[Lobowolf]

Trumpace, on Sep 4 2008, 03:25 PM, said:

IMO, determing if a player is good or bad depends on

1) Their bidding judgement
2) Their play and defense.

What conventions they do play or don't play, is irrelevant. There might be a correlation, but I think it is a very weak one. It all depends on how well the convention is used, not how good you think the convention is.

(Note: the above applies to amateur players. Not sure about pros)

I find it strange that people actually seem to ridicule others based on the conventions they play...

For me, it's certainly NOT about ridiculing anyone, but it absolutely is a quick spot-check barometer. If the auction goes:

1♦-1♠;
2♥

And responder has a minimum opener, or if the auction goes:

1NT-(2♥)-X*

*-Transfer to spades

There's a REALLY good chance you ain't watching a Spingold final.

[mr1303]

FrancesHinden, on Sep 4 2008, 08:33 AM, said:

- Nottingham Club

You've actually come across someone in the real world play that as opposed to in Robin Hood's bridge memoirs?

[fred]

Lobowolf, on Sep 4 2008, 08:55 PM, said:

if the auction goes:

1NT-(2♥)-X*

*-Transfer to spades

There's a REALLY good chance you ain't watching a Spingold final.

My regular partner and I play that if the auction goes:

1NT-2D-X

That DBL is sometimes a transfer to hearts (it depends what 2D means).

Granted we haven't made it to the Spingold Final for a couple of years, but we won that event roughly 3 years ago and lost in the Final a few years before that.

I agree with Trumpace in that I don't like the sound of some of the posts in this thread either. It is one thing to ridicule bidding methods that you think are poor, but to suggest that people who use such methods are likely to be weak players is not very nice IMO.

I have been known to strongly critical of some popular conventions myself from time to time (recent tirades against 2-way Drury, 4-minor as RKCB, and good-bad 2NT come to mind). I truly think these conventions are theoretically unsound and I believe I can offer compelling arguments as to why that is the case.

But I always try to be careful to criticize the methods themselves as opposed to the people who are playing them. There are 2 reasons for this:

1) Any method that is popular is all but certain to have adherants who are A-1 players. I would not feel comfortable putting down someone like Fred Hamilton (who invented Hamilton which is also known as Cappelletti). True I hate his convention, but this guy has won more World Championships than I ever will. To suggest that there is a good chance he is an idiot shows a clear lack of respect for someone who very much deserves respect (at least my respect - maybe you are a better player than both of us?).

2) I personally get no joy from hurting the feelings of average players who enjoy using some of the conventions I hate. That's just plain mean in my view.

I am not suggesting that the people who make such posts are intentionally being mean. But the bottom line for me is that these posts sound mean even if no meanness is intended.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[Gerben42]

Quote

True I hate his convention, but this guy has won more World Championships than I ever will.

C'mon You're still young, and we're all rooting for you (except if the Dutch are your opponents...)

[cherdano]

Let's say I play against an unknown American pair at a tournament, and they are playing precision. If they are playing a 14-16 NT, then I think it is more likely that they are good than if they are playing a 13-15 NT. This has probably nothing and at most very little to do with merits, of course there are many world class players playing classical precision. It is just that modern Meckwell style precision with a 14-16 NT is popular among a different crowd than classical precision.

When sitting down in the first round of a national pairs event against a Chinese pair my default assumption is that they are very good. The logic above is the same.

Every good bridge player uses these kind of prejudices. If we have to base a decision in declarer play on the level of opponents, and we don't know then, then we have to make a guess. Basing the guess on prejudices will be right more often than guessing randomly.

[matmat]

All this "judging by system" talk raises an interesting question, in my mind.

When you come across a partnership that plays a method that was popular, say, 10 years ago, how can you (and do you try) to determine which of the following is true:

1) they formed their partnership 10 years ago, so probably have played together well, perhaps they don't like to tinker with the system and are good players

2) they learned bridge 10 years ago, met 2 days ago, played for the first time yesterday. both suck

3) one is very good, knows all sorts of systems, the other still lives in 10 year-ago convention land.

4) other?

[mikeh]

Trumpace, on Sep 4 2008, 03:25 PM, said:

I find it strange that people actually seem to ridicule others based on the conventions they play...

I didn't see anyone ridiculing anyone based on the conventions they played.

Frances started this part of the theme by stating only that the appearance of certain conventions on an opp's cc would suggest that that partnership was not an expert partnership... she said nothing about it suggesting that the players were stupid or, indeed, that both partners were inept.

