Most Important Bridge Skills at each level?
Jeff Bello
1) Average casual player vs. strong amateur
2) Strong amateur vs. professional level
3) Professional level vs. world class
Also, my impression of the bridge is that the actual card play is
relatively minor compared to bidding skill - is this correct?
Charles Blair
>What skills separate players in these classes:
>1) Average casual player vs. strong amateur
>2) Strong amateur vs. professional level
>3) Professional level vs. world class
I doubt that there is any schematic answer to this.
A de Groot wrote a massive study, THOUGHT AND CHOICE IN CHESS, to try
to distinguish skill levels, but I'm not sure he came to any useful
conclusions. You could imagine two players who had approximately
the same level of tournament success, one succeeding by conscientious
application of textbook principles, while the other was weaker at this
but better at drawing conclusions from his opponents' behavior.
>Also, my impression of the bridge is that the actual card play is
>relatively minor compared to bidding skill - is this correct?
Many years ago, Bridge World printed a translation of an interview
with Benito Garozzo (considered by many knowledgable people world's
best all-time player) asking this. As I recall:
Garozzo: Bidding is much more important. Everyone plays cards
equally well at a certain level.
Interviewer: But you have made many spectacular plays.
Garozzo: I think not.
Barry Margolin
poker...@yahoo.com (Jeff Bello) wrote:
> Also, my impression of the bridge is that the actual card play is
> relatively minor compared to bidding skill - is this correct?
I think an important thing is that your bidding skill be matched to your
playing skill. Champion bridge players have good tools for finding
slams that many intermediate players would never bid to. But the ints
probably wouldn't have the skill to bring many of the contracts home.
But bidding does tend to be more important -- I've lost count of all the
easy slams I haven't bid, and that's where you can lose lots of IMPs.
--
Barry Margolin, bar...@alum.mit.edu
Genuity, Inc., Woburn, MA
Peter Gill
That is a widely held opinion but I'm not sure that it's correct.
About 12 years ago, a bridge magazine polled 50 or 100 experts
to discover what qualities are the most important for someone to be
a bridge expert. Bidding skill, bidding system and card play skill
all rated poorly. Concentration, temperament and partnership handling
were the three qualities which totally dominated the results of the
poll.
Skills in those three areas are the main difference between your
categories of bridge players.
Peter Gill.
Andrew Gumperz
> What skills separate players in these classes:
>
> 1) Average casual player vs. strong amateur
defense.
> 2) Strong amateur vs. professional level
Consistency. Emotional control. Better understanding of subtleties in
play and defense, better people-reading skills.
> 3) Professional level vs. world class
Consistency. Emotional control. Partnership bidding.
> Also, my impression of the bridge is that the actual card play is
> relatively minor compared to bidding skill - is this correct?
No. Card play is the foundation on which good bridge is built. No
player with intermediate card play skills can succeed at a high-level
no matter how well they bid.
Good card play is far more challenging than good bidding. However, at
the top levels where everyone plays cards very well, then bidding may
make the difference.
Andrew
Sid Ismail
:Also, my impression of the bridge is that the actual card play is
:relatively minor compared to bidding skill - is this correct?
Nope. It's because of their excellent card play that Meckwell are
aggressive in their bidding. Here are hands to separate the men from the
boys - all due to superior card play:
http://www.elsid.co.za/bridge/arokb8.html
http://www.elsid.co.za/bridge/arokb1.html
and try this little quiz:
http://www.elsid.co.za/bridge/arcstory6.html
Card play is equally important.
---------------
Sid Ismail Look at life through the windshield,
www.elsid.co.za not the rear-view mirror.
---------------
Charles Blair
>About 12 years ago, a bridge magazine polled 50 or 100 experts
>to discover what qualities are the most important for someone to be
>a bridge expert. Bidding skill, bidding system and card play skill
>all rated poorly. Concentration, temperament and partnership handling
>were the three qualities which totally dominated the results of the
>poll.
A lot depends on the exact wording of the question. It is possible
that the respondents interpreted this as "what are the things
you look for when partnering a fellow expert?"
One of the Blue Team members was asked what he looked for in a partner.
The answer:
(1) He should always have a smile on his face
(2) He should know the system well
(3) He should be one of the best players in the world.
Eric Leong
>
> 1) Average casual player vs. strong amateur
Better knowledge of technique.
Makes less gross mistakes.
Better read.
Better at seeing a hand in terms of two hands.
> 2) Strong amateur vs. professional level
Better at preventing partner from making a mistake.
Better disciplined in the bidding.
Better at inducing the opponents to make a mistake.
Better at getting the most out of their partner's of varying strength.
Better emotional self-control.
Better at tolerating partner's errors.
Better at seeing a hand in the context of four hands.
Consistently makes reasonable actions in the bidding and play.
> 3) Professional level vs. world class
Better at penalty doubles.
Better at reading players and the table.
Better desire and able to get in to the psychological mind of the
opponents.
Better intense desire to get a hand right. Willing to make an intense
effort to concentrate.
Better at taking justifiable but surprising imaginative actions that
succeed more often than not.
