How much do you modify your system?

[Free]

I guess most of us have some preferred serious partnership. I wonder, how much changes do you make to your system in such partnership (EDIT: on average)?

 

- How much do you play in that partnership? (very important)

- Do you collect problems and sit together once a month/year to analyze them and find solutions?

- Do you modify something every time you encounter a problem?

- Do you have a large TODO list?

- Do you have system freeze periods where you don't make any changes at all?

...

[WellSpyder]

- Do you have a large TODO list?

This.

[hotShot]

The correct option is not available.

 

We modify the system, if we discover that our system forces us into the wrong contract, whenever a specific situation appears.

 

We elaborate our agreements (and update the system notes), whenever we hit a bidding sequence that is not covered by an agreement or a meta agreement and that lead to a misunderstanding.

 

Of cause the frequency of these occasions, goes down very fast.

 

A bidding system is like a tablecloth that is a little to small, if you fit one side, you open a gap at the other side.

 

Frequent system changes lead to more system changes ..

[helene_t]

With manudude03 we will often assign meaning to bids which used to be ill-defined. Almost every week there will be some minor thing to discuss. Changes, on the other hand, are rare. I think last time we changed something was when we decided to play T-Walsh, that may be one year ago.

[Codo]

I guess most of us have some preferred serious partnership. I wonder, how much changes do you make to your system in such partnership?

 

- How much do you play in that partnership? (very important)

- Do you collect problems and sit together once a month/year to analyze them and find solutions?

- Do you modify something every time you encounter a problem?

- Do you have a large TODO list?

- Do you have system freeze periods where you don't make any changes at all?

...

1. We practice one or two times a weak and play about 6-8 serious tournements a year.

 

2. We look on any given hand and try to find out why we failed. This is quite easy after a bad result in that hand, but if the result was a wash or good, it is much harder to see the mistakes.

 

3. Not really. We look what the improvement would cost in terms of memory, problems with other hand types and how often we may have the problem. If it is a bidding thing, we try to bid these hand types in the practice room on bbo. Then we compare the results. More often then not we do not change.

 

4. No we are really satisfied. The system is not perfect at all, nor is it the best system in the world or even the one I like most. But it is a working compromise for both of us.

 

5. While playing in the "Bundesliga" you have to announce your system before the season. So we try not to make big chances during the season (Jan-April) because that wuld need a lot of work.

[jjbrr]

I haven't changed any part of my system in almost a year.

[Free]

I haven't changed any part of my system in almost a year.

Why is that? Because you have a pretty perfect system, or because you are willing to accept it's short comings?

[Jlall]

When I played with my last partner we lived together and played a ton and I would say we made modifications at least every month. It would usually be something like "so I was thinking...we should change this" and sometimes it would be something major like "our structure here is bad, and I saw Meckwell do this..."

 

With my current partner he is not that good with system changes but I'd say we make a couple of minor changes before every tournament and very few major changes. Whenever I notice something that can be improved upon I force myself not to say anything unless it's very important for the sake of not tinkering non stop since he doesn't like it.

[pirate22]

with a new partner,and a regular partner,we started with a simple basic system.

not to many widgets, (learn to walk before you run)this is a good base to start with a new partner---and then either of us is a leader or a follower,and any modifications are discussed,and agreed,always open to discussion before implementing.

With a regular partner the same scenario,but both of you have an established scenario,so not to many modifications----but the odd hand comes up crash.

we both will discuss the crash problem,but by agreement,we do not throw the baby out with the bath water,for 1 /2 odd hands,unless fully discussed and the system modified.

also with a regular partner one has a good wavelength,so with a basic system with a few widgets not to many,make all your bids work.in unaposed auctions,and contested auctions.

Example pard opens 1n/t be it weak or strong,do you have an agreed escape mechanism? if x by 2nd-or 4th position

How do you employ a system over opps weak 2d/2/h/2s.they in 1st pos'n or in 3rd po'sn

Carding leads and discards-most important.

are sys on/off if interference comes in over pards 1n/t? regards

[jjbrr]

I haven't changed any part of my system in almost a year.

Why is that? Because you have a pretty perfect system, or because you are willing to accept it's short comings?

Are those my only two options? The first option you know is just silly, the second option seems misleading. Who doesn't accept his system's shortcomings, since every system has some holes? Every time you tweak something, you create some kind of other problem. I suspect many would consider memory strain a problem, but also there are inevitably some hands that your previous methods handled better.

 

I haven't changed my system, because I simply haven't cared to.

[Rossoneri]

Just last week, my partner decided to make some additions to the system we are playing, mainly in competitive auctions.

 

During the course of the weekend at Spring Fours, we found a few more problems and decided to patch this.

 

Otherwise, we have not changed the system since November, but then again, we only play together approximately 1-2 times a month.

 

In my other current fixed partnership, I have not really changed the system since we first started playing in October.

 

I will readily admit that I would like to change certain parts of the system but laziness and school has gotten the better of me.

