[foo]

Echognome, on Jul 6 2007, 03:17 PM, said:

foo, on Jul 6 2007, 11:51 AM, said:

I said the method had to have a reasonable chance of finding a contract that has play according to basic bridge logic.

I'd rather go for the argument "this idea won't work." Next.

I mean, here you are in third seat at W/R and it has gone P - (P) - ? and you hold:

a) xxx xx xxxx AKJx

Under the Foo system, don't open 1♣. It's illegal by all measures you mentioned.

AKT9x xx xxxx xx

Under the Foo system, don't open any number of spades. It's illegal by all measures.

No, those are examples of tactical bidding. That is based on you using your judgement with regards to your own cards. Perfectly reasonable.

OTOH, opening 1♠ when you may or may not have any ♠'s and have 0-8 HCP is obviously designed to simply make it impossible for the opponents to use Bridge skills.

opening 2D when you could hold any 2 suits, each any length from 4-7 cards long, and 0-8 HCP is equally obviously designed to obtain good scores only by messing with the opponents. Not by any constructive merit.

Tactical bidding good. Systemic design to scr*w the opponents bad.

See the distinction?

[Cascade]

skaeran, on Jul 7 2007, 12:38 AM, said:

I accept that you "might" read the definition to mean what you say (bad wording IMO), but I'm quite confident that's not what it's supposed to mean.

I agree that it is unlikely that that is what it is supposed to mean.

Strong club systems are covered by a separate Blue category.

Nevertheless a 'standard' short 1C opening can be 4=4=3=2 or some other shape with 3+ clubs. This first shape shows shortage in clubs and all other shapes show length in clubs. This is different than a 1♠ opening that shows nothing about clubs (other than they will not be significantly longer than spades).

[Cascade]

foo, on Jul 7 2007, 03:31 AM, said:

1= It has been argued that those playing systemic methods that are basically designed to gain all or the vast majority of their good results from making it impossible for the opponents to use Bridge skills are not playing Bridge.
That's why the technical terms "Destructive" and "Dominant" have come into being.
This is the dominant meme within the Bridge community. It is never going away.

I think you implicitly use a very narrow definition of what you consider is Bridge skill.

I prefer a wider definition that includes anything (but not including coffeehousing etc) that makes my score better or my opponent's worse.

[jtfanclub]

foo, on Jul 6 2007, 03:39 PM, said:

OTOH, opening 1♠ when you may or may not have any ♠'s and have 0-8 HCP is obviously designed to simply make it impossible for the opponents to use Bridge skills.

If I open 1NT 1st or 2nd seat with 0-9 hcp and any shape, I think you will find that if you calculate all of the averages that we make it just about half the time. As for opening it one spade, well, that just lets your partner bid the 1NT, which increases our odds further.

At any rate, I certainly wouldn't take your word for it that this bid isn't trying to get us to a constructive contract.

[foo]

jtfanclub, on Jul 6 2007, 03:21 PM, said:

Quote

If you are knowingly using a method that =systemically= (not in a spcific case, overall systemically) has too poor a chance of reaching any reasonable contract, then you are essentially trying to get a good score by making it impossible for your opponents to use bridge skills, not by using your own.

That appears to be the core of the definition of "Destructive".

If my RHO opens a monster 2♣ bid and I overcall, I'm not doing it because I think I'm capable of reaching a reasonable contract. I'm doing it to interfere, or to direct the lead.

In fact, the bids that you mention are, in my humble opinion, ESSENTIAL to bridge.

If you play S.J. Simon style four card majors, solid openings, Acol 2s, 16-19 1NT, etc., you are pretty much freakin' immune to destructive overcalls. You are a freakin' rock, and anybody who thinks they can break you down is going to find themselves smashed to pieces. People playing Simon's method will slap the Futile Willy's out of the way unless they want to slow down on occassion to pick up an 800.

The cuter you try to get, the more vulnerable to destructive methods you become. 2♠ on a 4 card suit shuts down a 1 diamond opening with 3+ a lot better than it does a 4+, and it shuts down a Polish club far better than 4+ In particular, the version of the 1 diamond opener in Precision which shows 11-15 hcp and can have as few as 1 diamond is ridiculously vulnerable to random, stupid, destructive bids. I won't go so far as to say that a 2nd hand 1 diamond opening like that should be forcing for the next opponent, but I'll just think it really, really hard.