Eric Leong
t...@cix.compulink.co.uk
gi...@bigpond.com (Peter Gill) wrote:
Perhaps. But I think those qualities really come into the separation at
2) above. Strong amateurs know all the same techniques as professionals
but lapses of concentration stop them making the transition. In theory
partnership handling is much more important to the professional than the
world class player (who need only be compatible with one or two other
players in the same class). Almost regardless of temperament a player
with good technique in at least two of bidding judgement, declarer play,
and defence will rise well above the herd.
Least important of all (IMO) is the choice of bidding system. Assuming
one avoids choosing something completely ridiculous this will seldom have
more than a marginal effect on your results. Although the discussion of a
chosen system with a regular partner will be more productive.
Tim
John (MadDog) Probst
<poker...@yahoo.com> writes
I can't bid to save my life, and it doesn't matter - if 2 hands in 24
have a real problem I'd be surprised. I consider defensive card play to
be much the most significant factor. (You'll be defending 12 hands in
24) cheers john
--
John (MadDog) Probst| . ! -^- |icq 10810798
451 Mile End Road | /|__. \:/ |OKb ChienFou
London E3 4PA | / @ __) -|- |jo...@asimere.com
+44-(0)20 8983 5818 | /\ --^ | |www.asimere.com/~john
Chris Newton
> What skills separate players in these classes:
>
> 1) Average casual player vs. strong amateur
> 2) Strong amateur vs. professional level
> 3) Professional level vs. world class
I surely don't know what's important at professional levels or above,
but up to that point, I'd say it splits into two distinct parts.
Early on, the good players are those who understand the rules and follow
them. I'd guess that without exception, reasonably competent amateurs
understand how their bidding system fits together and account for
partner's possible responses and their own rebids, for example.
Similarly, they'll be conversant with basic card play technique
(finessing, common safety plays and squeezes, throw-ins, odds of suits
breaking, etc). In defence, they'll play a useful system of leads and
discards, count to 13 or 40, etc.
The better amateur players, on the other hand, don't just understand the
rules and follow them, they know when to break them. They are much
better at hand evaluation during the auction and at visualising all the
hands during bidding and play. Consequently they have no qualms about
making offbeat bids where they will provide more useful results or
mislead the opponents, disregarding percentage plays in favour of
inferences available from the auction and play to date, or falsecarding
in defence when signalling religiously would provide no useful info to
anyone but declarer.
> Also, my impression of the bridge is that the actual card play is
> relatively minor compared to bidding skill - is this correct?
For almost everyone, I suspect the two are similarly important. I
suspect there comes a point where "basic" bidding and card play are
routine, and it's a matter of who comes up with the most ingenious
solutions to unusual situations, or the most artful deceptions to cheat
the opponents out of a par score. I've ever played in company of that
calibre for any length of time, though...
It's interesting that several of the more experienced players responding
have commented that card play or bidding is less important than things
like temperament and concentration. While I certainly wouldn't disagree
that these things are important, I'd have said that if anything they
were more important at lower levels, when people will inevitably make
basic mistakes quite frequently, and possibly not know what to do about
them even afterwards. I'd bet on a couple of enthusiastic keen amateurs
with a good mindset over a couple of so-called experts who were
technically excellent but unforgiving of mistakes and overly
self-centred any day.
Cheers,
Chris
Frances Hinden
I don't think this is correct. The way I hope to win matches against
worse players is by bidding a lot of close game contracts (preferably
vulnerable) then making them by superior declarer play and poor
defence. A good bidding system will help you mainly in the slam zone,
and there are fewer hands where you need a good system to get you to
the right slam.
People NOTICE much more when players end in the wrong contract through
a bidding error or accident. Many declarership mistakes and vast
numbers of defensive errors pass by unnoticed.
There's a lot more discussion about bidding because there's more
judgement involved so it's harder to prove you are right, and because
more discussion is needed with partner, rather than study of card play
technique.
If you have 1 hour to agree methods with a new partner I think you
should spend 20 mins on uncontested auctions, 20 mins on competitive
auctions and 20 mins on opening leads & defensive signalling.
t...@cix.compulink.co.uk
> In article <dad2f12c.03012...@posting.google.com>, Jeff Bello
> <poker...@yahoo.com> writes
> >What skills separate players in these classes:
> >
> >1) Average casual player vs. strong amateur
> >2) Strong amateur vs. professional level
> >3) Professional level vs. world class
> >
> >Also, my impression of the bridge is that the actual card play is
> >relatively minor compared to bidding skill - is this correct?
>
> I can't bid to save my life, and it doesn't matter - if 2 hands in 24
> have a real problem I'd be surprised. I consider defensive card play to
> be much the most significant factor. (You'll be defending 12 hands in
> 24) cheers john
John, anyone who "can't bid" in the way you do is defending 8 hands in 24
not 12. The most important skill is being able to declare dodgy
contracts.
Tim
Eric Leong
> On 26 Jan 2003 17:36:47 -0800, poker...@yahoo.com (Jeff Bello) wrote:
>
> :Also, my impression of the bridge is that the actual card play is
> :relatively minor compared to bidding skill - is this correct?
