Bob Hamman's assertion

[andych]

From Hamman's At the Table

 

 

To the chess players who made me realize there had to be an earier game.  To the college professors whose classes were so boring I couldn't help but focus on bridge.  And to the theorists and promoters responsible for five-card majors and forcing notrumps - they gave many talented opponents weapons they couldn't beat me with.

 

 

 

What do you think??

 

:) :lol:

[mike777]

1) Well since I got my MBA from Bob's college, I agree.

2) 2/1? ya agree, Look how great one must be to get good results. We must play as well as Fred. Look at how many patches we all play with and discuss here :)

[Gerben42]

Just a good system won't make you able to beat Hamman. A good system is a little help, but not making mistakes is more important.

 

And all these 'patches' are not patches but 'detailed agreements'. Do not assume a different system won't use a lot of conventions at the highest level.

[csdenmark]

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[fred]

Bob Hamman is a great player - but he has to pay credit to his partners Paul Soloway and James Jacoby. He also needs to pay credit to Dallas Aces and the whole combat versus Blue Team. This means he has been taken into an excellent school and he has been able take advantage from that.

 

It is rather pity that none of the socalled good players here on BBO seems to know or have the courage to test the great tool Hamway Club. It is a great and modern system with very detailled handling of interferences.

 

If Bob Hamman had just played the kind of simple systems many seems to prefer these days he would not have been on top today. It will surely be very difficult to raise the new players without testing strong tools and sad to say all the regulators need to be punished for regulating strong tools out leaving most players with no real option to meet interesting challenge. He would of course newer had been able to reach his kind of excellent skills just playing simple bridge systems. Gerben I am sure you mean something like that - but that means a system is very important and not only of little importance.

 

link to system HAMWAY  CLUB

 

link to system ORANGE  CLUB

I disagree with almost all of this and I am quite certain that Hamman would too.

 

Bob Hamman wins because he takes a lot of tricks, makes very few careless errors, has fantastic judgment, has incredible concentration skills, and is a great competitor. In my opinion his system has NOTHING to do with his success. I would even go as far as to say that Bob wins despite his system, not because of his system.

 

I have had the experience of losing to Hamman's team on numerous occasions as well as beating him a few times. I have also studied just about every hand of just about every important match that Hamman has played over the past 35 years. As such, I think I am in a good position to know why, when the match is over, Bob usually comes out on top.

 

My advice to anyone who aspires to play as well as Hamman would be to not clutter your minds with complex systems and conventions and focus on what is important: winning a lot of tricks and developing good bidding judgment.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[luke warm]

i also think hamman has won and still wins because he's a superior player... however, i also think claus' post has some merit - system does matter, at least rodwell seems to think so... as one half of the arguably best pair in the world, i think he'd attribute at least *some* of his success to his system... true, they are great players, but it's a matter of debate as to how great they'd be in another system... the same can be said, imo, for all players whose results have stood the test of time

[keylime]

Hamman said it best:

 

"Experts play badly, everyone else is worse.".

 

That to me is the sign of a great man.

[glen1]

My advice to anyone who aspires to play as well as Hamman would be to not clutter your minds with complex systems and conventions and focus on what is important: winning a lot of tricks and developing good bidding judgment.

 

Please note that Fred wrote this before Episode III, Revenge of the Roman Numerals, where he takes on the Italian Team for several years, and then switches over to the dark side (I think it was some strong diamond system with 8-12 openings but I don’t have the screenplay at hand – rumour has it Yoda was based on Joey Silver). Although system and/or comprehensive sets of partnership agreements are needed at high levels (at least until Fred proves that he can win playing two pages of Goren notes), developing players should avoid the crutch and distraction of highly evolved bidding systems and stick with mainstream methods. So forget all that Darth Vader equipment (though I think that mechanical breathing would throw off the opponents) and learn to wield a light sabre first.

[Winstonm]

Anyone who has read Hamman's book, "At the Table" should know why he wins so often as he spelled it out: he wins because he has the almost unheard of ability to block out thoughts of the past (the hand just played), glimpses into the future (Two more flat boards and we win) - those things that befuddle and bewilder and cloud the minds of us lessers - and to stay focused only on the present and concentrate fully on the hand he is playing at this instant. Anything that takes away from this focus - including system - is a negative.

 

winstonm

[mike777]

Anyone who has read Hamman's book, "At the Table" should know why he wins so often as he spelled it out: he wins because he has the almost unheard of ability to block out thoughts of the past (the hand just played), glimpses into the future (Two more flat boards and we win) - those things that befuddle and bewilder and cloud the minds of us lessers - and to stay focused only on the present and concentrate fully on the hand he is playing at this instant. Anything that takes away from this focus - including system - is a negative.