'Destructive' bids are the great equalizer. If your bids are solid and natural, destruction is pointless. If your opening shows a good hand and 13 cards, then my overcall can show a bad hand and 13 cards. You want to use relays to show your hand? Then we can use doubles to show ours without ever being danger. Non-constructive calls are the pushback on artificial systems. If they were made illegal, the only people who would still play SAYC or 2/1 would be kids just learning the game.

Once more, I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT TACTICAL BIDDING.
(sorry for shouting, but this point keeps getting missed.)

Tactical bidding is =all= about using your judgement and your cards to decide how far you can push things to get a good score. That's a very important and valuable part of Bridge.

The objection the regulators have is to bids =systemically designed= to make your bridge skills irrelevant and at the same time do everything they can to make the opponents bridge skills irrelevant as well.

Quote

foo, on Jul 6 2007, 02:51 PM, said:

a= it takes ~21 playing points to make 1N w/o a fit.

Wow, I must be a darned good player. I only need 18 points, on the average, to make 1N.

You are probably not playing against decent defenders then.

There are numerous studies on this backing up the number I gave.

[jtfanclub]

[quote name='foo' date='Jul 6 2007, 03:51 PM'] Wow, I must be a darned good player. I only need 18 points, on the average, to make 1N.
[/QUOTE]
You are probably not playing against decent defenders then.

There are numerous studies on this backing up the number I gave. [/quote]
Name one.

[Cascade]

foo, on Jul 7 2007, 07:38 AM, said:

Methods designed to make the most of your bridge skills to obtain a good score are inherently different from methods designed to obtain a good score by making it impossible for the opponents to use bridge skills.

I simply do not understand that thought process that would come up with a statement like this.

To me it is all bridge skill.

[foo]

jtfanclub, on Jul 6 2007, 03:50 PM, said:

foo, on Jul 6 2007, 03:39 PM, said:

OTOH, opening 1♠ when you may or may not have any ♠'s and have 0-8 HCP is obviously designed to simply make it impossible for the opponents to use Bridge skills.

If I open 1N 1st or 2nd seat with 0-9 hcp and any shape, I think you will find that if you calculate all of the averages that we make it just about half the time. As for opening it one spade, well, that just lets your partner bid the 1NT, which increases our odds further.

At any rate, I certainly wouldn't take your word for it that this bid isn't trying to get us to a constructive contract.

...and the initial criteria I mentioned was ~75%.

So this, and any other opening that is basically designed to be the equivalent of a coin flip just to chew up space and hurt the opponents ability to use their bridge skills, would definitely get punished under the regulation I'm proposing.

Any opening that is essentially a coin flip is not Constructive as I understand the term.

[Cascade]

foo, on Jul 7 2007, 08:39 AM, said:

OTOH, opening 1♠ when you may or may not have any ♠'s and have 0-8 HCP is obviously designed to simply make it impossible for the opponents to use Bridge skills.

My experience playing against 'fert' bids is that increases the need to judgement and decreases the reliance on my own favourite conventions. In a strange sort of way I think it makes the game more natural.

I have always enjoyed the challenge.

Added Later:
========

And 1♠ Ferts are not designed to make life difficult for the opponents they are designed to make the rest of the system work. If you want to play a forcing (strong) pass system you have to put your weak hands somewhere. I have never talked to forcing pass player who thought the Fert was the cornerstone of their system. In fact I would not be surprised if all or nearly all 'Fert' players found that the 'Fert' was costly but that they hoped to make up for those losses with other parts of their system.

[foo]

[quote name='jtfanclub' date='Jul 6 2007, 03:53 PM'] [quote name='foo' date='Jul 6 2007, 03:51 PM'] Wow, I must be a darned good player. I only need 18 points, on the average, to make 1N.
[/QUOTE]
You are probably not playing against decent defenders then.

There are numerous studies on this backing up the number I gave. [/QUOTE]
Name one. [/quote]
Marshall Miles and Danny Kleinman both at one point had stuff you could look at.

Before that John Lowenthal, the author of BOREL, had done studies both for himself and the Dallas Aces.

For more contemporary sources, find Tom Andrews web site or Robin Hilliyard's (sp?) web sites. I was told about those a few years back.

There are others I've tripped across over the years. Do a Google search.

[foo]

Cascade, on Jul 6 2007, 03:57 PM, said:

foo, on Jul 7 2007, 08:39 AM, said:

OTOH, opening 1♠ when you may or may not have any ♠'s and have 0-8 HCP is obviously designed to simply make it impossible for the opponents to use Bridge skills.