>
>
> Nope. It's because of their excellent card play that Meckwell are
> aggressive in their bidding.
Perhaps, an additional reason is Meckwell mainly play together in a
long imp team matches at the national and international level. In
these type of matches, you can sometimes take plenty of time needed to
find the optimum line of play in a very complicated borderline
contract. I seriously doubt Meckwell could take 15-20 minutes to
intensely concentrate about a single hand in a pairs contest or the
same amount of time in a short swiss match without being penalized on
time.
Eric Leong
Eric Leong
>
> No. Card play is the foundation on which good bridge is built.
I would think bidding is the foundation on which good bridge is built.
You get bonuses for finding, bidding and making good games or slam.
Alternatively, you can save a lot of points by suceeding in preventing
the opponents from finding their good games or slams. When you
underbid or overbid too much no amount of good card play is going to
usually save you.
> No
> player with intermediate card play skills can succeed at a high-level
> no matter how well they bid.
I don't know what you mean by "intermediate card play skills" but
there have been players on World Championship team events and National
team events whose play of the cards was certainly not great but whose
bidding was adequate. All you have to look is at some of the winning
playing sponsors of these teams. You might say these sponsors were
carried but I am certain a great card player with weak partnership
bidding skills would have single handidly sink the team.
I also, might add that in the late sixties, early seventies there was
a Precision team from Taiwan who came in second in the World
Championships behind Italy. Individually, none of the no name players
on the Taiwan team could have matched up with any of the players on
the US Team in terms of card players e.g. Hamman, Kantar etc. Also,
there was a young team of unknown players that won the Spingold
playing Precision against many teams of big name players. In both
cases, the players on the winning teams were comparably less adequate
in the play of the cards but their bidding was sufficiently adequate
to win.
>
> Good card play is far more challenging than good bidding.
I would beg to differ. When you bid you can only see your 13 cards and
you have to guess what the other 39 cards are. When you play a hand
you start off getting to see 26 cards and you know what the final
contract is and you have the opponents bidding and the previous play
of the cards to guide you. In bidding you don't know what the final
contract will be until the end. Also, as you play more the card
patterns and hand types become much more familar to play. In bidding,
you are much more liable to run into unfamilar hands with no clear
systemic choice then you are liable to run into a play hand with an
unfamilar pattern to play. One would think the relative lack of
infomation you have in the bidding compared with the play of the hand
would make bidding more challenging.
> However, at
> the top levels where everyone plays cards very well, then bidding may
> make the difference.
>
Bidding does make the difference. If you playing a top level team, to
beat them you have to be more skillful than the other team at
something. You have to find good makeable games or slams the other
side will not obviously find. You can't be timid and pass up
opportunities for a penalty double. You have to know how to utilize
your partner better so your side has easier decisions to make than the
opponents. You also have to know how to at least marginally handle
competitive bidding situations better than your opponents. In short,
there are much more opportunities to win by bidding than by card play
so bidding is going to be the primary difference between the winning
team and the losing team.
Eric Leong
>
> Andrew
David Samuel Myers
> What skills separate players [...] ?
I separate the game into roughly three equalish parts (bidding, declarer
play, defense) with different weights depending on the skill of players.
I see a BNIAEP Beginner-Novice-Intermediate-Advanced-Expert-Professional
model of how players evolve, originally told to me by a bridge teacher.
Before you laugh and say this is too many levels of fine distinction that
cannot be made, lemme agree it's a reach to call the categories distinct,
but lemme explain...
There's approximately (or larger than) an order of 10-magnitude time
commitment (hands played if you wish) difference between levels, from
observation. Not a hard fast rule, some people learn at different rates,
jump levels with more momentum, but it's approximately so. With order of
magnitude philosophy in mind, the scale sorta tops out from B-to-P. Some
factors are relatively common across learning styles and bridge cultures,
despite huge individual variations. As guidelines, I posit (again, from
casual observation) this rough summary of what people at each level have
mastered. The "for instance" details added below are for color, not to
represent of a brainless checklist.
-A beginner is just learning the rules of bidding/declarer play/defense.
-A novice have mastered the rules.
-They understand the rudiments of the dominant bidding system in their
locale, but the don't execute even the rudiments perfectly. Forget about
advanced conventions beyond dbl,stayman,bw,wk2,forcing2c, and maybe even
forget about some of *those*, ahem.
-They make major errors in declarer play, but may for instance know
what a finesse is.
-They make major errors in defense, but for instance know the std two
or three rules of thumb for opening leads.
-An intermediate understands the major rules to duplicate bridge and
understands the basics of the scoring system despite not necessarily
bidding and playing directly advantageously to the scoring all the time.
-An intermediate knows the dominant bidding system in their locale and a
smattering of the major conventions, but is not using them all and relies
90% on the bedrock system, which they are comfortable with.
-An intermediate has play problems but knows the underlying mechanics of
planning declarer play for the 4 most common contracts: 1NT,3NT,partscore
suit contract, and major game contract.
