[mikeh]

akwoo, on 2018-November-23, 19:25, said:

Mikeh - Maybe this is a statement about the average bridge player rather than about the OP, but I'm sure that the OP is better - and more willing to learn new things - than the average player.

For one thing, most bridge players are, in practice, incapable of learning 2/1 well enough to play even remotely well with GIB, despite the explanations of bids being available.

OP has been brought up on playing sound, low-risk bridge that is effective at consistently doing well in very weak fields. It's not surprising that he's questioning ideas that are higher-risk, even if they are better. You would play like him too if you wanted to minimize your chance of losing to players who can't count trumps correctly on a consistent basis.

I minimize those chances by playing well. You?

[hrothgar]

akwoo, on 2018-November-23, 19:25, said:

I'm sure that the OP is better - and more willing to learn new things - than the average player.

Look at the OP's hand evaluation in the post that started this thread

Not only is it god awful, the OP can't even conceive that this is a problem.

[diana_eva]

hrothgar, on 2018-November-24, 04:50, said:

Look at the OP's hand evaluation in the post that started this thread

Not only is it god awful, the OP can't even conceive that this is a problem.

Apparently he does see there is a problem (somewhere, unclear where - but he knows something's wrong when everyone else goes to slam and his partnerships doesn't), else he wouldn't have posted here. Cut him some slack or get off the N/B forum please. He's willing to talk and go over hands which is a huge step forward. Many players don't care the least to think about what went wrong in some past hand, they shudder it off with a "bad luck part".

[mikeh]

diana_eva, on 2018-November-24, 05:27, said:

Apparently he does see there is a problem (somewhere, unclear where - but he knows something's wrong when everyone else goes to slam and his partnerships doesn't), else he wouldn't have posted here. Cut him some slack or get off the N/B forum please. He's willing to talk and go over hands which is a huge step forward. Many players don't care the least to think about what went wrong in some past hand, they shudder it off with a "bad luck part".

I would agree with you were it not for two themes that arise in a lot of his posts. One is that he claims to be unable to count to 9 tricks....see the thread where he was annoyed that the field bid 3N while he bid 5D. He claimed that 3N would always fail on good defence, when it was in fact cold on the same finesse as was needed in 5D. Then he argued that a hand that was off the first two heart tricks, with the lead being obvious, was a slam hand. Why? Because in his game most declare s made 12 tricks

So he is either trolling us or he cannot count tricks, or see loses, even when he knows all 4 hands.....despite playing bridge for 40 years.

The other theme is that at no time has he ever expressed any agreement with or appreciation for constructive advice. Instead he consistently asserts that anyone critiquing his analysis or providing advice is engaged in a personal attack. He adds to this comments that seem aimed at denigrating the ability of those who have criticized his ideas. Thus he claims to be asking for advice, but won’t tolerate anything short of approval for his amazingly weak ideas. Those ideas would be excusable in a true beginner, but one cannot claim to be a beginner after 40 years. Moreover, he often claims to see himself as an intermediate level player.

I have been harsh in my recent comments, but I began my responses to him with constructive advice, to which he responded, as he did to others, with claims of persecution and attack.

He is either one of those sick people who get their jollies pretending to be someone they are not, or he is an unfortunate person utterly lacking talent for a game he enjoys. In the former case, he bores me. In the latter case, I feel a little sorry for hm.

[diana_eva]

mikeh, on 2018-November-24, 14:19, said:

I would agree with you were it not for two themes that arise in a lot of his posts. One is that he claims to be unable to count to 9 tricks....see the thread where he was annoyed that the field bid 3N while he bid 5D. He claimed that 3N would always fail on good defence, when it was in fact cold on the same finesse as was needed in 5D. Then he argued that a hand that was off the first two heart tricks, with the lead being obvious, was a slam hand. Why? Because in his game most declare s made 12 tricks

So he is either trolling us or he cannot count tricks, or see loses, even when he knows all 4 hands.....despite playing bridge for 40 years.

The other theme is that at no time has he ever expressed any agreement with or appreciation for constructive advice. Instead he consistently asserts that anyone critiquing his analysis or providing advice is engaged in a personal attack. He adds to this comments that seem aimed at denigrating the ability of those who have criticized his ideas. Thus he claims to be asking for advice, but won't tolerate anything short of approval for his amazingly weak ideas. Those ideas would be excusable in a true beginner, but one cannot claim to be a beginner after 40 years. Moreover, he often claims to see himself as an intermediate level player.

I have been harsh in my recent comments, but I began my responses to him with constructive advice, to which he responded, as he did to others, with claims of persecution and attack.

