2♥ P 3♥ 4♠

X[/hv]

 

The hand is from a book I have just been reading. It was in 1950 and Sobel was West and Goren East. So defensive bidding has come a long way since then. Bidding over preempts even more.