-An intermediate understands at least one decent defensive carding system
well enough to make use of it, and while not giving away tricks like
crazy comapred to the novice, will still make many defensive errors.
-An advanced player understands the scoring system and mechanics of
duplicate well enough to play competitvely on this basis.
-An advanced player bids comfortably in their base system with many
conventions to optimize their chosen style. They probably have experience
playing against a menu of several opponent's systems and may know more
than one system reasonably well.
-An advanced player is comfortable with a wide variety of declarer
strategies and plans the play of the hand based on percentages and
worst-case-scenarios. Unblocking plays, throw-in plays, etc are used
regularly. Some familiarity with various squeezes, but not mastery.
-An advanced player's defense gives away very few free tricks in a typical
session of duplicate in a competitive field of non-world-class players,
and is thorougly signalified. The killer shift is found a pretty
reasonable percentage of the time.
-An expert has table feel and usually knows how a session is going so far,
as well as having a good impression when a deal is a swing or not.
-An expert makes creative bids when necessary to solve problem situations,
but is cautious not to overreach, knowing what mistakes will be punished
severely. They are comfortable bidding against virtually any style and
have had considerable thought and conversation about the nuances.
-An expert's declarer play is planned down to just about all the
possibilities that can be forseen on most deals, and the correct line of
play is followed a very high percentage of the time.
-An expert's defense is stellar, avoiding traps and finding the correct
plays and shifts after dummy hits almost all the time. The quality of
their opening leads make a substantial difference in the outcome of their
sessions.
-A professional's bidding style and system is thoroughly thought out,
taking the problem cases in stride regardless of opponents, and having
studied the opponents methods probably to the point of nausea. Beyond
just a well-rounded system, a professional relies often on keen
tactical outbidding of their opponents.
-A professional's offensive and defensive cardplay is similar to that of
an expert, but the professional must sustain their concentration for
playing over much longer periods of time because their sessions in the
highest level of play will involve a lot of boards over many days. Their
mental acuity remains high through this.
Barry Margolin
David Samuel Myers <dmy...@ic.sunysb.edu> wrote:
> I see a BNIAEP Beginner-Novice-Intermediate-Advanced-Expert-Professional
> model of how players evolve
I liked your taxonomy. One suggestion: instead of "Professional",
perhaps "Champion". There are many people who play bridge
professionally who are merely Expert or very Advanced. It's confusing
to use the term "professional" to refer both to players with extreme
expertise and to ones who get paid to play.
Andrew Gumperz
> agum...@hotmail.com (Andrew Gumperz) wrote in message news:<98f45892.03012...@posting.google.com>...
> >
> > No. Card play is the foundation on which good bridge is built.
>
> I would think bidding is the foundation on which good bridge is built.
> You get bonuses for finding, bidding and making good games or slam.
> Alternatively, you can save a lot of points by suceeding in preventing
> the opponents from finding their good games or slams. When you
> underbid or overbid too much no amount of good card play is going to
> usually save you.
If you cant make your cold contracts or let your opponents make too
many unmakable games, then no amount of good bidding will save you.
> > No
> > player with intermediate card play skills can succeed at a high-level
> > no matter how well they bid.
>
> I don't know what you mean by "intermediate card play skills"
I mean the typical, life-long flight C or flight B player.
> but
> there have been players on World Championship team events and National
> team events whose play of the cards was certainly not great but whose
> bidding was adequate. All you have to look is at some of the winning
> playing sponsors of these teams. You might say these sponsors were
> carried but
Your point is well-taken. There have been many sponsors who had no
better than intermediate play and defensive skills.
> I am certain a great card player with weak partnership
> bidding skills would have single handidly sink the team.
Depends how weak. I doubt you can find a great player who has truly
BAD bidding judgment. You certainly can find great players who dont
play partnership bridge, but those players still manage success with
the right partner. I agree that an inexperienced (with each other)
partnership of experts whose bidding produces disasters would be a
real result killer.
> I also, might add that in the late sixties, early seventies there was
> a Precision team from Taiwan who came in second in the World
> Championships behind Italy. Individually, none of the no name players
> on the Taiwan team could have matched up with any of the players on
> the US Team in terms of card players e.g. Hamman, Kantar etc.
Not knowing them, it is hard to say how good or bad they were as card
players.
However, I doubt that they were what I have called intermediate
players. One of them was Patrick Huang who is a highly respected
expert player.
> Also,
> there was a young team of unknown players that won the Spingold
> playing Precision against many teams of big name players. In both
> cases, the players on the winning teams were comparably less adequate
> in the play of the cards but their bidding was sufficiently adequate
> to win.
Well, I believe one of those young "unknowns" was Peter Weichsel and
another was Alan Sontag. Anyone out there know for sure? Just because
people are unknown does not mean that they are weaker card players,
only that they have not yet received recognition. I bet in 1979
Meckstroth and Rodwell already played as well as the top experts of
that time, but they had not had enough exposure for people to know it
yet so their success might have appeared surprising.
> > Good card play is far more challenging than good bidding.