The reality is that there appears to be a strong correlation between some types of convention and ability. Which conventions correlate the strongest will be subject to regional variation: benji acol is unheard of in my part of the world, and frankly I wouldn't (until now) have drawn any negative inference about an opp who showed up at my table with that on their card.

But show me a card with mini-roman, cappelletti over our 1N, no responsive doubles, and a 2N overcall of our weak 2Major as takeout for the minors, and I am 100% confident that my opps are non-expert.

But that assessment of their current skill level is not an insult or an attempt at ridicule. For one thing, I personally have played a lot of conventions that I now regard as ill-advised, and that certainly, and accurately then revealed my non-expert status.

And, most importantly, anything that helps me assess my unknown opps is going to help my game, so long as I get it right. As declarer, with a choice between relying on a defensive error or a low-percentage but technically correct line, I will be more inclined to opt for the error against a pair playing mini-roman than against a pair with a complete, well-written souped up 2/1 card. As a defender, I will make a risky defensive play against an expert if declarer's line of play suggests that this is the only hope, but one cannot safely reverse-engineer a poor declarer's holdings from his near-random line, nor is the risky play always necessary.. declarer may be about to make an error.

So when I look at the cc of an unknown opp, especially if I am playing away from my home turf, where , if I don't recognize the opp, the opp is probably non-expert, it isn't just to make myself feel superior: it is also to help me play effectively against them.

[jtfanclub]

mikeh, on Sep 4 2008, 06:05 PM, said:

But show me a card with mini-roman, cappelletti over our 1N, no responsive doubles, and a 2N overcall of our weak 2Major as takeout for the minors, and I am 100% confident that my opps are non-expert.
.
.
.
As declarer, with a choice between relying on a defensive error or a low-percentage but technically correct line, I will be more inclined to opt for the error against a pair playing mini-roman than against a pair with a complete, well-written souped up 2/1 card.

That's a good way to get yer butt kicked.

The last time I faced a card like that in a big competition, it turned out the opps were from a money-bridge game. The nickel a point guys may play fairly simple stuff, but man, they were easily the best card players I've ever played against, by a lot.

[mikeh]

jtfanclub, on Sep 4 2008, 06:26 PM, said:

mikeh, on Sep 4 2008, 06:05 PM, said:

But show me a card with mini-roman, cappelletti over our 1N, no responsive doubles, and a 2N overcall of our weak 2Major as takeout for the minors, and I am 100% confident that my opps are non-expert.
.
.
.
As declarer, with a choice between relying on a defensive error or a low-percentage but technically correct line, I will be more inclined to opt for the error against a pair playing mini-roman than against a pair with a complete, well-written souped up 2/1 card.

That's a good way to get yer butt kicked.

The last time I faced a card like that in a big competition, it turned out the opps were from a money-bridge game. The nickel a point guys may play fairly simple stuff, but man, they were easily the best card players I've ever played against, by a lot.

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. Maybe your experience differs, but the rubber players I have played against in good competition use few conventions and even fewer odd-ball ones like mini-roman.

And, of course, the whole point of this aspect of the thread is not that players who play no conventions are bad players... or that all players who play one particular bad convention are bad players.. we are talking about probabilities... and my 100% comment was partly hyperbole and partly based on the combination of conventions listed... and I would be amazed if any good rubber player played the sequence [2♠] 2N as takeout for the minors!!! They have way too much respect for strong hands to do that.

[fred]

mikeh, on Sep 4 2008, 11:05 PM, said:

So when I look at the cc of an unknown opp, especially if I am playing away from my home turf, where , if I don't recognize the opp, the opp is probably non-expert, it isn't just to make myself feel superior: it is also to help me play effectively against them.

Well maybe I am out to lunch if even you (you being one of those rare experts that actually exhibits considerable humility) seem to think such posts are perfectly acceptable.

My objection is not toward this sort of thinking. Of course it is important to attempt to judge the skill level of unknown opponents and course you should use whatever patterns you have observed in the past in order to do so.

But I am pretty sure I know you well enough to say with confidence that you would never burst out laughing at the table if your opponents opened 2D and explained their bid as "mini-Roman" (and I happen to agree with you about the value of this convention in a natural system). That would be rude and insulting. While you might well enjoy a laugh over this convention at the bar after the game, you are not the sort of guy who would behave that way at the table. Furthermore, I expect it would really bother you if your partner behaved that way.