[bab9]

Of the regular partners I've played with, it is only my current partner has wanted to change the system with the addition of additional conventions. These additions were not necessarily added to improve the system we play, but to learn them so we could defend against them when we came up against stronger players. So far we have not used each convention in duplicate play. We play weekly, and have played together for several months.

 

With my previous partners, the only change made to the agreed initial system was to change from Gerber/Blackwood to Roman Key Card Gerber/Blackwood.

 

Personally I would like to learn other basic systems first before changing our system so that I can better understand the strengths and weaknesses of each (and how to better defend against them). Does anyone know of references to the strengths and weakness of each bidding system? (I recently played against a power relay system and was stuck on how to bid competitively against that system).

[Elianna]

- How much do you play in that partnership? (very important)

We try to play once a week, and play in many tournaments together.

 

- Do you collect problems and sit together once a month/year to analyze them and find solutions?

We usually talk about things when they come up. (Usually after a tournament, not during.)

 

- Do you modify something every time you encounter a problem?

We don't make a lot of CHANGES to our system, but we usually define more sequences when we want to have more meanings. The last biggish change we made was a year ago, when we added transfer advances after 1M-(x).

 

- Do you have a large TODO list?

You'd have to ask my partner. He's usually the one that suggests things. The only suggestion I ever had was about form of Drury.

 

- Do you have system freeze periods where you don't make any changes at all?

Yes. See above for evidence.

[MarkDean]

This has varied a lot over my bridge playing career, mostly with my amount of free time. When I was student, I used to enjoy tinkering with things, and managed to find accomodating partners who would humor me and let me change system about once a month.

 

Nowadays I don't even play (in real life) once a month, so it is much less often.

It also depends a lot on what you mean by modify system. If you count defining undefined sequences, I would say I discuss such things fairly often.

[Fluffy]

if the partnership is new you make a lot of changes, but when the partnership is very old changes are very few.

[blackshoe]

The partners I play with most often aren't interested in changing the system, even if there's a good reason to do so.

[ggwhiz]

I voted for once a year but it's closer to every two years. I'm the only system freak in the partnership and as jlall points out, you have to respect your pards wishes, or lack of them.

 

One very successful local pair played power precision and their card looked like a chinese menu but once a year you would play against them and they were playing SAYC.

 

One pard insisted that they start over cause the other one changed it every session.

[Finch]

I guess most of us have some preferred serious partnership.

I have two. But I'll answer for the one I probably play the most with.

 

- How much do you play in that partnership? (very important)

On average, probably about 30 boards/week, but there's quite high variance (after next weekend it will have been about 300 in the space of under three weeks but that includes things like the Crockfords final).

 

- Do you collect problems and sit together once a month/year to analyze them and find solutions?

This comes down to what you mean by "problems" and by "modify system". After virtually every time we play we will discuss some of the auctions (usually competitive ones) that came up and we may then come to a definite conclusion on something that we hadn't previously agreed on, but this isn't really analysing systemic problems. For example, after 1suit (overcall) anything (cuebid or jump cuebid) it is possible to play double of the cuebid either as take-out of their suit, or as showing a good suit of your own; we recently agreed exactly when we play each of these.

 

Do you modify something every time you encounter a problem?

Absolutely not. We believe that way madness lies... Unless your system is totally unplayable, any solution is likely to give rise to further problems. We maintain a mental list of hands on which the system has failed, and keep an eye out to see if the solution is worse than the cure. The only time we did an 'emergency patch' was when we realised there was an sequence where opener had no way to show 15-17 balanced in an uncontested auction because we'd forgotten that hand type in the relay responses(!)

 

- Do you have a large TODO list?

We have a TODO list, but it's not that large.

 

- Do you have system freeze periods where you don't make any changes at all?

Definitely. Usually in a period where we have a lot of serious bridge. We try and introduce changes in non-serious events to give us time to get used to them.

 

We rarely make wholesale changes. We'd gone for about 10 years with minimal alterations to the system, but then we started playing rather more and decided to improve some rather clumsy things, so in the last two years we've had three major revamps:

(i) In both partnerships we switched to playing transfer responses to 1C, and worked through all the possible continuations (once you include competitive auctions, you'd be surprised how much there is to discuss for what seems quite a simple idea)

(ii) We didn't make many changes as such, but we documented all uncontested sequences up to & including responder's third bid,which involved defining quite a few undefined sequences (I don't really mean 'all', but I certainly mean 'any sequence that could possibly come up at the table')

(iii) Three of us (who all play with the other two) spent a long time on competitive auctions, and now have a long (and ever-growing) file of competitive agreements. It's longer than the uncontested system file, and still growing.

 

But having made a raft of big changes, I don't anticipate much major changing again for a while, other than a few small things on the to-do list, so I'm hoping for a few years of peace.

[mike777]

fwiw

 

It i said this years ago but repeat.......most partnerhips at at top level are short term.....in fact most in general are short term.......

 

 

look at top 2000 partnerships worldwide.......

 

 

;;;;if you prefer look at top 100 short term..........as of 2010

 

Can you guys spell out 1000 or even 500 partnerships that win and lasted last 20 years?..ok....40 years?