My experience playing against 'fert' bids is that increases the need to judgement and decreases the reliance on my own favourite conventions. In a strange sort of way I think it makes the game more natural.

I have always enjoyed the challenge.

=What judgement?= How do you compete against an opening that at one extreme is best defended against using penalty X's and at the other extreme best defended against using T/O X's?
...and T/O pf what? and what can you use as cue bids?

...and of course the fundamental problem of how can you possibly evaluate your own hand if you have no idea what your ODR is? After all, if you have length and/or values =in= Their suits you want to defend most of the time, if you have length and/or values =outside= Their suits, you want to declare most of the time. But you literally have no way of judging that after this opening.

It goes on and on.

The opening essentially turns the board into a giant random number.

...and THAT is what the regulators, and many players, object to.

[Cascade]

foo, on Jul 7 2007, 09:08 AM, said:

Cascade, on Jul 6 2007, 03:57 PM, said:

foo, on Jul 7 2007, 08:39 AM, said:

OTOH, opening 1♠ when you may or may not have any ♠'s and have 0-8 HCP is obviously designed to simply make it impossible for the opponents to use Bridge skills.

My experience playing against 'fert' bids is that increases the need to judgement and decreases the reliance on my own favourite conventions. In a strange sort of way I think it makes the game more natural.

I have always enjoyed the challenge.

=What judgement?= How do you compete against an opening that at one extreme is best defended against using penalty X's and at the other extreme best defended against using T/O X's?
...and T/O pf what? and what can you use as cue bids?

...and of course the fundamental problem of how can you possibly evaluate your own hand if you have no idea what your ODR is? After all, if you have length and/or values =in= Their suits you want to defend most of the time, if you have length and/or values =outside= Their suits, you want to declare most of the time. But you literally have no way of judging that after this opening.

It goes on and on.

The opening essentially turns the board into a giant random number.

...and THAT is what the regulators, and many players, object to.

I wonder ...

Have you ever played 'ferts' or played against them?

What you describe is certainly not my experience at the table.

There are many decisions at bridge that are giant random numbers - a slam on a finesse +13 or -13 when it is bid at one table and not the other in a team's match. Just a 26 Imp crap shoot.

The problems you have are not substantially different than the problems that you encounter when the opponents open a weak NT or even a strong NT when the hand happens to belong to your side. And sometimes it is even better for the defending side since the opponents by their system are forced to be in the auction when they do not want to be - no one has a game and they are booked for down two or three if they can find their best spot.

I would bet that most 'fert' players would give up their 'fert' if they could find something else to do with weak hands and still play forcing pass. I don't think a 'fert' is a big winner for them and in many cases it is probably a loser. You just have to do something with 0-7 crap.

[hrothgar]

[quote name='foo' date='Jul 7 2007, 12:01 AM'] [quote name='jtfanclub' date='Jul 6 2007, 03:53 PM'] [quote name='foo' date='Jul 6 2007, 03:51 PM'] Wow, I must be a darned good player. I only need 18 points, on the average, to make 1N.
[/QUOTE]
You are probably not playing against decent defenders then.

There are numerous studies on this backing up the number I gave. [/QUOTE]
Name one. [/QUOTE]
Marshall Miles and Danny Kleinman both at one point had stuff you could look at.

Before that John Lowenthal, the author of BOREL, had done studies both for himself and the Dallas Aces.

For more contemporary sources, find Tom Andrews web site or Robin Hilliyard's (sp?) web sites. I was told about those a few years back.

There are others I've tripped across over the years. Do a Google search. [/quote]
Personally, I think that the terms that your arguing about are so poorly defined that they are essentially meaningless:

What does "need 18 points" on average to make actually mean:

1. Do you mean 18 HCPs in one hand opposite zero in the other?

2. Do you mean 18 HCPs in one hand opposite a random hand in the other?

3. Do you mean a random sample of hands where the sum of the HCP's in hand A + hand B is equal to 18 HCP?

In a similar vein, how are you defining "make 1NT"? Are you you require that at least 50% of the sample is able to make 3NT? Do you require that a plurality of the sample makes 1NT?

Which hand is declaring the 1NT contract? The hand with the most strength? A random hand?

Last, but not least, are you using a double dummy engine, a single dummy engine, or actual board results to evaluate success? As I understand matters, the choice of opening lead versus an uninformative auction like 1NT - swish is crucial. A double dummy engine is very likely to produce quite different results than a human player.

