[ASkolnick]

The pattern I notice about conventions, at least when I was playing was the following:

FLight C: Very little conventions, just learning.
Flight B: Every convention under the sun or what you choose to play.
Flight A: OK, we have gone through the process of figuring out which ones we like and which we ones we don't. We will stick to those.

Not going to argue the merits of any convention, since on any hand, one will work out better or worse.

[pclayton]

Perhaps we need to start listing 'genius' conventions that are ONLY played by the top pairs and by none of the STCP's.

[jtfanclub]

Quote

I haven't played money bridge in many years, but a friend of mine owned a money bridge club in Montreal until a few years ago, and both my experience, his stories, and general writings I have read over the years would leave me very, very surprised if good rubber players arrived playing mini-roman, or virtually any convention beyond stayman, gerber, blackwood and a few other standards.

That's exactly right- I don't recall what they played for 2♦, might have been Flannery, might have been weak, but their card was very basic.

I didn't realize that you were emphasizing that if somebody's only convention was mini-Roman, they're probably beginners. I thought you were saying that you would think that somebody with only very basic conventions would be worse players than people with a 'well filled out 2/1 form'. I was saying from my limited experience that the great rubber bridge players play a very basic system but are amazing at card play.

[FrancesHinden]

pclayton, on Sep 5 2008, 03:54 PM, said:

Perhaps we need to start listing 'genius' conventions that are ONLY played by the top pairs and by none of the STCP's.

I'm not sure there are any.

My original point was not trying to bash particular conventions at all. It was actually something different. The (brief) discussion on WJS made that point: depending where you are in the world WJS are either very popular or very unpopular with stronger players. No-one has really proved to general satisfaction what the 'best' range for an opening 1NT is, but there's still a strong relationship between skill and chosen NT range within my local area.

This all started with the "how can you tell how good an opponent actually is" and I stand by the original proposition: simply by looking at their convention card you can often get some strong indications about the expertise of the opposing partnership. Of course you may be wrong, this is a probability discussion.

At the risk of fanning the flames further, here are some other things you can deduce purely from (English) convention cards:

- the card is barely filled in, or just has "strong NT / 4 card majors" scrawled across the top, and "natural" everywhere else: they are rubber bridge players, their play is likely to be better than their bidding

- I don't actually have an opinion on the merits of Flannery at all, but if your opponents play Flannery, the best deduction you can make is that they are likely to be North American expats/visitors.

- they play mini NT in 3 positions, or vulnerable: their pre-empts are also likely to be very random

- they play upside down count: you can trust them to give (reverse) count 100% of the time in defence. For some reason, over here where reverse count is very rare, every practioner always gives religious count in every suit.

[dburn]

Reverting for a moment to the original topic (in order to save having to explain that anyone who plays support doubles is at best an aardvark and certainly not an expert), I am reminded of a story. Sami Kehela and Eric Murray entered a tournament where they were required to indicate on the entry form for a particular event how many master points they held. "Not many", wrote Kehela, but the brasher Murray wrote "Plenty".