[Stephen Tu]

http://webutil.bridg...&u=Stephen%20Tu
http://webutil.bridg...63885&u=stephtu
http://webutil.bridg...57580&u=stephtu
So, after 42 boards (6 boards fewer than the 48 agreed on because of an accidentally declined challenge), I have an insurmountable lead of 27-15, 64.29%. I definitely butchered a few boards, and the bots did some ridiculous things favoring each of us at times, but I think that mostly evened out.

I actually don't necessarily want PhilG to abandon the forums entirely. I welcome him to stay, if he can gain some self-awareness and change his attitude about a couple things.

PhilG:
- Many methods learned from books/articles published 40-50+ years ago, or from players current age range 70+ - deceased [not referring to the many great older players I know who keep up with the times and adopt or actually invented modern methods], especially for competitive bidding, aren't considered best, and in some cases considered grossly inferior, in the modern duplicate game. If you come along and say "this double is for penalty", and everyone says you are crazy, your response should be "I learned it this way, why did it change?", not "you guys are idiots, I was taught this, I'm right you're wrong". Bidding is a language, and languages evolve. Be open to learning new things. Try reading some books about competitive bidding with revision publication date this century. Try authors Mike Lawrence, Larry Cohen, Marshall Miles (out of print), Roy Hughes. Try watching some BBO vugraph and see what the top players are doing, listen to the commentary. If you think old-fashioned is better, then post logical reasons why you think it so, rather than just declaring them best or the only reasonable way to play
- You aren't as good as you think you are. You might be better than average in your local club. But you aren't as good or as knowledgeable about the game as the average posters here. You might have played longer than some of us, but playing same methods decade after decade against low level opposition doesn't keep you level with those of us who read a ton of more modern books, magazine articles, bridge forum articles, and push ourselves to play against the toughest opps available, and discuss hands/seek advice from those opps. Your perception is probably distorted by not playing live tournament bridge against top flight competition. There are a handful of truly world-class players here, sadly most of these now only post rarely and have migrated to bridgewinners. But there are still a bunch of us who while not nearly at that level, do compete against that level with some regularity, and thus have a good idea of how those guys bid, what bids ought to mean, which bids in a particular situation would be considered reasonable when it's borderline and which bids are nuts. A much better idea than you do, anyway.



If he is going to continue to think he is right when every other poster is saying something else, and that he is here to educate us who don't know anything, then I would prefer him to leave, I don't think anyone here would particularly miss his "contributions".


PhilG:
Stay to learn, ask questions. Feel free to state an opinion about a hand, but try to do it with logical backing, and accept criticism and learn from it. If you want to argue about something, do it with bridge logic, not argument from personal authority. Don't stay to teach and call us idiots.

[eagles123]

Brilliant post

[MrAce]

I am disappointed by the scoring method but...whatever.
Well written post. I really don't mind him staying, teaching us, even insulting, as long as he keeps himself away from the forums for beginner and novices.

[diana_eva]

MrAce, on 2018-May-26, 19:30, said:

I am disappointed by the scoring method but...whatever.
Well written post. I really don't mind him staying, teaching us, even insulting, as long as he keeps himself away from the forums for beginner and novices.

He can't post in B/N forums even if he wants to, Barry restricted posting there.

[PhilG007]

Stephen Tu, on 2018-May-26, 13:02, said:

http://webutil.bridg...&u=Stephen%20Tu
http://webutil.bridg...63885&u=stephtu
http://webutil.bridg...57580&u=stephtu
So, after 42 boards (6 boards fewer than the 48 agreed on because of an accidentally declined challenge), I have an insurmountable lead of 27-15, 64.29%. I definitely butchered a few boards, and the bots did some ridiculous things favoring each of us at times, but I think that mostly evened out.

I actually don't necessarily want PhilG to abandon the forums entirely. I welcome him to stay, if he can gain some self-awareness and change his attitude about a couple things.

