32519, on 2011-December-09, 17:28, said:
The threads you are referring to are:
Bidding is 80% of bridge
http://www.bridgebas...is-80-of-bridge
What’s the best way to improve your play?
http://www.bridgebas...rove-your-play/
Developing Bidding Judgement
http://www.bridgebas...ding-judgement/
I am not arguing against any of this. At Match Points an overtrick can be the difference between an above average board or an average board. At IMPs an overtrick gains 1 IMP. However a missed game or slam substantially increases the lost IMPs.
Board 19 Round 4_21 from the recent 2011 Bermuda Bowl I kibitzed the players from my home country, South Africa, landing in inferior contracts (or having to defend after failing to enter the auction). Here is an example
In the open room either a bidding error or a partnership misunderstanding led to an inferior contract. In the closed room the South player chose not to open the bidding. Nobody knows how the auction would have continued in the closed room if South had opened the bidding. However in the open room East could have saved the board by bidding 5♠ over 5♥. Had E/W bid the excellent ♠ slam instead of the ♣ slam the 13 IMPS lost on the deal would in fact have been a 13 IMP gain. An inferior contract resulted in a double IMP swing.
The Bermuda Bowl showcases the top players from their respective countries. Yet even at this level the gap between the teams who made the quarter finals and the rest quickly opened up. The hand above is an example of how the gap opened so quickly. Landing in the right contract is the first step to progressing further in the tournament.
These forums have plenty of ATB threads (assign the blame) and How Do You Bid This threads. They all have to do with bidding. Berkowitz and Manley didn’t do their survey in the BBO Forums. Most likely they surveyed USA’s top players.
Conclusion: Maybe Berkowitz and Manley’s survey wasn’t wrong after all.
You can't draw any conclusion from what you bring as "evidence". Berkowitz and Manley did a survey
a couple of years before 2002 (but they didn't specify how many years - is it 2 or 20 years ago?) and their conclusion
at that time apparently was that bidding is more important. But times change, bridge theory changes,... These days people/top players think declarer play and defense are much more important than bidding.
- on the forums we also have several top players, from different countries. Although we aren't all top players, I read the reactions from truly world class experts, and they all said declarer play is most important.
- Overtricks gain a lot in MP scoring, that's true. But when you're playing a sharp contract, you're not playing for overtricks, you're playing for contract or defeat. This particular 1 trick is then worth 5, 10, or even more imps (depending on the contract and vulnerability), while in MP it's only the difference between an average and a top/bottom.
- You can bring lots of examples where bidding created a huge swing, but you can do the same with declarer play or defensive play. In the latest BB final we got a great example, Simon De Wijs found the perfect defense in trick 1:
He played the
♦Q, the other table did not. He never made his
♦A, but got his partner twice on lead to play
♣. Result: a vulnerable game swing.
- It's much easier to create an ATB thread or a bidding poll, because your options are very limited. If you give 2 hands and ask how people will play, usually they'll respond "I'll start with blablabla, what happens?". You'll have an endless thread going back and forth. OP can give 20 spoilers, but then how objective will the responses be? If one looks at all the spoilers first, he can almost recreate 4 hands and play DD.
"It may be rude to leave to go to the bathroom, but it's downright stupid to sit there and piss yourself" - blackshoe