 

winstonm

All of this and all that Fred says may be right and true. Bob seems to be making one simple assertion here.

 

5 card majors and forcing nt played by top class is not best, in fact he asserts it is very poor and gives him a distinct and significant advantage.

Playing 4 card major is significantly better.

 

This comment does not say strong club is best or complicated is best.

[Winstonm]

Bob seems to be making one simple assertion here.

 

Mike777 is right in that Hamman in his book strongly supports 4-card majors; however, in the Orange Club that he and Wolff developed, I believe they played canape', which fits in nicely with the 4-card major approach.

 

Someone else may know more on this subject. I have little practical experience playing canape'.

 

winstonm

[Guest Jlall]

I have played with bob and on teams with him many time (in fact we are competing in the GNT championships for our district right now). I can honestly say I think he simply wins because he makes few mistakes, and has great judgement. He doesn't do alot of genius or abnormal things, he just doesn't beat himself.

[Free]

I once heard a great quote: "the system you play is not important, it's the handle that counts". I agree for 80%...

[david_c]

If someone is a good bridge player, then they will play well no matter what system they use. But that doesn't mean it's not possible to improve your results by changing your system. At any level of the game, if you're playing a better system than your opponents then it will increase your chances of winning. That is why, when I hear people being advised that they should forget about system if they want to improve, I don't feel that this is entirely valid. Certainly the advantage you get is relatively small, but if someone has the right mindset for playing an unusual system, they should be not be discouraged from doing so.

 

As for the Hamman quote, clearly he believes that his system is better than standard 5-card majors. Perhaps this is correct. But he has said it in a deliberately provocative way. Obviously it is possible to beat him playing 5-card majors: it's just very, very hard ...

[csdenmark]

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[fred]

As for the Hamman quote, clearly he believes that his system is better than standard 5-card majors. Perhaps this is correct. But he has said it in a deliberately provocative way. Obviously it is possible to beat him playing 5-card majors: it's just very, very hard ...

I don't think Hamman's quote is meant as a reference to "his system" (ie strong club with 4-card majors and canape). I believe the quote is meant to compare natural systems with 4-card majors to those with 5-card majors.

 

I do agree that playing an effective system is important, but in my opinion:

 

1) For 99% of all bridge players out there for want to improve their results, they will be MUCH better off keeping the bidding simple and spending their time learning to play well.

 

2) Once you learn to play well, any system will get the job done (as long as it is not totally ridiculous and truly strong players understand the game well enough to avoid falling into this trap).

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[the hog]

I have played just about everything under the sun. Believe me, Fred is 100% correct - provided what you play is not totally stupid, system matters VERY little.

A relay system for example might enable you to to bid a grand in a known 4-3 fit because you KNOW partner has Qx in a given suit. So what? How many years are you going to wait till this comes up again? And what about the crappy contracts you have got into in the meantime because you were not able to identify holdings via natural sequences, or else you plain forgot a relay response? Mind you, if you play what you play because you enjoy it, that is another story altogether.

 

Ron

[hrothgar]

Hamman is trying to be deliberately provacative in order to boost sales of the book...

[csdenmark]

..

[Echognome]

Please note that Fred wrote this before Episode III, Revenge of the Roman Numerals, where he takes on the Italian Team for several years, and then switches over to the dark side (I think it was some strong diamond system with 8-12 openings but I don’t have the screenplay at hand – rumour has it Yoda was based on Joey Silver).  Although system and/or comprehensive sets of partnership agreements are needed at high levels (at least until Fred proves that he can win playing two pages of Goren notes), developing players should avoid the crutch and distraction of highly evolved bidding systems and stick with mainstream methods.  So forget all that Darth Vader equipment (though I think that mechanical breathing would throw off the opponents) and learn to wield a light sabre first.

LOL! I don't think this post got enough of its due.

 

As per the system debate, I think it's pretty interesting. The president of our university club really wants all of improving players to just stick to simple Acol and focus on learning it well. Of course most of the students start to learn it and then play some online and end up adding tons and tons of different gadgets and conventions.

 

My argument to him was that although I agreed that their bridge would improve if they just stuck with simple system and improved their cardplay, defense, and bridge judment, that their bridge INTEREST may suffer.

 

When you read Hamman's book, you note that he spent hours and hours of study when he learned the game. He wrote that after playing all day, he would go home at night and study double dummy problems (something that Garozzo was also known to do). Also in his time with the Aces, he was what I would call a "true professional" player. By that I mean he was paid to work on his game, not just sponsored to play with someone. (I do not mean this as any slight to people that play with sponsors because I think that is good for the game.) But not many people have the opportunity to devote their full time to the study and improvement of their game.