>
> I would beg to differ. When you bid you can only see your 13 cards and
> you have to guess what the other 39 cards are. When you play a hand
> you start off getting to see 26 cards and you know what the final
> contract is and you have the opponents bidding and the previous play
> of the cards to guide you. In bidding you don't know what the final
> contract will be until the end. Also, as you play more the card
> patterns and hand types become much more familar to play. In bidding,
> you are much more liable to run into unfamilar hands with no clear
> systemic choice then you are liable to run into a play hand with an
> unfamilar pattern to play. One would think the relative lack of
> infomation you have in the bidding compared with the play of the hand
> would make bidding more challenging.
Play and defense are certainly considerably more difficult to teach
than bidding. It is possible to train an intermediate player to bid
pretty well, but it is virtually impossible to train them to play or
defend really well. Most people never acquire the concentration and
memory skills required to play really well.
> > However, at
> > the top levels where everyone plays cards very well, then bidding may
> > make the difference.
> >
>
> Bidding does make the difference. If you playing a top level team, to
> beat them you have to be more skillful than the other team at
> something. You have to find good makeable games or slams the other
> side will not obviously find.
At the top level today, this is difficult to do. 40 years ago, it was
quite possible to beat an expert team by outbidding them if you had
superior methods. Today, most expert pairs already have very strong
constructive methods.
<snip>
> In short,
> there are much more opportunities to win by bidding than by card play
> so bidding is going to be the primary difference between the winning
> team and the losing team.
You are certainly right that championships are won and lost in the
auction. However, I find it surprising how many times I see two
players given the same hand make reasonable but different decisions.
At the table, we tend to say that the one that worked out was the
"better" bid in reality, who knows? on another day the other person
might have been the winner.
Andrew
Peter Gill
>I also, might add that in the late sixties, early seventies there was
>a Precision team from Taiwan who came in second in the World
>Championships behind Italy. Individually, none of the no name
>players on the Taiwan team could have matched up with any of the
>players on the US Team in terms of card players e.g. Hamman,
>Kantar etc.
No. Patrick Huang was a legend in this part of the world and was
regarded by virtuallty everyone in the know as a world class expert
card player. However, the other team members (from Taiwan and Thailand)
do meet your description. The Taiwan team which again
came second in the World Championships a year later was however
all Taiwanese.
>There was a young team of unknown players that won the Spingold
>playing Precision against many teams of big name players. In both
>cases, the players on the winning teams were comparably less >adequate
in the play of the cards but their bidding was sufficiently >adequate to
win.
Altman, Stuart, Strasberg, Smith and Weichsel. Weichsel IMO,
having played quite a few boards against him, is a hugely more
than adequate card player.
Peter Gill
Australia.
Gordon Rainsford
> If you cant make your cold contracts or let your opponents make too
> many unmakable games, then no amount of good bidding will save you.
If you can't reach the correct game or slam, your declarer play is
rarely going to be good enough to salvage a reasonable result.
--
Gordon Rainsford
London UK
MK
bid and play.
number of possible auctions =
128,745,650,347,030,683,120,231,926,111,609,371,363,122,697,557
number of possible deals = 53,644,737,765,488,792,839,237,440,000
Both are bid enough to regard bid and play as endless, or not repeating
character.
What are the separating (sometimes temporary) factors between success or
failure in such a statistical game as bridge?
Concentration
Memory
Card sense
That is why bidding freaks will never succeed, lol.
MK
"Jeff Bello" <poker...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:dad2f12c.03012...@posting.google.com...
Eric Leong
> Eric Leong wrote:
> >I also, might add that in the late sixties, early seventies there was
> >a Precision team from Taiwan who came in second in the World
> >Championships behind Italy. Individually, none of the no name
> >players on the Taiwan team could have matched up with any of the
> >players on the US Team in terms of card players e.g. Hamman,
> >Kantar etc.
>
> No. Patrick Huang was a legend in this part of the world and was
> regarded by virtuallty everyone in the know as a world class expert
> card player. However, the other team members (from Taiwan and Thailand)
> do meet your description. The Taiwan team which again
> came second in the World Championships a year later was however
> all Taiwanese.
I am sure Huang was regarded as a more than capable card player but I
doubt he would have been considered an obviously better card player
than either Hamman, Kantar, Goldman, Eisenberg, Rapee, or Lazard.
Anyway at the start of the competition, I think the "China" team would
have been considered a long shot to finish as high as second. But the
"China" team did come in second, despite not being obviously superior
in card play. Perhaps, better bidding had something to do with the
result.
>
> >There was a young team of unknown players that won the Spingold
> >playing Precision against many teams of big name players. In both
> >cases, the players on the winning teams were comparably less >adequate
> in the play of the cards but their bidding was sufficiently >adequate to
> win.
>
> Altman, Stuart, Strasberg, Smith and Weichsel. Weichsel IMO,
> having played quite a few boards against him, is a hugely more
> than adequate card player.
