[Phil]

Quote

3.) During play all artificial bids still need to be alerted. So how much was the gain for using a fancy system? Inevitably a huge amount of effort was dispensed in developing a new system.

I have to alert my conventional bids? You're killing me!

[benlessard]

I like to play an artificial system because it frustrated me that many hands are unbiddable with a natural system. I also hate to lose by making a bad guess, so I try to avoid them the more I can. If the big majority of my guess were right i wouldnt bother with an artificial system just for the fun of it.

[whereagles]

benlessard, on 2012-January-05, 08:09, said:

I like to play an artificial system because it frustrated me that many hands are unbiddable with a natural system.

Well, I for one seem to be doing fine with a natural system + gadgets. Sure, a relay system is better but that requires a good pard and a lot of work and experience.

[Cthulhu D]

whereagles, on 2012-January-05, 09:29, said:

Well, I for one seem to be doing fine with a natural system + gadgets. Sure, a relay system is better but that requires a good pard and a lot of work and experience.

Isn't it probably just more important to play something that caters to your partnerships natural game?

[mycroft]

whereagles, on 2012-January-05, 09:29, said:

Well, I for one seem to be doing fine with a natural system + gadgets. Sure, a relay system is better but that requires a good pard and a lot of work and experience.

So does a "natural system" (either with gadgets (same work and experiences as the relay system, though a lot less "per gadget", and maybe a lot less total) or without (bridge judgement takes work and experience, and with the "unbiddable hands", it's down to judgement, no?)).

And since you trimmed off the part where Ben says "I guess wrong a lot", your counterargument that your bidding judgement with a natural system is "fine" is a little like people dismissing my frustration with scissors (I'm left-handed) because "they work fine for me."

Now, I play EHAA - perhaps the epitome of "natural, no gadgets" even if the "natural" bids are unusual; part of the reason I play it is that you're *always* in bidding judgement territory. You get lots of training in it, *fast*, and you get to see the results right away. It has *certainly* improved my judgement playing "real" systems. But that doesn't mean that I would not rather have the system do my thinking for me as I reasonably can. I just remember better than I think, that's all.

You don't? Fine. Not my problem!

[32519]

How does a person determine the level of acceptance for any new system/gadget designed?

Enter what I hear referred to as the “Secret Bridge Olympics.” Apparently the “Secret Bridge Olympics” takes place once every four years. The last one took place in France in November 2009. New inventions/gadgets etc get tested by experts. Participation in the “Secret Bridge Olympics” is upon invite only. All people who are invited must have some form of material to be published and willing to share it with those present. All new systems/gadgets etc are then put through the test and if accepted, get published and a name is then giving to the system/gadget. This is where Michael’s, Splinters, Smolen, Staymen etc were tested and accepted.

Your contribution (new system/gadget etc) must be handed in on the first day on arrival. Then commences a 3 day tournament played with pre-dealt hands which meet the requirements of each new system/gadget that was submitted. Usually around 250 boards are dealt. New systems/gadget notes are handed out to each player and every time a player chooses to use one of the new systems/gadgets a note is made and the player then rates the system/gadget on a scale of 1 to 3 –
1 = no good, scrap, dump
2 = may work but needs more thought
3 = system/gadget works, no need to make any changes
The more points your new system/gadget receives from the invitees to the tournament, naturally the better.

Upon arrival the new system/gadget notes must already be translated into in 4 different languages. It saves translation time during the event. Languages of preference = English, German, Chinese, Turkish, Italian, Polish and Spanish in that order.

The problem however is receiving an invitation to this tournament. Can anybody supply more detail? These BBO forums are crammed with some fantastic ideas. One of the posters here may quite easily be sitting on the next best seller.

CC Wei’s Precision only rocketed to stardom after his team’s phenomenal success at the 1969 16th World Team Championships (Bermuda Bowl). They ended 2nd. Two years later they again made it to the last four. Precision’s popularity grew when the famous Italian Blue Team started developing their own version of Precision.

A lot of money can be made from books/royalties if your unique system/gadget gains enough acceptance amongst other players. The problem however facing most system/gadget designers is being able to showcase your invention before the world’s best players.

Polish Club by Krzysztof Jassem is another good example of a system which found sufficient support for the designer to publish an updated version roughly every 5 years. We had WJ2000, then WJ2005, and now WJ2010 (Polish: Wspólny Język, literally "Common Language"). WJ2010 is apparently not available in English. Jassem has no plans to translate it as insufficient interest was shown for WJ2005. These forums had a thread on it http://www.bridgebas.../41287-wj-2010/

[hrothgar]

32519, on 2012-January-05, 13:12, said:

CC Wei’s Precision only rocketed to stardom after his team’s phenomenal success at the 1969 16th World Team Championships (Bermuda Bowl). They ended 2nd. Two years later they again made it to the last four. Precision’s popularity grew when the famous Italian Blue Team started developing their own version of Precision.