My objection to the sort of posts I have been complaining about essentially amount to the same thing. Of course it is fine for you to have an opinion about the correlation between skill level and mini-Roman (or whatever), but I don't see the point of expressing these sorts of opinions in a public forum (unless you don't care about hurting large numbers of peoples' feelings and I am pretty sure that is not the case with the Mike Hargreaves that I know).

But as I said, maybe it is me who is out to lunch here.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[ArcLight]

>I have been known to strongly critical of some popular conventions myself from time to time (recent tirades against 2-way Drury, 4-minor as RKCB, and good-bad 2NT come to mind). I


Fred,
Where are these posts on BBO?

(any one please point me to them!)



As for CC - I see "Advanced" BBO players with "Stayman and Transfers" as teh only text on their profile. In general (based on my experience) they are not advanced players.

[xcurt]

First off, since I was the first to list some methods, I didn't mean to offend or denigrate anyone's game and I apologize if I did so.

Second, I thought Frances' post was generally in response to how do you assess whether you want to play with someone you don't know. It's a particular problem on BBO because it's big, it's international, and the self-ratings are not accurate. That's the problem I was trying to address.

[gwnn]

ArcLight, on Sep 5 2008, 04:18 AM, said:

>I have been known to strongly critical of some popular conventions myself from time to time (recent tirades against 2-way Drury, 4-minor as RKCB, and good-bad 2NT come to mind). I


Fred,
Where are these posts on BBO?

(any one please point me to them!)



As for CC - I see "Advanced" BBO players with "Stayman and Transfers" as teh only text on their profile. In general (based on my experience) they are not advanced players.

http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?sho...ndpost&p=246528

is for 2 way drury (what a great post!)

[zasanya]

fred, on Sep 4 2008, 07:57 PM, said:

........

But as I said, maybe it is me who is out to lunch here.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

Well said sir.You will find many of us sharing the same 'lunch-place'.
Some of these posts from usually respectable posters remind me of a wisecrack I heard a long time ago."A gentleman is only 50% gentle ;the rest is all Man."

[awm]

I think the point is that in general, expert players tend to think a little bit about the conventions they play, observe good and bad results from them, and modify their methods accordingly.

Of course, people's experience and judgment varies widely. And some people have a stronger tendency to seek or avoid "complicated" methods. You can't really judge someone's bridge ability based on what conventions they don't play -- after all they might never have heard of that convention, or think it's too complicated, or not think it's worth discussing in a fairly new partnership.

But I think the point people are making is that there are certain conventions that are just awful. They simply don't give good results when they come up, and virtually all good players who have played (or played against) them sufficiently will realize this. The claim is that anyone who has such a convention on their card either doesn't really think critically about their methods (and thus is not an expert) or hasn't had enough bridge experience to realize the convention is bad (and thus is not an expert) or simply lacks the ability to judge whether a convention has worked out well on a board or not (and thus is not an expert).

Of course, some of the conventions mentioned here are arguably not quite bad enough for this qualification, but I think the idea makes some sense.

[fred]

awm, on Sep 5 2008, 03:34 AM, said:

But I think the point people are making is that there are certain conventions that are just awful. They simply don't give good results when they come up, and virtually all good players who have played (or played against) them sufficiently will realize this. The claim is that anyone who has such a convention on their card either doesn't really think critically about their methods (and thus is not an expert) or hasn't had enough bridge experience to realize the convention is bad (and thus is not an expert) or simply lacks the ability to judge whether a convention has worked out well on a board or not (and thus is not an expert).

(Playing the devil's advocate to some extent)

I suppose the many vugraph commentators who have a field day with Gerber believe that this convention is "just awful". Maybe they are right, but I am guessing that since all of the leading partnerships in North America use Gerber, there is some chance that this convention might actually have some merit.

Then there is Flannery - another frequent subject of ridicule among vugraph commentators (who by and large are excellent players). If you agree with them that Flannery is just awful, try telling that to players like Hamman, Wolff, Bramley, or the late Paul Soloway. Or let great partnerships like Martel-Stansby or Weinstein-Levin know what you think. They all play Flannery and I think it is just barely possible that they know something.

How about Mexican 2D? Probably just about everyone thought that this was a ridiculous convention until some of the leading Italian pairs started using it.

I happen to have my own opinions about which conventions are awful and I like to think that I can back up these opinions with logic. But no matter how dumb I think a given convention is, there are always players I respect who disagree. That is enough (for me at least) not to draw any general conclusions about the likely skill levels of those who happen to see things differently than I do.