This team would have been considered a very long shot to win the
Spingold at the start of the tournament. All the players were
relatively unknown outside of their area and I don't think any of them
had won a national championship yet. Weichael went on to win number
national and world championship events. The others seemed to have
disappeared off of the tournament scence. And of course, Weichsel
would be in my top 20 list of card players. But at the time, I don't
think any of the players were considered to have an advantage in card
play. The fact that this team won the event would suggest their
bidding was more than responsible for the final result.
Eric Leong
>
> Peter Gill
> Australia.
Andrew Gumperz
Well, this is the real point. bidding and play skills are highly
correlated. You dont often find players who play like duffers but bid
like experts and vice versa.
Ron Johnson
Edgar Kaplan argued for bidding, Jean Besse for card play. Both respected
each other's position without being convinced of it. Every so often
Kaplan would make it the theme of a match report. With no particular
conclusion. Besses contended that if you made no mistakes in play (and
he wasn't talking double dummy. Just made the objectively correct play
every time) you'd never lose a long match.
I think most would agree that Meckwell are on the short list for
best bidding partnership. But their style just wouldn't work if they
couldn't play the spots off the cards.
Bob Hamman probably isn't considered a great bidder by world class
standards. He plays a very simple system and the focus revolves
around game decisions. Though he's a worderful declarer he doesn't
strain for thin slams (though he bids every game that moves. Bobby
Wolff once wrote something like. I enjoy having my invitations accepted.
That's why I play with Bob Hamman. I also like to see those games make.
Another reason to play with Hamman.)
--
RNJ
Ron Johnson
I think you can find any number of players whose playing skills
far exceed their bidding skills. Martin Hoffman comes to mind.
--
RNJ
Peter Gill
>Peter Gill wrote:
>> Eric Leong wrote:
>> >I also, might add that in the late sixties, early seventies there
was
>> >a Precision team from Taiwan who came in second in the World
>> >Championships behind Italy. Individually, none of the no name
>> >players on the Taiwan team could have matched up with any of the
>> >players on the US Team in terms of card players e.g. Hamman,
>> >Kantar etc.
>>
>> No. Patrick Huang was a legend in this part of the world and was
>> regarded by virtuallty everyone in the know as a world class expert
>> card player. However, the other team members (from Taiwan and
>>Thailand) do meet your description. The Taiwan team which again
>> came second in the World Championships a year later was however
>> all Taiwanese.
>
>I am sure Huang was regarded as a more than capable card player but I
>doubt he would have been considered an obviously better card player
>than either Hamman, Kantar, Goldman, Eisenberg, Rapee, or Lazard.
>Anyway at the start of the competition, I think the "China" team would
>have been considered a long shot to finish as high as second. But the
>"China" team did come in second, despite not being obviously superior
>in card play. Perhaps, better bidding had something to do with the
>result.
Yes indeed. The rest of your post was accurate, but just as Tim Seres
from Australia was rated by Americans in the know as equal or better
in the card play than those you list, so was Patrick Huang.
Your point about bidding was totally valid - it's just that the respect
for Patrick Huang's card play from those who knew best (e.g Tim
Seres and Dick Cummings) was awesome.
Peter Gill
Australia.
Frans Buijsen
> What skills separate players in these classes:
>
> 1) Average casual player vs. strong amateur
I think play (and defense) skill is the most important distinguishing
factor at the club level. At the mediocre clubs where I play there are
some bad bidders in the top groups and some reasonable bidders in the
lower groups. The groups represent play skill very well, however.
> 2) Strong amateur vs. professional level
There are some differences in all areas, though I think bidding is the
most important one here.
> 3) Professional level vs. world class
>
> Also, my impression of the bridge is that the actual card play is
> relatively minor compared to bidding skill - is this correct?
One thing that I always find rather amazing in the Bermuda Bowl books is
that, after the lead, the card play hardly matters on probably about 90%
of the hands.
--
Frans Buijsen
"Bridge is like sex: if you don't have a good partner, you'd better have
a good hand."
-- Groucho Marx
Charles Blair
famous USA players deleted.]
The Bridge World once conjectured that, if brilliancy prizes were
awarded in the same way as in chess, that Sidney Lazard would have
gotten more than anyone else.
Ron Peacetree
news:b19gqi$7...@gcpdb.ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca...
the point.
Ron Peacetree
news:barmar-C3AB99....@netnews.attbi.com...
> In article <3e370...@marge.ic.sunysb.edu>,
> David Samuel Myers <dmy...@ic.sunysb.edu> wrote:
>
> > I see a BNIAEP
Beginner-Novice-Intermediate-Advanced-Expert-Professional
> > model of how players evolve
>
> I liked your taxonomy. One suggestion: instead of "Professional",
> perhaps "Champion". There are many people who play bridge
> professionally who are merely Expert or very Advanced. It's
confusing
> to use the term "professional" to refer both to players with extreme
> expertise and to ones who get paid to play.
Ron Johnson
In particular in 1969. That particular team was not highly regarded.
Rapee/Lazard was considered the anchor pair (see Edgar Kaplan's match
reports for confirmation) and they'd never have been considered among
the best that North America could field (don't get me wrong. Highly
regarded to be sure. Just not up there with Robinson/Jordan, Kaplan/Kay
or Kehela/Murray for instance)
Eisenberg/Goldman were considered very promising (Actually a lot of
people weren't sold on Goldman at this point. IIRC Hamman was among them.