[Walddk]

If Bob Hamman had just played the kind of simple systems many seems to prefer these days he would not have been on top today.

This is sheer nonsense Claus! He would have been on top playing ANY system. He has his preferences, yes, but he would get along nicely with anything.

 

As an aside (At The Table), he could perhaps have been a bit more dimplomatic occasionally. He uses phrases most authors would not even think about when writing a book.

 

"The Danish declarer butchered the contract".

 

Lars Blakset (not mentioned in the book) may not have chosen the best line on that particular deal, but it is somewhat rude to write "butchered". Fred can confirm that Lars is a world class player and that he had his reasons for adopting that line which led to minus 300.

 

(Was in the semi-finals at the Olympics in Rhodes 1996 and was a contributing factor to Denmark's loss after overtime).

 

By the way, Denmark went on to win the bronze medal. No one does that in an event like this if you have butchers in the team.

 

Roland

[david_c]

1) For 99% of all bridge players out there for want to improve their results, they will be MUCH better off keeping the bidding simple and spending their time learning to play well.

I do disagree with this. Yes, if you want to become a good player, there is nothing more important than developing good judgement and learning to play well. But you can't completely ignore the aspect of making agreements with partner, and for most people this process will tend to make their bidding more complicated.

 

There are plenty of good reasons to play relatively complicated systems:

 

1. Conventions can reduce the amount of guesswork needed. [e.g. playing artificial raises of a 1M opening, to make it easier to decide what level to play at.]

 

2. You rely less on judgement than if you play a simpler system. (Of course, it would be even better if you could improve your judgement as well, but even then, nobody can get everything right all of the time.)

 

3. Simple systems tend to have holes, many of which can filled by playing artificial methods. You rarely get a good result when you fall into a hole.

 

4. If you change your system of opening bids (or overcalls or responses), there will be some hands which are good for the system and some hands which are bad for the system. To a large extent you should expect these to cancel out. However, it is an inescapable fact that some systems are better than others. If you switch to a system which gains you, say, 0.2 IMPs per board on average, then that will increase your chances of winning. Of course, you have to put the effort in to learn the system, but this only has to be done once. After that, you can go on collecting your 0.2 IMPs per board as long as you can keep your partner.

 

5. If you're playing a system which you believe to be superior to your opponents' system, then this can give you extra confidence. On the other hand, if you are playing a system which you believe is weak in some areas, then you may worry too much about what happens when these things come up.

 

Though, I have to admit, the main reason I tend to play relatively complex systems has nothing to do with wanting to improve my results:

 

6. Bidding theory is interesting in its own right.

[luke warm]

while fred may be correct that hamman's quote didn't refer to his system specifically (though who knows, that might be just what he meant), it's self-evident that system matters...

 

at the highest levels, all pairs look for competitive advantages... that's why the rodwells of the world exist, and it's why he has worked endlessly to "perfect" his system.... he knows, at some level, that it's a pipe dream but so what? in the searching he just might stumble on something that gives his team that elusive advantage... doesn't that mean that this bid/convention/*system* is "better" than another, at least in his mind?

 

fred and brad, for instance, honestly believe (at this point in time) that a 5 card major system will give them a competitive advantage, i.e. that this system is "better" than others... if they didn't believe this, they wouldn't play it... hamman obviously believes (or at least he says he does) this systemic philosophy is inferior, so he has adopted a method of play that doesn't let other pairs take advantage of what he sees as its weaknesses

 

i agree that if you can't play, you can't play... the system won't much matter... and if you can play, you can play irregardless of the system... but that's a far cry from saying that ones results would be the same regardless of the system played...

[csdenmark]

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[glen1]

Although I fully agree that Hamman would be “on top” playing any decent system, it has been said that he split with Wolff because the latter would not change their bidding methods. So Hamman himself could believe that methods are important (at the highest levels) and hence the quote from this book. For myself, even as a long-time system designer and chaser of bidding science utopias, I don’t believe Hamman’s choice of system had much bearing on his results in general. For players like Hamman, and his current partner Soloway, their success over the years, in my view, derives from their amazing ability to play consistent error-free bridge. In such light, the number one factor in deciding on a system to play should be does it assist the partnership in consistently reducing the number of errors.

 

Put another way, the system chosen should be one the partnership is comfortable with, and enjoys playing. I think Hamman likes his system a lot, though I have wondered if Soloway would prefer 2/1, given he played it with Walsh and Goldman (though with Goldman for some time they dabbled with using a light opening bid strong club system when not vulnerable). Although Soloway might prefer 2/1, I don’t think he minds playing Hamman’s system, since he knows it functions well too.