(And if I were to draw such conclusions I hope I would polite enough to keep such opinions to myself).

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[Lobowolf]

fred, on Sep 4 2008, 11:42 PM, said:

Quote

I suppose the many vugraph commentators who have a field day with Gerber believe that this convention is "just awful". Maybe they are right, but I am guessing that since all of the leading partnerships in North America use Gerber, there is some chance that this convention might actually have some merit.

Though having said that, I bet there's an inverse correlation between how good a pair is and how often a 4♣ bid in that partnership is Gerber...

[ArcLight]

>I happen to have my own opinions about which conventions are awful and I like to think that I can back up these opinions with logic. But no matter how dumb I think a given convention is, there are always players I respect who disagree. That is enough (for me at least) not to draw any general conclusions about the likely skill levels of those who happen to see things differently than I do.


Fred,
PLEASE post these kinds of analysis, thoughts!!!!!

I would love to read this!

[mikeh]

Quote

But I am pretty sure I know you well enough to say with confidence that you would never burst out laughing at the table if your opponents opened 2D and explained their bid as "mini-Roman" (and I happen to agree with you about the value of this convention in a natural system). That would be rude and insulting. While you might well enjoy a laugh over this convention at the bar after the game, you are not the sort of guy who would behave that way at the table. Furthermore, I expect it would really bother you if your partner behaved that way.

My objection to the sort of posts I have been complaining about essentially amount to the same thing. Of course it is fine for you to have an opinion about the correlation between skill level and mini-Roman (or whatever), but I don't see the point of expressing these sorts of opinions in a public forum (unless you don't care about hurting large numbers of peoples' feelings and I am pretty sure that is not the case with the Mike Hargreaves that I know).

Of course I wouldn't burst out laughing at an opp for the opp's methods. On reflection, I can see how the posts here might seem equivalent, but I don't think that that was the intent.

I think part of the problem is that in today's world there is a tendency to equate ignorance with stupidity. Only non-knowledgable players play certain very ineffective conventions or treatments: thus we can draw fairly reliable (but not infallible) inferences about a player's skill level if, in an uncontested auction such as 1♠ 2♦ 2♥ 3♥ 4♣, it turned out that 4♣ was gerber, and on the next board they opened a mini-roman in a natural system.

These opps might be very intelligent people but, for whatever reason, including inexperience, they are ignorant of the expert thinking.

We are all ignorant of much of human knowledge: the fields of knowledge being as vast as they are. No one can be expert in all they do....unless they do virtually nothing. And while there is some correlation between bridge skill and intelligence, it is not absolute... the smartest person I ever knew was hopeless at bridge, even tho he loved to play.

I would not go into the local club, nor would I write an article for the unit newsletter announcing that one can identify ignorant or non-expert players by their conventions. But these fora attract people who are serious about the game. Some are already expert, but I know, from pms I have received, that many players, including the experts, want to learn more. If any reader here sees that respected posters feel that using mini-roman, for example, is a sign of a lack of knowledge, and that reader has been a user of mini-roman (as I was many years ago), maybe these posts will prompt the reader to wonder why. And learning and understanding the reasons most (all?) experts now disdain the use of the convention will probably advance the reader's understanding of the game.

So, while I agree with your main point that it is wrong to insult or ridicule anyone, I still don't see the posts here (Phil's, Frances' Adam's, mine and most of the others along these lines) in that light. Post them where casual players read, and I'd agree with you. And if anyone reading these posts thought that being told that their use of a certain gadget revealed them to be stupid or inherently inferior, as a person, then I would apologize and hope to explain that they are confusing ignorance with stupidity. I was almost certainly more intelligent when playing mini-roman and rolling gerber than I am now.... but I am a lot more knowledgable these days... I was a beginner then, and can claim to be an expert these days. Not because I got smarter... but because I learned more about the game. One reason I and many others post here is to give something back.. to help others reduce their ignorance... and since I am writing to the person behind BBO, I know that you share that wish, probably to a far greater extent than I.

If any reader here felt offended by my posts, I do apologize.

[ArtK78]

Back in June, at the Philadelphia Regional, I played in a KO match against two well-known experts who usually play together as a partnership. I was surprised to see that they played Mini-Roman, a convention that I despise. Sure enough, it came up and they had a disaster.

Does this mean they were non-experts? Certainly not. For whatever reason, they were playing a method that I (and many others) consider to be flawed, and one of the flaws bit them on this hand (the actual result was -300 for them in 3♠ opposite a PASS OUT at the other table).