He made a major leap forward as a player around this time)). Kantar had a
very similar rep (IE promising young player, active theorist). Hamman was
obviously an awesome talent, but was still fairly inexperienced and playing
in a new partnership with a guy known more for disasters (that he'd write
up) than anything else.
They were a consensus pick to end up 3rd. Not behind Huang and company
of course, but rather the French.
--
RNJ
b...@precision.moscito.org
>>>> Eric Leong wrote:
>>>> >Individually, none players on the [1969] Taiwan team could have
>>>> >matched up with any of the players on the US Team in terms of
>>>> >card players e.g. Hamman, Kantar etc.
>>>Peter Gill wrote:
>>>> No. Patrick Huang was a legend ... regarded by virtuallty
>>>> everyone in the know as a world class expert card player.
This I can attest to. Well, I am Taiwanese, but Patrick Huang's aura
covers more than just Taiwan. He was and may still be regarded as the
best player in Zones 2-6-7 (all the way from Pakistan to New Zealand).
>>Eric Leong wrote:
>>>I am sure [Patrick] Huang was regarded as a more than capable card
>>>player but I doubt he would have been considered an obviously
>>>better card player than either Hamman, Kantar, Goldman, Eisenberg,
>>>Rapee, or Lazard. ... the "China" team did come in second, despite
>>>not being obviously superior in card play. Perhaps, better bidding
>>>had something to do with the result.
>Peter Gill <gi...@bigpond.com> wrote:
>>Yes indeed. The rest of your post was accurate, but just as Tim Seres
>>from Australia was rated by Americans in the know as equal or better
>>in the card play than those you list, so was Patrick Huang.
Interesting. I well know the feeling of being diced by Patrick Huang.
But he had a partner and teammates. Not that I'd be accused of being
a defender to Eric, who does not need it, but I sort of doubt if young
Patrick was regarded as an obviously better declarer than young Bob
(Patrick was not yet 30, Bob was slightly older).
Ron Johnson <joh...@ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca> wrote:
>In particular in 1969. That particular team was not highly regarded.
>Rapee/Lazard was considered the anchor pair ( ... considered
>.... Highly regarded to be sure. Just not up there with
>Robinson/Jordan, Kaplan/Kay or Kehela/Murray for instance)
Well, wait a minute here; I thought whatever advantage Robinson-Jordan
or the K's had wwas in the partnership.
>Eisenberg/Goldman were considered very promising (Actually a lot of
>people weren't sold on Goldman at this point. IIRC Hamman was among
>them. He made a major leap forward as a player around this time).
Goldman was not a nobody; by his performance in the 1969 Trials he had
already convinced everyone of his advance. The Manley book tries to
sell you on the idea that Wolff was considered an equal to Hamman and
Eisenberg and Goldman was not. The fact was that Wolff, Eisenberg and
Goldman all played in their first trials in 1966 and their second in
1968. Kaplan, at least, made it clear that Eisenberg and Goldman were
the players with the highest potential on that team.
[No wonder Edgar had many enemies.]
>Kantar had a very similar rep (IE promising young player, active
>theorist). Hamman was obviously an awesome talent, but was still
>fairly inexperienced and playing in a new partnership with a guy
>known more for disasters (that he'd write up) than anything else.
Ferchrissakes! Bob Hamman had come in second (by that point) twice in
the world championships (of 64 and 66). Young sure, inexperienced I
would not call him. Kantar-Miles amused everyone with their stories
of disasters, but they did not get everyone to adopt their methods
(cue Marv French) around LA by being less than a top U.S. pair.
>They were a consensus pick to end up 3rd. Not behind Huang and
>company of course, but rather the French.
That is different. The reason that people were not enamoured of that
team in general and of Kantar-Hamman in particular was that Kantar and
Hamman had broken up their partnership in 1968 when the latter jumped
ship to the Aces. Their partnership, laden with Kantaresque science,
can't help but be on shaky ground. Rapee and Lazard were never known
for being particularly accurate in the bidding. In fact, looking back
on my 50's and 60's Bridge Worlds in his prime Rapee's fame was about
his psyching -- tactical bidding, if you will. He was in fact rated
as a great player, yes, but not a demi-God like B. J. Becker.
Barry Margolin
Frans Buijsen <f.bu...@cable.a2000.nl> wrote:
> One thing that I always find rather amazing in the Bermuda Bowl books is
> that, after the lead, the card play hardly matters on probably about 90%
> of the hands.
In high-level competitions, I think there are big swings in only about
10-20% of the hands. Perhaps half of these are due to bidding
differences (e.g. one pair missing a game/slam that the other bids,
doubling vs. not doubling, choosing the right strain, etc.). So that
doesn't leave many hands where the play matters.
Charles Blair
(just won the Blue Ribbon pairs, age 72) is a great card player
who has never had a regular partnership. In the trials preceding
the 1969 Bermuda Bowl, he and George Rapee played 4 of a major
in a 4-1 fit and made it.