PhilG:
- Many methods learned from books/articles published 40-50+ years ago, or from players current age range 70+ - deceased [not referring to the many great older players I know who keep up with the times and adopt or actually invented modern methods], especially for competitive bidding, aren't considered best, and in some cases considered grossly inferior, in the modern duplicate game. If you come along and say "this double is for penalty", and everyone says you are crazy, your response should be "I learned it this way, why did it change?", not "you guys are idiots, I was taught this, I'm right you're wrong". Bidding is a language, and languages evolve. Be open to learning new things. Try reading some books about competitive bidding with revision publication date this century. Try authors Mike Lawrence, Larry Cohen, Marshall Miles (out of print), Roy Hughes. Try watching some BBO vugraph and see what the top players are doing, listen to the commentary. If you think old-fashioned is better, then post logical reasons why you think it so, rather than just declaring them best or the only reasonable way to play
- You aren't as good as you think you are. You might be better than average in your local club. But you aren't as good or as knowledgeable about the game as the average posters here. You might have played longer than some of us, but playing same methods decade after decade against low level opposition doesn't keep you level with those of us who read a ton of more modern books, magazine articles, bridge forum articles, and push ourselves to play against the toughest opps available, and discuss hands/seek advice from those opps. Your perception is probably distorted by not playing live tournament bridge against top flight competition. There are a handful of truly world-class players here, sadly most of these now only post rarely and have migrated to bridgewinners. But there are still a bunch of us who while not nearly at that level, do compete against that level with some regularity, and thus have a good idea of how those guys bid, what bids ought to mean, which bids in a particular situation would be considered reasonable when it's borderline and which bids are nuts. A much better idea than you do, anyway.



If he is going to continue to think he is right when every other poster is saying something else, and that he is here to educate us who don't know anything, then I would prefer him to leave, I don't think anyone here would particularly miss his "contributions".


PhilG:
Stay to learn, ask questions. Feel free to state an opinion about a hand, but try to do it with logical backing, and accept criticism and learn from it. If you want to argue about something, do it with bridge logic, not argument from personal authority. Don't stay to teach and call us idiots.

[hrothgar]

Stephen,

While I agree with almost all of what you are saying, I question whether the challenge matches were "fair".

Your bidding preferences are much more consistent with what GIB plays than Phil's.
As such, he was laboring under an additional handicap.

[PhilG007]

Stephen Tu, on 2018-May-26, 13:02, said:

http://webutil.bridg...&u=Stephen%20Tu
http://webutil.bridg...63885&u=stephtu
http://webutil.bridg...57580&u=stephtu
So, after 42 boards (6 boards fewer than the 48 agreed on because of an accidentally declined challenge), I have an insurmountable lead of 27-15, 64.29%. I definitely butchered a few boards, and the bots did some ridiculous things favoring each of us at times, but I think that mostly evened out.

I actually don't necessarily want PhilG to abandon the forums entirely. I welcome him to stay, if he can gain some self-awareness and change his attitude about a couple things.

PhilG:
- Many methods learned from books/articles published 40-50+ years ago, or from players current age range 70+ - deceased [not referring to the many great older players I know who keep up with the times and adopt or actually invented modern methods], especially for competitive bidding, aren't considered best, and in some cases considered grossly inferior, in the modern duplicate game. If you come along and say "this double is for penalty", and everyone says you are crazy, your response should be "I learned it this way, why did it change?", not "you guys are idiots, I was taught this, I'm right you're wrong". Bidding is a language, and languages evolve. Be open to learning new things. Try reading some books about competitive bidding with revision publication date this century. Try authors Mike Lawrence, Larry Cohen, Marshall Miles (out of print), Roy Hughes. Try watching some BBO vugraph and see what the top players are doing, listen to the commentary. If you think old-fashioned is better, then post logical reasons why you think it so, rather than just declaring them best or the only reasonable way to play
- You aren't as good as you think you are. You might be better than average in your local club. But you aren't as good or as knowledgeable about the game as the average posters here. You might have played longer than some of us, but playing same methods decade after decade against low level opposition doesn't keep you level with those of us who read a ton of more modern books, magazine articles, bridge forum articles, and push ourselves to play against the toughest opps available, and discuss hands/seek advice from those opps. Your perception is probably distorted by not playing live tournament bridge against top flight competition. There are a handful of truly world-class players here, sadly most of these now only post rarely and have migrated to bridgewinners. But there are still a bunch of us who while not nearly at that level, do compete against that level with some regularity, and thus have a good idea of how those guys bid, what bids ought to mean, which bids in a particular situation would be considered reasonable when it's borderline and which bids are nuts. A much better idea than you do, anyway.