A lot of money can be made from books/royalties if your unique system/gadget gains enough acceptance amongst other players. The problem however facing most system/gadget designers is being able to showcase your invention before the world’s best players.

CC Wei started with a lot of money
He used this money to bribe good players to adopt his preferred methods (including members of the Blue Team)

George Rosenkranz started with a lot of money
He used to this money to bribe good players to adopt his preferred methods

There are plenty of reasons to write bridge books...
I'd be surprised if making "a lot of money" is one of them.

[the hog]

Very few people make money from writing Bridge books. Secret Olympics? What a load of crap!

[Siegmund]

When I first started playing a homegrown Polish Club variant in 1996, I used to go through the hand records after every session I played at a regional and identify hands where I got a different result than I would have playing standard. I concluded the system change was worth about 2% per session.

I freely admit that I could probably have achieved a similar benefit by tuning my standard methods. (I didn't feel like I LOST 2% per session when I went back to standard a few years later) But I've always had a fondness for system development, and it was an interesting and fun path to improving my bidding, even if it wasn't the most direct path. As hrothgar said, thinking is better for your game than memorizing rules is. A lot of thinking goes into making up and testing new toys.

When I experiment with new system ideas now, it is only rarely to solve a sticky bidding situation (most all the common problems I have had a favorite solution to for years) and is much more often a hobby.

[Vampyr]

32519, on 2012-January-05, 13:12, said:

How does a person determine the level of acceptance for any new system/gadget designed?

Enter what I hear referred to as the “Secret Bridge Olympics.” Apparently the “Secret Bridge Olympics” takes place once every four years. The last one took place in France in November 2009. New inventions/gadgets etc get tested by experts. Participation in the “Secret Bridge Olympics” is upon invite only. All people who are invited must have some form of material to be published and willing to share it with those present. All new systems/gadgets etc are then put through the test and if accepted, get published and a name is then giving to the system/gadget. This is where Michael’s, Splinters, Smolen, Staymen etc were tested and accepted.

Love it!

[fred]

Contrary to some of the opinions expressed in this thread, the actual fact of the matter is that a clear majority of full time high-level bridge pros in the USA play most or all of their sessions with other pros (and not with "weak clients") as their partners.

I am a typical example - whenever I play professionally (rare these days) my partner is always another professional player.

Most of the full time pros who are good enough to represent the USA in World Championships play most of their professional bridge in ACBL Regional tournaments. The vast majority of sessions they tend to play in these tournaments are in team events where the typical professional team consists of one sponsor and anywhere between three and five pros. On such teams with four pros, the pro who plays with the sponsor will also play with another pro half the time.

Even for pros who play only or primarily with sponsors, I feel strongly that it is wrong to discount this experience as essentially worthless (as some posters seem to be implying) for several reasons:

1) Many sponsors are reasonable players. Some are excellent players.

2) Some of the pros who play with sponsors in minor events also play with sponsors in events like the USA Team Trials (and the World Championships if they qualify).

3) (Most important) Playing bridge full time, regardless of who your partner happens to be, is massively beneficial to your game in my view. Young players may not appreciate this so much, but my experience strongly suggests that the older you get the harder it is to stay sharp and play your best, especially if you go for long periods of time between tournaments.

Probably from the above it is obvious that I agree with those who offered the opinion that the prevalence of opportunities for top players to play professionally in the USA is indeed one of the main reasons why the USA has a long history of success in international bridge.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[cherdano]

I couldn't care less about this discussion, but...

hrothgar, on 2012-January-04, 04:35, said:

2. The US has a much deeper pool of talent than any other country. In any given decade, Norway or where ever will have a "Helgemo", however, the US is able to fields teams with multiple players with similar talent

...I can't let this one go. There is only one Helgemo.

[Gerben42]

So on the question of "what do you gain from your non-natural system?" I would like to change the question to non-standard system. Fantunes IS a natural system, although completely different from standard style as the forcing 2-level opening bid is missing.

What do I hope to gain from this?

* 2-level openings are a bit unsound but lets opponents guess more than we do
* 1-level opening bids are more sound than standard, so lets us guess less than the field

And the same is true for gadgets like multi reverse bids, they are there to solve problems that natural pairs have.

[JLOGIC]

I only skimmed but the reason I don't play multi is that I think it is a bad convention. I think multi is allowed in flight A regional KOs which is where I play most of my bridge. Maybe that changed, but it was for a long time at least. As Fred says, I play most of my bridge with other pros against very strong competition (check out the rosters of any Florida or New York or mid atlantic regional if you want to know).

