[HighLow21]

mgoetze, on 2012-February-15, 07:23, said:

I don't believe that analysis of random MBC games is worth this level of effort or indeed any other level. Also, I don't believe you are qualified to count how many mistakes you made.

Thank you for the feedback. I made reference several times during the article to the fact that it's much more difficult to find my own mistakes than those of others. Also, the analysis can be applied to any level of play. That's the precise idea behind my blog.

[diana_eva]

From a previous post:

HighLow21, on 2012-January-31, 18:05, said:

-----

DEFENDER MUSTS

You must interpret partner's defensive signals appropriately. Partner will tend to give you count signals more than attitude signals, but you must understand your partnership signal agreements and stick to them and take information from them. If your partner does not signal consistently, get a new partner. You cannot be a successful player at this game without defensive signalling. Remember, you will defend about twice as often as you declare.
...

I think this particular "Must" is very difficult, if not impossible to achieve playing only random games. Unless "get a new partner" means hop to another table hoping you get lucky.

[mgoetze]

HighLow21, on 2012-February-15, 12:51, said:

Also, the analysis can be applied to any level of play. That's the precise idea behind my blog.

I'm not saying you can't analyse this kind of game, I'm saying you shouldn't.

[HighLow21]

diana_eva, on 2012-February-15, 13:31, said:

From a previous post:



I think this particular "Must" is very difficult, if not impossible to achieve playing only random games. Unless "get a new partner" means hop to another table hoping you get lucky.

That is an excellent point. I guess what I mean by this is: (1) if you have a regular partner who doesn't signal or can't be bothered to, try to change his mind or move on. (2) it's not difficult to establish some basic level of signaling even opposite an unknown partner with a line or two of conversation. If you can't, then person probably doesn't know enough to defend well and your results opposite him or her will suffer. Move on.

Not only do we need to consider all the bad results and bad habits we can accrue playing indifferent defense; we need to also consider all the opportunity cost of all the good habits that one can practice developing opposite a cooperative signaler.

[Statto]

1. Learn how to signal.
2. Learn how not to signal.

Step 2 is deciding whether your signals will be more useful to declarer or partner. Quite often your signals (in particular count signals when declarer is cashing tricks) will be of more use to declarer than partner. Think about the hand, imagine what the unseen hands are, does partner need to know something? If so, try to tell them. If not, try not to tell declarer. Also, don't assume partner's supposed discard signal is trying to tell you anything, it may be the only card they can afford to throw.

IME, most misdefences occur when one defender has A and the other K in the same side suit. You won't normally want to lead from either holding, but those winners could evaporate, and you may not get to show suit preference via a discard signal, so a suit preference when following (or on the opening lead) could be beneficial.

[inquiry]

Ok, let me say that I have a long-standing partnership with a fellow who, no matter how much a shout, threaten, beg, plead, will simply not give signals beyond trick one and the occasional lavinthal suit preference when looking for a ruff. His logic, the opponents are looking for his signals. For every one hand his lack of signals might screw up a declarer, we blow five or six defensive hands -- and could be more, except I luck into the right defense by lucky guess rather than with certainty.

I agree there are hands were signaling only helps opponents, and you can figure out which of these hands it is best not signal on (often when your partner is not participating in the defense, but declarer doesn't know that). I find myself wanting to us more and more signals as time goes along, rather than less and less.

[Statto]

Inquiry, I'm reading your series with great interest, because I haven't mastered step 1

[han]

mgoetze, on 2012-February-15, 07:23, said:

I don't believe that analysis of random MBC games is worth this level of effort or indeed any other level. Also, I don't believe you are qualified to count how many mistakes you made.

I don't agree with you here Michael. I think it is always a good idea to go over your own hands thoroughly. And perhaps we are not most qualified to look for our own mistakes, but nobody else is going to do it so you have no choice.

The author of the blog is still very interested in comparing the number of his mistakes with the number of mistakes his random BBO opponents make. I agree that this is useless, but I think that he'll grow over it.

[HighLow21]

han, on 2012-February-16, 03:23, said:

I don't agree with you here Michael. I think it is always a good idea to go over your own hands thoroughly. And perhaps we are not most qualified to look for our own mistakes, but nobody else is going to do it so you have no choice.

The author of the blog is still very interested in comparing the number of his mistakes with the number of mistakes his random BBO opponents make. I agree that this is useless, but I think that he'll grow over it.