In short, one can construe these assertions to mean radically different things.

For what its worth, I just did a (quick) review of Thomas Andrews web site. I didn't see any direct results stating how many High Card Points (on average) are necessary to make seven tricks in NT.

I did find an "evaluator" which allows a player to input hands. The evaluator will output a wide variety of different information, including the number of tricks that this hand expect to make in a NT contract playing opposite a "random" hand. A double dummy engine is used to generate the result. The evaluator is available at

[url="http://bridge.thomasoandrews.com/iDeal/bin/ddeval.cgi"]http://bridge.thomasoandrews.com/iDeal/bin/ddeval.cgi[/url]

I entered as average a hand as I could into the evaluator

[sp] AT63
[he] K952
[di] Q84
[cl] J7

The evaluator states that this hand should expect to take 6.1 tricks in a NT contract. Let's assume that we increases the minimum strength of this hand until we the expected number of tricks in a NT contract was 6.5. I can easily believe that this would result in a situation in which the (expected) sum of the strength in the two hands was 21

For example, if we shift the 8 of Diamonds to the Jack of Diamonds, this takes us to 6.49 tricks on offense in NT. The expected strength of a random dummy is going to be ~9.666 HCPs and the expected strength of the two hands is going to be 20.666 HCPs.

[DrTodd13]

foo, on Jul 6 2007, 01:08 PM, said:

Cascade, on Jul 6 2007, 03:57 PM, said:

foo, on Jul 7 2007, 08:39 AM, said:

OTOH, opening 1♠ when you may or may not have any ♠'s and have 0-8 HCP is obviously designed to simply make it impossible for the opponents to use Bridge skills.

My experience playing against 'fert' bids is that increases the need to judgement and decreases the reliance on my own favourite conventions. In a strange sort of way I think it makes the game more natural.

I have always enjoyed the challenge.

=What judgement?= How do you compete against an opening that at one extreme is best defended against using penalty X's and at the other extreme best defended against using T/O X's?
...and T/O pf what? and what can you use as cue bids?

...and of course the fundamental problem of how can you possibly evaluate your own hand if you have no idea what your ODR is? After all, if you have length and/or values =in= Their suits you want to defend most of the time, if you have length and/or values =outside= Their suits, you want to declare most of the time. But you literally have no way of judging that after this opening.

It goes on and on.

The opening essentially turns the board into a giant random number.

...and THAT is what the regulators, and many players, object to.

Please keep talking. I'd like to see how far you can manage to get your foot in your mouth. You illustrate your ignorance with posts like this. If they passed instead of bidding a fert, would you have any better idea what their suits are or where their values are? I've already noticed several times where you are challenged to answer a question and you completely ignore it because you have no answer. I have detailed statistics on how well each bid in my forcing pass system performs in practice and as expected the fert bid is one of the worst performing bids. If things were randomized, it would seem to be towards the benefit of the opponents. However, despite all the doom and gloom, the fert doesn't generate insanity but instead people resort to natural overcalls and natural continuations. They lose some of their gadgets they would normally get to use if opps were silent and so the auction is somewhat less precise but no more so than in other competitive auctions where several bids are now unavailable.

[TimG]

foo, on Jul 6 2007, 03:39 PM, said:

opening 1♠ when you may or may not have any ♠'s and have 0-8 HCP is obviously designed to simply make it impossible for the opponents to use Bridge skills.

I thought it was a price paid for the other system choices.

[jtfanclub]

Quote

What does "need 18 points" on average to make actually mean:

Two random hands totalling 18 hcp, on the auction 1NT-swish, with a random declarer. Keeping in mind that 9 across 9 is far more common than 18 across 0.

Quote

In a similar vein, how are you defining "make 1NT"?

Me. Making 1NT at least half the time, against normal human opponents, not double-dummy.

Quote

A double dummy engine is very likely to produce quite different results than a human player.

Oh yes. Another way to describe this is that I'm a half trick better as declarer than computers would be double-dummy. It is my believe that this is almost entirely due to the opening lead- after the opening lead, double dummy doesn't really favor declarer or defenders much on low level contracts. But the opening lead is crucial.

[hrothgar]

foo, on Jul 7 2007, 12:08 AM, said:

=What judgement?=  How do you compete against an opening that at one extreme is best defended against using penalty X's and at the other extreme best defended against using T/O X's?
...and T/O pf what?  and what can you use as cue bids?

