[mr1303]

Scoring: MP

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1H (Pass) ?

EW are sound players, but not top class. East hesitated for about 30 seconds before passing.

Scoring: MP

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1NT (Pass) ?

1NT was 15-17

On both of these boards, me and my partner followed some mixed strategies and gained good scores here. I will explain what happened later, but for now I'd like to concentrate the discussion on which non-obvious bids you might make, and the likelihood of you making them, and the merits or otherwise of making these bids.

[Jlall]

4H and 2D followed by 3S.

[pooltuna]

Jlall, on Sep 22 2009, 06:03 PM, said:

4H and 2D followed by 3S.

agree 4♥ is obv. on the second one how about 4♦ followed by 4♠

[awm]

There are several interesting options here. On the first hand, besides the normal 4♥:

(1) 4♣ fit jump (if played this way) might be a good option.
(2) A bergen constructive raise followed by a game bid has some advantages.
(3) A psych of 1♠ is certainly a possibility (and it works a lot better after 1♥-P than 1♥-X).

On the second hand, 2♦...3♠ is certainly the normal action. Alternatives:

(1) 2♦ and then psych a minor suit splinter.
(2) 2♦ and then 6♥ (give the opponents a lead problem).
(3) 2♦ and then 3♦ (showing diamonds to try to deflect a killing diamond lead).

All of these lead to worse "double-dummy" slam bidding, but might work out in practice by convincing the opponents to make a poor lead.

[cherdanno]

I think not bidding 4♥ on the first one is terrible. RHO hesitated, so maybe LHO can't act when he might want to, so we are already ahead of the field. Of course, I may just be missing out on what kind of genius bid might work here.

[gnasher]

I'm too stupid to do anything but 4♥ and transfer-then-splinter.

[655321]

Yes, sounds like one of those irregular verbs.

I follow mixed strategies, You bid erratically, He can't bid to save his life.

[ritong]

if i desperately need a good board, i would consider 3 NT on the second one, hoping to hit a case where the number of tricks is the same in both denominations, or opponents mislead, or are shocked enough with the dummy to misdefend.

[OleBerg]

1) 4♣ (fitbid) is not really an alternative, but rather a mistake I could make. (So according to me, there is a 1/30 chance that I would do it. According to my partner, the chance would be 1/6.)

I do not consider bidding differently because RHO hesitated, to be a mixed strategy. I would consider it to be "bidding according to circumstances". Likewise, if one of my opponents has to pass (for example because of a penalty card), I would preempt more conservatively. Not a mixed strategy, just bidding according to circumstances.

2) 2♦ followed by 3♠, splinter. And here I actually play, that partners 3NT is to play. So with my regular partner, anything else would be totally silly.

Otherwise, I echo the considerations of ritong.

I have yet to encounter a situation, where I would find a mixed strategy useful. But it could be an interesting desk-analysis.

[hrothgar]

OleBerg, on Sep 23 2009, 03:05 PM, said:

I have yet to encounter a situation, where I would find a mixed strategy useful.

Have you ever made a psych?

If so, care to describe it...

[OleBerg]

hrothgar, on Sep 23 2009, 02:29 PM, said:

OleBerg, on Sep 23 2009, 03:05 PM, said:

I have yet to encounter a situation, where I would find a mixed strategy useful.

Have you ever made a psych?

If so, care to describe it...

I haven't psyched in serious bridge in the last 10 years. I play an aggressive system and is an overbidder. Furthermore, my partner heeds S.J.Simons advice, that says that when you play with an overbidder, you should overbid yourself.*

So our system generates enough volatility by itself.

But even if I decided to bluff once in a while, I would not consider it a mixed strategy. I would bluff when I felt the circumstances were right. Some of these circumstances might be difficult to quantify, but they would still be there.



* For easy reference, S.J. Simons advice is; If you play with an overbidder, and start to underbid to compensate, the overbidder will simply overbid even more, just to compensate. If, on the other hand, you overbid to, he will start to moderate his bid, to compensate for your overbidding.

[mr1303]

Well, on the first board, I did indeed psyche 1S, which caused the following auction:

1H P 1S P
2C P 4H (5D)
5H

all pass

This went 2 off, but was a complete top since EW were cold for 4S, and those who sacrificed in 5H were doubled. I don't have the full hands, but East had a borderline 1S overcall and West had a strong 2-suited hand with spades and diamonds.

On the second hand, my partner did raise to 3NT (as suggested by Ritong). Whilst on best defence this would be 4 off, the actual result was that opponents led a 4th best from their ace, and I claimed all 13 tricks, which again was a top since everyone else (that I asked) had had a Blackwood auction and stopped in 5H with 2 aces missing. A punt of 6H might be successful, depending on whether or not the opening leader fancied leading his ace or not.

What do people think of the merits of this style of bridge? In particular the second hand, which is not really a psyche, but more of a spin of the roulette wheel, just with (hopefully) slightly more favourable odds.

[jdonn]

mr1303, on Sep 25 2009, 10:56 AM, said:

What do people think of the merits of this style of bridge? In particular the second hand, which is not really a psyche, but more of a spin of the roulette wheel, just with (hopefully) slightly more favourable odds.

Top and bottom bridge is not winning bridge, I feel very strongly. The best way I can think of to explain why is this.

If you are a better than average player (you expect to get over 50% by playing "normally") then you have more to lose than to gain on the average board by shooting for tops and risking bottoms.

If you are a worse than average player (you expect to get under 50% by playing "normally") you will (clearly, I hope we can agree?) gain more by learning how to play bridge better than by shooting for tops and risking bottoms.

One more thing. Every bridge player in the world, right up to the very best, make tons of mistakes. (If online vugraph has taught us anything...) So it stands to reason that the best way for bridge players to improve their scores is to reduce mistakes.