I equate it to when I taught and tutored people in preparation for standardized tests --> it's better to, say, review 10 practice problems extremely thoroughly than it is to take 1,000 practice problems without any review and learn nothing.

Yes, I am trying to steer away from comparison between myself and others at the table; I understand the reasons and at times it's hard to do without coming across as self-aggrandizing, particularly when the comparison is favorable. I tried to caveat this in quite a few ways in this article but perhaps you have some suggestions for taking it further.

Thanks for the feedback Han!
-Tate

[Vampyr]

HighLow21, on 2012-February-16, 12:31, said:

Yes, I am trying to steer away from comparison between myself and others at the table; I understand the reasons and at times it's hard to do without coming across as self-aggrandizing, particularly when the comparison is favorable.

You keep saying how good you are, but compared to whom? Random opponents on BBO?

[nige1]

Good stuff!. After a match, like Tate, I feel that finding my errors is salutary. I report the worst of these to team-mates. I've posted some of my mistakes in BBF I receive interesting feed-back. It's an effective learning exercise.

Vampyr, on 2012-February-16, 17:24, said:

You keep saying how good you are, but compared to whom? Random opponents on BBO?

It should be possible to get some clue from Highlow21's quality of writing, quality of analysis, and quality of advice. i.e. judge what he writes on its own merits.

[nige1]

inquiry, on 2012-February-15, 22:53, said:

I agree there are hands were signaling only helps opponents, and you can figure out which of these hands it is best not signal on (often when your partner is not participating in the defense, but declarer doesn't know that). I find myself wanting to us more and more signals as time goes along, rather than less and less.

I agree with Inquiry that signals are usually more useful to defenders than declarer.. Victor Mollo wrote that if you offer a table the chance for all players to play a deal double-dummy, then defenders should accept but declarer should refuse.

[CSGibson]

Tate - I just read your post on mistakes. If I may offer an idea - rather than giving the statistical summary of mistakes you found, and the relevance of those mistakes to one side or another, it would be more useful for the reader if you just posted a whole hand, went through an exhaustive analysis including identifying mistakes & why you think they were mistakes & what the alternative would be. This will give your readers the chance to see your thought process in analyzing hands, and to emulate it if they find it helpful.

Right now, the only potential benefit that I see from your post is the conclusion that avoiding mistakes alone is enough to be a successful bridge player. The rest of the exhaustive statistical analysis is relatively meaningless because the reader does not know your skill level in identifing mistakes.

In fact, I find it very hard to believe that you or anyone else is keyed to finding the "mistakes" of others when those others are better players, because what looks like a mistake to you (or me, or random stranger) is often a play that is suggested by inferences that might easily be missed by a player who does not have an equal skill level.

I'll follow this with a response demonstrating what I mean in a little bit.

[HighLow21]

Vampyr, on 2012-February-16, 17:24, said:

You keep saying how good you are, but compared to whom? Random opponents on BBO?

Maybe I've got an intellectual blind-spot here, but I don't see how what I said above implies that I'm good. What I said is that the comparison is favorable in this sample of hands, and my question was how to AVOID making it sound like I think I'm better than others.

But to answer your question, I know that I'm fairly good, I just don't know how good, and against what metric. What I have been fortunate to find lately is some skilled friends on BBO (largely on the back of my posting here and rubbing elbows with some who are very good) who have started to show me just how many really, really good players of this game are out there. (Thanks especially to esprit12, jillybean, diana_eva, wank, Han, mikeh, and Phil!)

"How good" is not the subject of the article I wrote. The subject is an analysis of errors made, by type, and a discussion thereof. And I agree with what some others have said here --> it doesn't really matter how good one is or one thinks one is; the more rigorous your post-play analytics, the more improvement you can subject yourself to.

[CSGibson]

Ok - what I am talking about (the ability to analyze what's a mistake) is illustrated in this bridge winners post I just wrote about a hand I ranted about in a different thread:

http://bridgewinners...-or-brilliance/

I hope I don't look stupid with my analysis - being a bridge blogger is harder than I thought.

[Vampyr]

HighLow21, on 2012-February-16, 18:15, said:

But to answer your question, I know that I'm fairly good, I just don't know how good, and against what metric.