Another reason is that I almost always play precision. I spent a few years playing 2H as a precision 2D opener, and 2D as multi though (precision 2H is much worse though than precision 2D if you include (34)15s as I like to).

I think most conventions that people complain are barred in USA are not actually barred in bracket 1 KO competitions so there is definitely a disconnect in how I feel system regulations are compared to an average player who has few masterpoints and can't play in those events.

Nothing tilted me more when playing multi than having my opps overcall 2H over my multi 2D when I had a 2S opener lol.

[JLOGIC]

fred, on 2012-January-06, 10:11, said:

Probably from the above it is obvious that I agree with those who offered the opinion that the prevalence of opportunities for top players to play professionally in the USA is indeed one of the main reasons why the USA has a long history of success in international bridge.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

Of course. Playing all the time is a key element to being one of the best players in the world. A key element to being able to play all the time is to be able to support yourself by playing. There are far more opportunities for this in america, even for most foreigners.

[RunemPard]

Irregular systems tend to help out more when finding that hard to reach game bid or that hidden slam. Of course any natural system can find a 27 point 8 card spades fit for 4S=. But, many using that very same system may have trouble finding a great 23 point 8 card spades fit that goes for 4S+1.

The point of most irregular bids is to find the things that others cannot while at the same time not disturbing your own bidding. Many times these systems may turn around and bite you, but, with practice using these bids it becomes just as easy as 1H->3H.

I play bridge to have fun. One of the things I enjoy doing is trying new systems/bids. I also can play rather well.

[Vampyr]

JLOGIC, on 2012-January-09, 00:15, said:

I think most conventions that people complain are barred in USA are not actually barred in bracket 1 KO competitions so there is definitely a disconnect in how I feel system regulations are compared to an average player who has few masterpoints and can't play in those events.

Can't one insist on the top bracket?

[JLOGIC]

Vampyr, on 2012-January-12, 01:43, said:

Can't one insist on the top bracket?

People talk about this, but I don't see how it'd work. To insist on the top bracket, you would kick someone else out of the top bracket (depending on how many teams there are, but obviously there can't be an odd number of teams and it has to be able to work in the amount of sessions allotted). On top of that, if a very bad team wants to play in the top bracket, it would make the top bracket weaker, and even though it might make the team playing up happy, it might make the other teams who want to play against top flight competition unhappy. It would also make the event less fair as drawing that team would be like getting a bye, making it much easier for some teams to win than others.

I have seen instances of people playing up but they were always known good players with few masterpoints, and it was perhaps somewhat of a correction of the unfairness of those teams being in a low bracket despite being very good (for foreign players they are given enough MP to play the top bracket when they come over, but for rubber bridge players or young players from USA/canada this doesn't happen, so playing up is the only option). It also was made possible by the amount of teams entered into the event, and how close the bottom team in bracket 1 was to bracket 2. I don't think it's as simple as anyone can just ask to play up and be accommodated for a knockout.

[mycroft]

The regulation is that people can *ask* to move up to the top bracket (only), and *if feasible*, *in the TD's judgement*, it'll happen. I think that's odd - I think we should be able to ask for a higher bracket (any higher bracket), and then if possible, the TD will do whatever.

I think it's a little silly that my "highly underrated team" (and I've been on a few) either gets to play in Bracket 7 of 9 (which is an "if we don't win each match by 40+, we played horribly") or Bracket 1 (where we have no hope, and are effectively a "paid bye" for the one team lucky enough to catch us). We're a bracket 4 team; shouldn't we be allowed to move up at least a couple of brackets without going all the way to 1 (which isn't fair, so they won't)?

I do realize that working those things out for 150 teams is a nightmare :-).

I do also realize that our current Mid-Chart default rule (allowed in any bracket where the designator is 1000+ points) effectively means that "if you want to play a mid-chart *system*, rather than just the odd bolt-ons (i.e. say I want to play transfers after 1♣), either you're a pro, or you have no idea whether you'll be allowed to play it in *this* event, so better be able to switch on the fly". I have no idea what to do about that either.

[gnasher]

mycroft, on 2012-January-13, 13:31, said:

I do also realize that our current Mid-Chart default rule (allowed in any bracket where the designator is 1000+ points) effectively means that "if you want to play a mid-chart *system*, rather than just the odd bolt-ons (i.e. say I want to play transfers after 1♣), either you're a pro, or you have no idea whether you'll be allowed to play it in *this* event, so better be able to switch on the fly". I have no idea what to do about that either.

Run a mid-chart knockout and a muppetgeneral-chart knockout in parallel. The brackets might be wider, but I expect everyone would find the company more to their liking.