[pclayton]

In the past, I have had two partners that loved to tinker with the type of stuff Ken suggests. We would have some very interesting theoretical discussions about whether or not the 7th bid in a precision sequence was a cue or a pattern bid. We would have reams and reams of notes. The fact is that these 'agreements' have a huge error rate in practice under stress (I remember, but did pard remember, and v.v.?) and so much stress and mental bandwidth is dedicated to remembering agreements that hardly ever come up, when the practice time should be spent on things that really matter, and the lack of individual practice time on making yourself a better player all gets thrown overboard.

I got tired of scoring 53% in regional pair games with these clowns and I let them find other partners to mentally masturbate with.

I loved Ulf's post. This type of nonsense is a COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME for a serious partnership.

I've locked horns with Justin before but he is so dead on here it makes me sick. especially when it comes to Jilly.

I do like Ken's methods, but purely on an academic basis. I read articles in the Bridge World by other gearheads, and think, hey, thats kind of cool. Note I only read this stuff after I have completely devoured and reread the play, defense and bidding articles, and even the letters to the editor though.

If you want to go to your grave and be known as a 'great bidding theorist', then go ahead. I'm sure Jeff Rubens will love to read all your swell ideas. Maybe, a junior pair from Bumfuckstan will use your methods and you will have the sheer rapture of watching them on vugraph and show the world that I WAS RIGHT.

[EricK]

I admit that I am not very good at constructing hands (another admission for the "why you suck at bridge" thread), but I still don't get what sort of hand, opposite a pre-emptive raise, is:
1. safe at the 5 level
2. keen on playing slam if partner shows the right singleton or void
3. not interested in what high card controls partner might have

And even if they exist, are they common enough (as a proportion of hands which are slam interested on this auction) to justify using the cheapest bid for them?

[Stephen Tu]

Quote

GP comes from sources. The sources may be teaching, reading books, forums, mentors, experience, watching what others do, thinking through what seems consistent and logical from similar sequences, and the like. Agree?

Yes. However your mentor appears to have been really bad in distinguishing what were his personal preferences and what is actually GP when he taught you. If you had learned from a greater variety of adv/expert partners, or by reading a ton of the standard texts, you would get a more accurate assessment of what is truly standard.

And yes, standard is far from optimal. But it's practical to play it, and not everyone has enough time & mental energy to optimize it to the nth degree without causing a decline in actual results. Some people have an easier time with categorizing and applying bidding principles than others.

[dbsboy]

I think its better not to write anything more in this thread. Save some energy.

Ken is often thinking of some new and wrong excuses to support his idea. And then new and wrong excuses (or reasons behind his logic) to support his wrong reasons.

I think 44 replies have already clearly pointed out what is standard.

[kenrexford]

Reams and reams of notes? I think you are missing the entire concept of how the thinking works here. Whereas one might have lots of specific agreements for specific situation, that is not what leads to a conclusion of showing splinters here. There is a wild difference between a codified set of systemic agreements and a philosophical understanding of sequence principles.

As a simple example, consider a fit bid situation. I don not have any notes at all regarding fit bids wih my partner. None.

Instead, I understand his philosophy and his school, through practice. I can tell when a call is a fit bid and when it is not fairly well. That includes admissiomn of a recent major error on my part from which I tweaked the system.

Why do I understand his fit-bid analysis? Because I have read partnership bidding and understand the mindset there, for starters. Because I know that an unusual bid must show fit of extraordinary length or unusual, unbiddable pattern. Because I know that "unbiddable pattern" is usually a mirage with partner because he preempts more frequently despite flaw or opens very light because of shape. Because I know that wild shape is less frequent and lower priority and that partner thinks this way as well. Because I have studied the man, the known agreements of his peers, and alternative theories. I made a mistake by assessing the imact of a deeper development, assuming fit bid continuity rather than reversion to fdistribution in the deep secondary round, but I now believe that assumption flawed ab initio and have corrected that thought process.

Again, I have no notes on this. I learn the philosophy.

Justin asks why I and my partner "do not win anything." This means, of course, events that matter. A simple answer. You must enter events that matter before you can win events that matter. We are a relatively new partnership as far as serious events are concerned. I was emersed in a completely different world before starting to learn the real game with Kenny. Plus, I spend most of my time playing with my wife, who is a new player, because I enjoy her post-mortem much more, involving no theory at all. My regular good partner and I have had many successes in lower (regional and sectional) events, of course, but these are meaningless. Where our results have failed is in idiot play or defense mistakes, usually caused because we routinely see 4:00 or 5:00 before somewhat falling asleep because we talk more than play at these somewhat meaningless events.

However, with respect to system, there are occasional gaffs. These invariably, however, involve things that others might not view as gaffs. For example, the opponents in a team game might bid a failing slam. We might also bid that failing slam, with a more sophisticated sequence. At some point in that sequence, one of us might have made a call that could have been different and could have avoided this bad slam. I consider that a charge, even if the opponents did even worse. Similarly, if we should have sawed something off that the opponents never even considered doubling, I consider that a charge.

[glen]

kenrexford, on Jun 12 2008, 11:05 PM, said:

From these and a few other notes of various people, it seems fairly reasonable as an extrapolation of "expert standard" that 4♠ in the 1-4 heart sequence would be a shortness ask, 4NT showing short spades.