If he is going to continue to think he is right when every other poster is saying something else, and that he is here to educate us who don't know anything, then I would prefer him to leave, I don't think anyone here would particularly miss his "contributions".


PhilG:
Stay to learn, ask questions. Feel free to state an opinion about a hand, but try to do it with logical backing, and accept criticism and learn from it. If you want to argue about something, do it with bridge logic, not argument from personal authority. Don't stay to teach and call us idiots.

Your comments have been noted.. I will reflect on them. Good match. These robots really are something else. It was as though they had X ray 'eyes' I am not a pedagogue although it seems to
come across as such. I know I've made a fool of myself,not for the first or last time. But hubris is a widespread human frailty and not just at bridge. I am of the so-called 'Old Guard' and I'm from
the era of great players such as Rixi Markus,Jeremy Flint,Terence Reese,Tony Priday and Hugh Kelsey I was weaned on their ideologies and regarded those of those who come after them as'upstarts'
'whippersnappers' However,I know bridge is a game and like any game,it has to evolve to avoid becoming stale. One thing that has really irked me is the proliferation of conventions over the last
two decades. Almost everyone has jumped on the bandwagon wanting to go down to posterity by having a convention named after him/herself and in this I feel that the Governors of the game have been
wretchedly weak in trying to control the flow.
When Harry Vanderbilt,the Father of our beloved game,took a party of friends on board his yacht for a cruise in 1925,he told them "Gentlemen,I'd like to show you a new game;you might find
it interesting" I suspect dear old Harry little knew just how "interesting" his "new game" would prove to be(!)

[FelicityR]

PhilG007, on 2018-May-27, 02:25, said:

I am of the so-called 'Old Guard' and I'm from the era of great players such as Rixi Markus,Jeremy Flint,Terence Reese,Tony Priday and Hugh Kelsey I was weaned on their ideologies and regarded those of those who come after them as 'upstarts' or 'whippersnappers'.

All great players as declarers or defenders I agree, but bidding and bidding theory is constantly evolving. I played the Crowhurst convention many years ago and thought it was one of the best bridge conventions since sliced bread. And where is it now?

As for the 'upstarts' and 'whippersnappers' there's a very long list of Italian and American world championship players together with the greats of the game like Zia Mahmood. The Old Guard has been well and truly usurped!

[Stephen Tu]

PhilG007, on 2018-May-27, 02:25, said:

I am of the so-called 'Old Guard' and I'm from
the era of great players such as Rixi Markus,Jeremy Flint,Terence Reese,Tony Priday and Hugh Kelsey I was weaned on their ideologies

Certainly great players in their day. Reese's and Kelsey's books on play and defense are classics and will forever be worth reading for any up and coming bridge player, because principles of card play are set in stone. The only innovations are mainly wrinkles in lead and signalling conventions in certain situations. Fundamentals of planning the play, making correct inferences to read the opponent's cards, counting out the hands won't ever change.

But if you are relying on what they wrote in their books for *bidding*, there are two issues:

• The book they wrote may have been targeted toward general audience, beginners, rubber bridge crowd who play very simple, ancient methods with a variety of partners with wide range of ability, where you don't really have time for system discussion after a cut for new partner. Not geared towards competitive tournament duplicate bridge with a regular partner which is far more common today than in their time. Take Bill Root's books; his beginner books of 80s & 90s like Commonsense Bidding, and I think ABC's of Bridge, still described penalty doubles of overcalls of 1 of a suit openings. But did he use them in his own tournament play? Definitely not.
• If they were still alive and playing today surely they would adopt at least some modern techniques to remain competitive.

Quote

One thing that has really irked me is the proliferation of conventions over the last two decades.