...and of course the fundamental problem of how can you possibly evaluate your own hand if you have no idea what your ODR is?  After all, if you have length and/or values =in= Their suits you want to defend most of the time, if you have length and/or values =outside= Their suits, you want to declare most of the time. But you literally have no way of judging that after this opening.

It goes on and on.

The opening essentially turns the board into a giant random number.

...and THAT is what the regulators, and many players, object to.

The following is (pretty much) hear say, however, my understanding is that its not especially difficult to design a defense against a FERT. There is some debate about hand types that should be bundled into a direct seat double versus a direct seat pass, but none of this is rocket science. Its (obviously) impossible to prove whether any given approach is optimal, however, one can certainly construct reasonable defenses.

I've heard a LOT of people say that its extremely difficult to develop effective defenses to the various "constructive" one, two, and three level openings that accompany that FERT that you are obsessing over. Simply put: Those bids eat up much more bidding space, while providing precise information about strength and shape. Responder is going be very well positioned to place the contract or drop the axe as appropriate.

Where this gets truly amusing is examples like the following:

Lets assume a hypothetical system in which

Pass = 0 - 7 HCP
1♥ = 13+ HCP
All other bids show various hands with 8-12 HCP

We can contrast this with a second system that inverts the meaning of Pass and 1♥

Pass = 13+ HCP
1♥ = 0-7 HCP
All other bids show various hands with 8-12 HCPs

I suspect that most system designers would claim that the second system is more constructive since its much more important to maximize bidding space over the 13+ HCP hands...

[jtfanclub]

[quote name='foo' date='Jul 6 2007, 04:01 PM'] [quote name='jtfanclub' date='Jul 6 2007, 03:53 PM'] [quote name='foo' date='Jul 6 2007, 03:51 PM'] Wow, I must be a darned good player. I only need 18 points, on the average, to make 1N.
[/QUOTE]
You are probably not playing against decent defenders then.

There are numerous studies on this backing up the number I gave. [/QUOTE]
Name one. [/QUOTE]
Marshall Miles and Danny Kleinman both at one point had stuff you could look at.

Before that John Lowenthal, the author of BOREL, had done studies both for himself and the Dallas Aces.

For more contemporary sources, find Tom Andrews web site or Robin Hilliyard's (sp?) web sites. I was told about those a few years back.

There are others I've tripped across over the years. Do a Google search. [/quote]
Yeah, well, I just asked Danny Kleinman, and he says he's never done such a study.

Do you have an actual study, or are you just going to give me random names?

[foo]

jtfanclub,
Sorry, I've been off line for awhile.

here is one of the ones I mentioned:
http://www.calculato...otalTricks.html
Took me ~10 secs to find it with Google.

Matthew Ginsberg's DD analysis seems unfortunately to no longer be available.

BridgeBrowser can easily be set up to answer the question.
So can DealMaster Pro or Visual Deal or ...

I can't at the moment lay my hands on the notes that Danny wrote that I got my hands on. I could have misremembered some details as to their contents, but he did a lot of work for _The NT Zone_.

it took me longer to type this than it would have take you to find the info or set up a tool to duplicate the info.

In short, you evidently either
didn't look very hard, or
didn't try very hard to duplicate the results, or
you just want to argue.

As these studies show, if you really are making 1N most of the time with 18 HCP between the two hands, you either have easy opponents or you are an wizard of 1N play.

[foo]

DrTodd13,

Attacking the poster rather than the evidence or logic of the post is the mark of someone who can't back up their POV and is resorting to theatrics to try and change the focus of the case. It's also immmature.

You think some of the Destructive methods that regulators are having problem with are so easy to achieve equity against, then the burden of proof is on you to prove it. I have listed some of the very real bridge problems. That is far from "dodging the question".
I have not seen anything other than a personal attack by you as an attempted counter-arguement.

2D= 0-8 HCP, can show any 2 suiter, each suit can be 4-7 cards long.
Let's see your defense.

1S= 0-8 HCP, says nothing about ♠'s or about any other shape. It's a "placeholder" necessitated by the rest of the Strong Pass system.
My understanding is the best defense to a Fert is based on a Strong Pass.
I look forward to your illuminating missive refuting this POV and showing the actual optimal defense.

I await with great anticipation your scintillating and awe inspiring discourse on methods that will restore a chance for equity to the defending side against these treatments that the mainstream has deemed Destructive.