LOL

[HighLow21]

CSGibson, on 2012-February-16, 20:26, said:

Ok - what I am talking about (the ability to analyze what's a mistake) is illustrated in this bridge winners post I just wrote about a hand I ranted about earlier:

http://bridgewinners...-or-brilliance/

I hope I don't look stupid writing it, but oh well

It's a good article; I wouldn't have credited the 'mistake' either way, as this is a case where the par is essentially 3NT+1/2 or 4S+1 in my book. Play for a fairly irrelevant overtrick would, at worst, result in me counting a 1-IMP mistake, and in most cases I didn't even bother.

What surprises me about the article, in all honesty, is that in spite of the bidding and the play, you still have high esteem for declarer. He's playing at IMPs, so risking 13 to make 2 in a fairly normal contract sounds ridiculous to me. It's not matchpoints. Playing on spades first is a clear mistake in my mind, and finessing the J♠ on the second round is even worse. If LHO showed out on the 2nd round of spades and the minors behave badly, he can now go down by way of 2 spades, a club, A diamonds, and a long diamond.

He is ice cold for 10 tricks by knocking out A♦, winning the return, and giving up a trick to the K♣. 2♠ + 3♥ + 2♦ + 3♣ = 10. And if RHO (you) ever leads a major he has 11.

But again, in my analysis no mistakes would be credited because a cold contract wasn't dropped on the floor and par (one of a few reasonable ones) was reached.

[Vampyr]

HighLow21, on 2012-February-16, 21:14, said:

He's playing at IMPs, so risking 13 to make 2 in a fairly normal contract sounds ridiculous to me.

Obviously declarer thought his line was better than 13:2 on.

[HighLow21]

CSGibson, on 2012-February-16, 20:26, said:

<snip>

... being a bridge blogger is harder than I thought.

No joke! But the good news is, every piece of feedback I get here, from BBO, from the blog site, from emails, and from friends helps make me better at it. I had no idea how many potential pitfalls there were.

And without a doubt I have gotten more helpful feedback on BBF than anywhere else.

One thing I forgot to mention in my prior critique, btw: I think the double diamond duck by you was an excellent choice. Nothing is going to break the contract, but it gave him a great way to go wrong when in dummy (his misplay of the hand up to this point no longer an issue). He could have actually gone DOWN if diamonds broke 5-2 originally with LHO clutching ATx♦ and K♣. This is wildly unlikely on the carding up to this point, but I've seen things like that happen.

[CSGibson]

HighLow21, on 2012-February-16, 21:14, said:

It's a good article; I wouldn't have credited the 'mistake' either way, as this is a case where the par is essentially 3NT+1/2 or 4S+1 in my book. Play for a fairly irrelevant overtrick would, at worst, result in me counting a 1-IMP mistake, and in most cases I didn't even bother.

What surprises me about the article, in all honesty, is that in spite of the bidding and the play, you still have high esteem for declarer. He's playing at IMPs, so risking 13 to make 2 in a fairly normal contract sounds ridiculous to me.

It depends. If you think that you would be right 9/10 times, going for the overtricks has positive effect of .5 imps on this hand over the long run

Quote

It's not matchpoints. Playing on spades first is a clear mistake in my mind, and finessing the J♠ on the second round is even worse. If LHO showed out on the 2nd round of spades and the minors behave badly, he can now go down by way of 2 spades, a club, A diamonds, and a long diamond.

I don't think this is right. There isn't the tempo to get the long diamond - though maybe the defense can screw up the transportation on the hand if they duck enough stuff. - lets see, 1 diamond, 3 clubs, 2 spades, 3 hearts on any defense. nope, can't be set on this line of play, we don't have enough tempos.

Quote

He is ice cold for 10 tricks by knocking out A♦, winning the return, and giving up a trick to the K♣. 2♠ + 3♥ + 2♦ + 3♣ = 10. And if RHO (you) ever leads a major he has 11.

But again, in my analysis no mistakes would be credited because a cold contract wasn't dropped on the floor and par (one of a few reasonable ones) was reached.

She's cold on any line at the point she attacks spades. Except the one she took, but that might have been a calculated risk.

Actually, I have no idea whether this person was brilliant or stupid in the endgame - it was later pointed out to me that this was not someone whom you would necessarily expect that level of thought. The point of the article wasn't really to make that determination - it was to open people's eyes that criticizing opponents "mistakes" might really just show how much better your opponent is than you (not you, tate, but you the ubiquitous critic), because they have seen something that makes their line stand out.