The conventions you have gotten the most ridicule for not using are much older than that. Negative doubles were popularized starting in the late 1950's by Al Roth. The Michaels inventor guy died in 1966. I'm sure any good player would still do very well limiting themselves to conventions from Bill Root's "Modern Bridge Conventions" published in 1981, which no longer is really "modern". One can still get by not using any hyper-modern treatments. The real recent stuff is mainly a lot of transfers and swaps of bid meanings in more situations, better slam bidding techniques, or alternative artificial systems altogether (which have also been around forever; strong club started in the 1920's!). Very few of the hyper-modern stuff is considered "standard" yet. I guess 5cM, 1ntf, and 2/1 GF (and only in America and some European countries, not Britain where Acol still dominates) among the non-beginner duplicate crowd has transferred to nearly "standard" status but little else. Here in the forum, we are mostly only discussing options with standard techniques. People may mention their pet advanced gadget to handle a particular problem, but will note (or at least should note) that this is non-std. Your main problem is that you have been advocating stone-age techniques which are now super non-standard; try to upgrade to the bronze age which is still pretty old, but considered the standard baseline now.

I agree that a lot of players are kind of gadget crazy. It's a bit of an arms race, trying to gain enough marginal advantages on a small fraction of hands in the hopes of beating one's peers when matches are close. They aren't enough to overcome large gaps in card play skill and/or bidding judgment; beginners/intermediates would be wise to concentrate on getting their play/defense up to snuff, and only play a few essential conventions that they won't forget and know inside and out. But some of us are kind of systems geeks and like figuring out fancy ways to solve bidding dilemmas that come up. We have good memory for such things and don't forget. We like to play a lot of gadgets when with a partner who also has tolerance for such complexity, but many fewer with partners who prefer simpler things. Different strokes for different folks.

There are a few gadgets that are fairly essential in today's game. Negative doubles I don't see how one can live without, playing 5-card majors. Penalty doubles of overcalls playing a rabid 4-cd majors first system is a different matter. And the strong cue bid you prefer is too rare, adequately handled by starting with double, while leaving you much worse placed holding 2-suiters. In general you have to be able to handle aggressive preemption, and do your share of preemption yourself. People bid a lot of weak preempts and weak jump raises, weaker openings, sub-minimum responses than older books advocate. Sometimes this backfires, you get carted off for -800/1100 while the old guard conservative player who passed smiles, but the top players have figured out that it's a bidder's game, and consistently jamming the auction (within reason, and vulnerability-aware), and forcing the opponents to guess with less bidding room wins more points than it loses over the long run. Forced to guess, sometimes they guess wrong and you win. If you conservatively pass all the time, the opps with a free run tend to be too accurate in where they end. Against all this bidding by the opps with not much, you can't just pass all these strong hands like you have advocated in past posts, because you will be robbed blind, meekly collecting +100s and +200s when game or slam was on your way for 620+. Now sometimes bidding isn't going to work out, when partner comes up with much less than their average share of points, or it is hard to find the right suit to play in, or the suit breaks are particularly foul. But you have to play the percentages when the opps jam you and still bid when it rates to work out often enough on average to be profitable MP-wise or IMP-wise depending on which you are playing; you can't wait and only bid on sure things. And you need to play non-penalty doubles in more early auction situations to be able to bid somewhat accurately against interference; you just can't collect enough penalties with a pure penalty double to make up being forced to pass so often having no suitable call. If penalty doubles were that profitable they wouldn't have been discarded by top players, penalty doubles were around first. New stuff usually only takes hold if it proves more effective than the old way.

Some people understandably would prefer a simpler game with fewer conventions. If you like that stick to rubber at your local club if you still have them (in my area rubber bridge among good competitive players has died out completely; it is only played by very low-level players at local senior centers) . This forum though and BBO is mainly duplicate oriented.

When organizers tried to run "limited convention" games, like SA yellow card games, around the 1980s, they died out quickly from lack of interest. It seems most people want to play their pet gadgets, and it's kind of unfair to allow one pair to play their gadgets but another pair not to play their alternative pet gadgets. There aren't a lot of duplicate players who want to have everyone restricted to something like 1950 Goren, not enough to have decent tournament attendance.