[mtvesuvius]

I'm boring, but I wouldn't try anything other than 4♥ on the first and transfer then 3♠ on the second. I really try not to play top and bottom bridge as much as I used to, and recently I have won several matches against excellent players by just playing solid and not taking many risks (of course this is IMPs, but still...). My matchpoint game is usually relatively solid, so taking top or bottom views for me isn't a very attractive option. Of course I don't always play well, and if you're in a big event looking for a win, then I would agree with your decisions.

[jdaming]

Seems like especially with the long hesitation on the first board that bidding a practical 4♥ will give you the most protection against the long pause. In most cases I think I would probably be calling the director if LHO (unpassed hand) bid over it.

Agree on 2

[Mbodell]

jdonn, on Sep 25 2009, 08:02 AM, said:

mr1303, on Sep 25 2009, 10:56 AM, said:

What do people think of the merits of this style of bridge? In particular the second hand, which is not really a psyche, but more of a spin of the roulette wheel, just with (hopefully) slightly more favourable odds.

Top and bottom bridge is not winning bridge, I feel very strongly. The best way I can think of to explain why is this.

It depends on how favorable you think the odds are. For instance, if you think a weak nt is just a better system than a strong nt but the field plays a strong nt then both your expected value and your variance of results will go up if you play a weak nt. If you are far better than everyone in the field, this is bad. If you are anything else, this is probably good (unless it is a qualifier or something where half advance where again lower EV with lower variance might be better).

So lots of people play things like strong club, or weak nt, or different cue bidding style or what not and end up with more of their fair share of tops and more then their fair share of bottoms.

If you are good at figuring out the odds and do have the advantage then you'd be foolish, IMO, not to take it. If you were good enough to know that you'd get 55-60% on some board "playing down the middle" and 2/3 of the time get 90-100% and 1/3 of the time get 0-10% by taking the risky move, I'd take the risky move. That doesn't mean I'd take the risky move if it was 51% success and 49% failure.

I agree that overall the most important skill for me and many people is eliminating "routine" and "dumb" mistakes.

[hrothgar]

jdonn, on Sep 25 2009, 07:02 PM, said:

mr1303, on Sep 25 2009, 10:56 AM, said:

What do people think of the merits of this style of bridge? In particular the second hand, which is not really a psyche, but more of a spin of the roulette wheel, just with (hopefully) slightly more favourable odds.

Top and bottom bridge is not winning bridge, I feel very strongly. The best way I can think of to explain why is this.

If you are a better than average player (you expect to get over 50% by playing "normally") then you have more to lose than to gain on the average board by shooting for tops and risking bottoms.

If you are a worse than average player (you expect to get under 50% by playing "normally") you will (clearly, I hope we can agree?) gain more by learning how to play bridge better than by shooting for tops and risking bottoms.

Depends on what you mean by "more to lose"

For example: You only get masterpoints if you place towards the top in an event.

If your goal is to win as many masterpoints as possible - and you're essentially indifferent if you place 5th or 55th - then adopting high variance methods is very much the way to go...

As I recall, Gerben or Wayne did an interesting study a few years back showing the trade off between variance and expected value. It showed pretty clearly that its completely reasonable to lower expected value in favor of increasing variance.

[jdonn]

Mbodell, on Sep 25 2009, 05:48 PM, said:

If you are good at figuring out the odds and do have the advantage then you'd be foolish, IMO, not to take it.  If you were good enough to know that you'd get 55-60% on some board "playing down the middle" and 2/3 of the time get 90-100% and 1/3 of the time get 0-10% by taking the risky move, I'd take the risky move.  That doesn't mean I'd take the risky move if it was 51% success and 49% failure.

This is all very interesting yet has nothing to do with practice, such as with the actual hands where no one has much clue at all how likely the actions chosen are too 'work' (My own estimate would be something like 20% in the first case and 40% in the second case.)

hrothgar, on Sep 25 2009, 06:05 PM, said:

If your goal is to win as many masterpoints as possible - and you're essentially indifferent if you place 5th or 55th - then adopting high variance methods is very much the way to go...

All I can say is I can think of no pairs that I have ever met that usually score below 50%, but some periodic minority of the time bust out for a 65% game and the win.

Like with my above comment, it is much harder and people are much worse at predicting the chances of actions like 1♠ on that first hand working than at improving at 'solid' bridge.

[awm]

jdonn, on Sep 25 2009, 07:36 PM, said:

All I can say is I can think of no pairs that I have ever met that usually score below 50%, but some periodic minority of the time bust out for a 65% game and the win.

I know some pairs who are more or less like this. What's more common is pairs who seem to average around a 50% game but frequently do either much better or much worse. The most extreme example I can think of (Waldron+Waldron) seem to score below 40% and above 60% with roughly equal and extremely high frequency (I recall a regional where they played pairs for three days and every single session was one of these two extremes).

Arguably Wildavsky and Doub seem a little bit like this; they obviously were very strong in winning the US team trials last year, but their first two days in the summer nationals (LM pairs, then an open pairs when they failed to Q) were atrociously bad.

[mr1303]

That generally you should try to improve your sensible bidding and card-play is of course a sensible idea, and I don't think anyone is disputing that. And I'll continue to practice solid improvement on the 99 other boards out of 100 that I play.

Say I'm playing these two boards against the pair whom I believe to be the best pair in the room. Therefore, my score on these boards is likely to be worse than the score that all of the other North/South pairs, since the best pair are more likely to produce a successful action. If I make the "normal" raise to 4H on the first, is it not likely to be an auction duplicated at every other table in the room? Therefore, I am potentially disadvantaging myself if I produce the normal action, and so a mixed strategy/tactical bid/psyche is more likely to be successful.