Even acknowledged great players can have disasters. In one
hand against Italy in 1969, Hamman unnecessarily gave Kantar a
discarding guess in a slam, and Kantar went wrong.
George Theron, from the French team, suggested the 1969 team
was a victim of overconfidence.
Andrew Gumperz
I think these examples take the argument too far. None of these guys
bid like duffers--not even close. All of them evaluate hands
well--they simply choose to take very aggressive positions. They bid
games knowing full well many of them will fail because they understand
that they make up for it on the ones that make. If you asked them,
they would tell you that aggressive positions give them the best
chance to leverage their advantage in playing the cards.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
More thoughts about Expert bidding. It is easy to:
1. find experts whose bidding is highly idiosyncratic. Marshall Miles
is an example. These experts have a very different than normal idea of
what some common sequences show. As a result, they may make bidding
decisions that others would reject. For example, Marshall likes to
play negative doubles as sounder than most other players. Therefore as
opener he is willing to pass a negative double more often than other
experts. Without knowing this fact, an observer might think that
Marshall simply had bad judgment on some hands where he passed a neg
double.
2. Find experts who dont like scientific bidding. These experts may
simply not want to be bothered with learning conventions. I would not
call their bidding "bad", although IMO they would improve their
results some if they choose to apply more science in the right places.
3. Find experts who bid extremely aggressively-perhaps even
unreasonably aggressively. Zia, Meckwell and Hamman all follow this
style. This is a choice and in all their cases it is hard to argue
with their success.
4. Find experts who are unusually conservative--perhaps even
unreasonably conservative. Edgar Kaplan was an example. This was also
a conscious choice in style. Kaplan choose to try to minimize large
negative numbers. He was willing to pay the price of allowing the
opponents more room to find their own contracts.
It is very difficult to find experts who:
1. Can not evaluate their cards.
1a. Can not visualize possible hands for partner during the auction.
2. Make irrational decisions out of fear (like pulling a partner's
penalty double)
3. Dont know what bids mean in their system. (Experts are certainly
not immune to forgetting a convention, but typically they all have a
base core system that they understand well.)
4. In an unfamiliar but natural auction, can not infer from the
sequence what their expert partner is showing them.
These are all characteristics of truly bad bidders.
Andrew
Paul Brewer
news:d30df517.03012...@posting.google.com...
> poker...@yahoo.com (Jeff Bello) wrote in message
news:<dad2f12c.03012...@posting.google.com>...
> > What skills separate players in these classes:
> >
> > 1) Average casual player vs. strong amateur
> > 2) Strong amateur vs. professional level
> > 3) Professional level vs. world class
> >
> > Also, my impression of the bridge is that the actual card play is
> > relatively minor compared to bidding skill - is this correct?
>
> I don't think this is correct. The way I hope to win matches against
> worse players is by bidding a lot of close game contracts (preferably
> vulnerable) then making them by superior declarer play and poor
> defence.
<snip>
I'm not so sure. I think this approach maximises the difference (i.e. will
win the match by a greater margin) more of the time, but to give one's team
the best chance of winning the match, albeit by a slightly smaller margin, I
suggest playing more or less down the middle, and relying on superior skill,
judgement and card playing ability.
In other words, I am suggesting playing fairly normally against weaker
players; by all means take the odd liberty, but don't push too much.
Regards,
Paul
Steve Willner
> In high-level competitions, I think there are big swings in only about
> 10-20% of the hands. Perhaps half of these are due to bidding
> differences (e.g. one pair missing a game/slam that the other bids,
> doubling vs. not doubling, choosing the right strain, etc.). So that
> doesn't leave many hands where the play matters.
It's probably obvious, but... the only reason the play doesn't matter
at top level is because everyone at this level plays the cards
superbly. Substitute a lesser player in an otherwise top level game
and the play would very quickly be seen to matter.
Ron Johnson
You can see this to some extent in the sessions where the client is
playing. Now all of the clients are pretty good players by the standards
of club play, but still. I still recall kibitzing an expert who brought
home a tricky slam because he chose to trust that the client was giving
honest count signals. I can't really describe the look declarer and the
client's partner (Ron Andersen) shared.
What's funny is that the clients sometimes generate positive swings
because their play isn't reliable.
--
RNJ
Barry Margolin
joh...@ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca (Ron Johnson) wrote:
> What's funny is that the clients sometimes generate positive swings
> because their play isn't reliable.
That's probably due to all the inferences that the opponents make, which
turn out not to be right.
E.g. if you read a book like "How to Read Your Opponents' Cards", you're
taught lots of inferences based on assuming that opponents will make
"normal" leads. But if your opponent hasn't mastered what Lawrence
wrote in his book on opening leads, your assumptions can be way off.
They underlead aces, don't lead from sequences, etc. (Of course,
experts can also fool you by intentionally violating these guidelines --
Lawrence spends the whole book drumming in that you should *never*
underlead aces against suits, and then has a section in the last chapter
that explains when to do it.)
--
Barry Margolin, bar...@alum.mit.edu
Genuity Managed Services, Woburn, MA