He is either one of those sick people who get their jollies pretending to be someone they are not, or he is an unfortunate person utterly lacking talent for a game he enjoys. In the former case, he bores me. In the latter case, I feel a little sorry for hm.

I suggest if we simply respond to the bridge hands and issues he posts, instead of psychoanalyzing him and trying to guess his intentions, everyone would be happier.

[pescetom]

nige1, on 2018-November-23, 16:08, said:

When you know you have a double fit (here ♥ and ♠), then the law of total tricks implies that opponents also have a fit (here ♦), if they aren't already aware of that fit, then we might be able to pre-empt them out of finding it. Cue-bididng etc might allow opponents to compete. Anyway, the information from further exploration might be less useful to us than to them. In such contexts, Hugh Kelsey labelled a slow approach "Daisy Picking". Hence, here, there is a case for fast arrival in a likely game or slam.

Does the law of total tricks have anything to say about a double fit rather than our longest fit in a single suit? Knowing that we have a double major fit I can see that it is probable that the opponents have a minor fit, but I think that holding these suits and these hands it still makes a lot of sense to exploit our slow arrival systems to the full, and good luck to the opponents if they want to compete in their minor - at most they are going to stop us finding the right level of slam, which a resort to fast arrival is going to reduce to guesswork anyway.

[nige1]

pescetom, on 2018-November-24, 15:42, said:

Does the law of total tricks have anything to say about a double fit rather than our longest fit in a single suit?

AFAIR, yes. A double-fit increases ODR (offence/defence ratio).

pescetom, on 2018-November-24, 15:42, said:

Knowing that we have a double major fit I can see that it is probable that the opponents have a minor fit, but I think that holding these suits and these hands it still makes a lot of sense to exploit our slow arrival systems to the full, and good luck to the opponents if they want to compete in their minor - at most they are going to stop us finding the right level of slam, which a resort to fast arrival is going to reduce to guesswork anyway.

With this North Hand, 7♥ is an excellent contract. Had North a similar shape but fewer points, then 7♦ might have been a cheap sacrifice against 6♥. In general, it's a matter of judgement but, on some hands, not necessarily this one, it's sensible to jump to slam.

[akwoo]

pescetom, on 2018-November-24, 15:42, said:

Does the law of total tricks have anything to say about a double fit rather than our longest fit in a single suit?

Yes - having a second fit adds one to total tricks, with the caveat that, when total trick count gets above 20 or so, it's quite frequent for one side to have "12 tricks (on a friendly lead)" but be off 2 aces off the top.

[akwoo]

mikeh, on 2018-November-24, 14:19, said:

One is that he claims to be unable to count to 9 tricks....

or he is an unfortunate person utterly lacking talent for a game he enjoys. In the former case, he bores me. In the latter case, I feel a little sorry for hm.

There was a post on bridgewinners a while back about a hand from a just declare tournament - where you were in 3N, with 13 clear tricks off any lead (though you have to be a little careful not to block a suit), and 20% of players didn't take 13 tricks.

And about the last comment - by your estimation, most of my club, or just about any club, lacks talent for bridge. There's a reason that I average about 60% in BBO free daylongs, and about 45% in the Sunday forum daylongs.

Please - respect the skill of the average player for what it is - which is that it is miles better than someone who always cashes aces off the top at defense, even if it's still miles worse than the skill of expert or world class players.

[akwoo]

mikeh, on 2018-November-24, 00:53, said:

I minimize those chances by playing well. You?

Apparently you've never played in a field so weak that preempting is always a bad idea, and any sort of sacrificing worse, because opponents will always find ways of either missing their game or setting themselves? (Okay, admittedly, this wasn't a sanctioned game, and I was playing in it only as a favor to fill out a table.)

[diana_eva]

akwoo, on 2018-November-25, 02:56, said:

Apparently you've never played in a field so weak that preempting is always a bad idea, and any sort of sacrificing worse, because opponents will always find ways of either missing their game or setting themselves? (Okay, admittedly, this wasn't a sanctioned game, and I was playing in it only as a favor to fill out a table.)

A bit off topic but years ago there was a weekly BBO juniors tournament, and then some regular BIL tournaments. I played the juniors tourney (wild bidding, crazy preempts, as you can imagine) and hopped straight to the BIL game. On the last hand I had a pretty big score and a tough decision on whether to bid grand slam or not with an enormous hand and very basic slam investigation tools with my beginner partner. All of a sudden it dawned on me that these aren't juniors, nobody's going to be in grand here. So I settled for the small slam. It was something like 90%, only two or three people bid slam at all, while a good chunk of the field didnt even reach game. I think it was the first time in my bridge life when I realized it matters what the strength of the field is.