To return to this, as you can now see (and/or bet), it is not a fairly reasonable extrapolation of "expert standard". I think what you were missing in the sample was the use of Bridge World's Master Solvers' Club. If you read 20 years or so of MSC, you get a good understanding of expert standard thinking, and this is very valuable investment of your time.

As to pclayton's "I'm sure Jeff Rubens will love to read all your swell ideas" - actually I'm not so sure: he loves card combos and never-seen-before clever hands a lot more than inspecting gadgets.

[gnasher]

officeglen, on Jun 14 2008, 02:52 PM, said:

As to pclayton's "I'm sure Jeff Rubens will love to read all your swell ideas" - actually I'm not so sure: he loves card combos and never-seen-before clever hands a lot more than inspecting gadgets.

And so he should.

He does, however, seem to allow about one system article per issue, provided that you can fit it all onto a single page. I suspect that for Ken this constraint would be a bit of a challenge.

[awm]

I did recently have a good local player ask me about this sort of sequence.

In general there is some advantage in slam try sequences started by the stronger hand to use an asking bid, whereas when the weaker hand makes the first slam move it is better to use a showing bid. To give a simple example:

2♣ (strong) - 2♠ - 3♠

With opener holding some huge hand, it is unlikely that the 2♠ bidder has all that much outside the spade suit (if he has good spades and a lot outside he may as well bid 7NT now). So it makes sense for responder to now show his outside shortness/controls if any and let opener evaluate. Compare this to:

2♣ (strong) - 2♦(waiting) - 2♠ - 3♠

Now opener is making the first move. But opener has gobs of controls and high cards, and will never get all of these across to partner. It makes sense for opener to usually conserve space by bidding something like 3NT "asking" to let responder describe, or to bid a suit lacking a second round control at the four-level as a sort of denial cuebid, rather than trying to cue all his aces and kings.

This principle would suggest that playing 1♥-4♥-4♠ as asking is a good method. The problem is that there are a wide range of possible bridge auctions and it will not always be clear who has the stronger hand (in fact in many cases the values are roughly evenly divided). So making agreements about who is asking and who is showing in these sorts of sequences tends to be expensive and probably not worthwhile (especially since many bids acquire exactly opposite meanings and thus can easily lead to big disasters). For this reason it is standard to play that cuebids show controls in the suit named except in a small number of auctions where specific alternative agreements have been made. This is not standard because it is "best" but is standard because it is "convenient" and doesn't require dozens of pages defining who is "captain" in all possible auctions.

[nige1]

The Sharples brothers employed asking bids in a similar context: when partner opened a 4-level pre-empt, they bid the suit below the suit in which they needed help. They argued that if you want to advance over such a pre-empt, then you are unlikely to be worried about more than one suit.

The version that we adopt: e.g. after
4♥ (_P) 4♠ (_P)
??
(4♠ is asking for ♣ control)
- 4N = ♣ Kx
- 5♣ = Singleton ♣
- 5♥ = Neither 1st nor 2nd round ♣ control
- other = 1st round ♣ control (+named feature).

That convention seems appropriate to the modern major game-raise, which is usually little more than a weak pre-empt. i.e. You can agree the same replies to Ken's
1♥ (_P) 4♥ (_P)
4♠ (_P) ??

This kind of agreement isn't standard but is fairly common. Such generic agreements are worth the time and trouble. The Sharples brothers went to extremes. They spent a year discussing what to do over a 2♦ conventional opening bid before risking its use at the table. But they were the best bidders in the world

[the hog]

"The Sharples brothers (the best bidders in the world, to date)"

Wow that is drawing a long bow. Yes they were excellent bidders and one of the best natural bidders[I][COLOR=red] in the world, but the best? I think I can name at least 2 pairs I think bid better.
Also bidding has improved so much in recent times that I doubt they would win many "Challenge the Champs" today.

[nige1]

The_Hog, on Jun 15 2008, 07:35 AM, said:

"The Sharples brothers (the best bidders in the world, to date)"

Wow that is drawing a long bow. Yes they were excellent bidders and one of the best natural bidders in the world, but the best? I think I can name at least 2 pairs I think bid better. Also bidding has improved so much in recent times that I doubt they would win many "Challenge the Champs" today.

Sorry, Hog. I edited out "to date" because, although it remains my opinion, I agree that it's impossible to prove. In their day, however, the Sharples (sometimes with with Collings, Marx using Sharples Acol methods) successfully took on all comers in Bridge Magazine bidding competitions. They retired undefeated.

[the hog]

Yes but so did Rubin - Granovetter playing the Ultimate Club. Thats why I put in the rider about natural bidders.

[kenrexford]

FWIW, I just had the opportunity to inquire about this situation with my partner, Ken Eichenbaum.

The question: "P-P-1♥-P-4♥-P-4♠. What is 4♠?"

I had predicted that partner would be on my same wavelength, even though we had never discussed it. I was relieved to have this confirmed.

His response was that 4♠ must ask Responder to describe the unknown feature in his hand that he must have -- the location of the stiff. He noted that a 4♥ call traditionally denies a side Ace or King, and, although you might have a King, the 4♠ call should not ask for that which you should not have rather than that which you should have.

Humorously, he even provided an example. "I mean, what if Opener supposed to bid with something like ♠AKQ ♥AQxxxx ♦A ♣xxx, or so?" He then commented that partner bidding 5♣ because he happens to have the King of clubs makes no sense.

At least y'all know that I'm honest now. We may both be insane, but at least I honestly applied what I have understood.