[Kaitlyn S]

MrAce, on 2017-June-14, 17:23, said:

Who is the author?

I made the error of saying in another thread that I was reading books submitted for an award and someone can correctly deduce that this plethora of questions I've posted lately are about material in these award submissions. If I hadn't said anything about the award, I'd be happy to state the author (this is the second time I was asked, the first was about a different book), however, I'm pretty sure the author and publisher would be unhappy if I stated that the book was entered for the award in the event that it didn't win (unhappy enough that I wouldn't be assisting in the decision process in the future.)

Having learned my lesson, next year I won't mention anything about an award.

[MrAce]

Kaitlyn S, on 2017-June-14, 19:38, said:

I made the error of saying in another thread that I was reading books submitted for an award and someone can correctly deduce that this plethora of questions I've posted lately are about material in these award submissions. If I hadn't said anything about the award, I'd be happy to state the author (this is the second time I was asked, the first was about a different book), however, I'm pretty sure the author and publisher would be unhappy if I stated that the book was entered for the award in the event that it didn't win (unhappy enough that I wouldn't be assisting in the decision process in the future.)

Having learned my lesson, next year I won't mention anything about an award.

Ok thanks!

[m1cha]

Kaitlyn S, on 2017-June-14, 17:09, said:

The recently released book advised you not to open this hand playing 2/1 because if your partner responded 2H, you will get too high.

The argument as such is correct but how often does it happen and where do we get when we always pass when something bad might happen?

Or, to look at it from the other side: If I don't open this and partner doesn't open with
♠ KQxx
♥ Jxxx
♦ KTx
♣ xx,
how will we find our full game in spades? Rely on opponents to open it for us?

[JLilly]

For any bidding question worth asking, you can come up with scenarios where one policy or another leads to inferior results. If partner has 5♥ and no fit for your minors, yeah, you'll end up in a not-great contract, but what's the alternative -- a 1♠ opener has to be even *stronger* if you have a singleton?

Also, 1♠ has preemptive value. For some systems this is a textbook 2♠ opener. I'd open 1♠ regardless of vulnerability or 1st vs. 2nd seat.

[JLilly]

Oh, to the OP, a more intuitive way of presenting the poll would have been:

question 1: "do you open this with SAYC?"
question 2: "do you open this with 2/1?"

Right now you're asking people to do an XOR operation, which is cognitively relatively difficult.

[Kaitlyn S]

JLilly, on 2017-June-14, 21:47, said:

Oh, to the OP, a more intuitive way of presenting the poll would have been:

question 1: "do you open this with SAYC?"
question 2: "do you open this with 2/1?"

Right now you're asking people to do an XOR operation, which is cognitively relatively difficult.

You have the wrong question. What I was asking is if there was ANY hand that the player would open in one system and not the other. To me, it seems like whether I'm playing 2/1 is irrelevant when opening the bidding. I wanted to see if others felt the same.

[MrAce]

Kaitlyn, I set up a poll for you in BW where a lot of experts as well as world-class players voted. You can check the results here. You got 19 votes here in BBF and you have 116 votes so far in BW.

http://bridgewinners...ew/open-or-not/

[Kaitlyn S]

MrAce, on 2017-June-15, 03:07, said:

Kaitlyn, I set up a poll for you in BW where a lot of experts as well as world-class players voted. You can check the results here. You got 19 votes here in BBF and you have 116 votes so far in BW.

http://bridgewinners...ew/open-or-not/

Thank you! It seems like we have more passers here in the few votes I've collected than on the many votes on BW!

[MrAce]

Kaitlyn S, on 2017-June-15, 08:41, said:

Thank you! It seems like we have more passers here in the few votes I've collected than on the many votes on BW!

Yes. Now we have over 300 votes in BW on this hand! And yet there is not a SINGLE vote for pass! Amazing isn't it?

[Kaitlyn S]

Nabooba, on 2017-June-14, 19:30, said:

I would not play with anyone who deems this hand to be a pass.

Several decades ago, Alvin Roth was a top player who was in favor who passed a lot of hands that most of us would open (I think he passed many 13's.) His results were excellent, and if he were alive today, they probably still would be despite that one wrinkle in his bidding theory. I find it hard to believe you would exclude such a partner simply because he doesn't open this hand.

I am guessing that what you mean is that you believe that players who would pass this hand are necessarily poor players and you would expect to do poorly with them, but what your statement actually says is that you wouldn't want to partner a world-class player (I mean real world-class, not world-class by BBO self grading standards) whose philosophy was to pass these hands.

[ggwhiz]

Kaitlyn S, on 2017-June-17, 09:27, said:

I am guessing that what you mean is that you believe that players who would pass this hand are necessarily poor players and you would expect to do poorly with them,

I don't read it that way, only the expect to do poorly with them part.

I'm a fan of Marty Bergen but his early pre-empting style would give me a nervous breakdown. Anyone that plays power precision or at a snails pace is a non starter as well. Of course that's just my view that it should probably say "could not play with" as opposed to "would not" but it's only 1 letter difference.

[Winstonm]

Nabooba, on 2017-June-14, 19:30, said:

I would not play with anyone who deems this hand to be a pass.

I believe this view shortsighted as passing or bidding is about style of play rather than ability of play. There is certainly something to be said about the fast in/fast out style of bidding and aggressive openings of the modern game, yet that style of play has an inherent problem of leaving a question mark in partner's mind about how good of hand is opposite.

As in everything, it is a trade-off; is it better to put pressure on the opponents by frequent light openings and raises or is a more constructive bidding agreement the better way to go.

I personally believe the answer lies in the artificial club systems which puts a cap on the top end of a non-club opening bid, and having lived and played when Precision was introduced, I saw the affect over time that limited opening bids made in lower and lower standards for opening bids.

That said, the basic problem identified and analyzed by Howard Schenken in his 1968 book introducing his own big club system showed that the too wide of range of hand strength for an opening bid placed too much pressure on responder's hand, along with many other problems, and that the 2C structure for strong hands was a poor method compared to 1C forcing openings.

I don't think that problem has changed over the years. It is then a matter of style.

[Kaitlyn S]

Winstonm, on 2017-June-17, 09:59, said:

I believe this view shortsighted as passing or bidding is about style of play rather than ability of play.

What prompted me to post was the fact that you, who has demonstrated a high degree of competence on these forums, is one of the people that he would want to exclude from his set of potential partners, and I think that this pointed out the shortsightedness of his statement.

BTW, I noticed that you didn't vote in the poll

[RedSpawn]

Winstonm, on 2017-June-17, 09:59, said:

I believe this view shortsighted as passing or bidding is about style of play rather than ability of play. There is certainly something to be said about the fast in/fast out style of bidding and aggressive openings of the modern game, yet that style of play has an inherent problem of leaving a question mark in partner's mind about how good of hand is opposite.

As in everything, it is a trade-off; is it better to put pressure on the opponents by frequent light openings and raises or is a more constructive bidding agreement the better way to go.

I personally believe the answer lies in the artificial club systems which puts a cap on the top end of a non-club opening bid, and having lived and played when Precision was introduced, I saw the affect over time that limited opening bids made in lower and lower standards for opening bids.

That said, the basic problem identified and analyzed by Howard Schenken in his 1968 book introducing his own big club system showed that the too wide of range of hand strength for an opening bid placed too much pressure on responder's hand, along with many other problems, and that the 2C structure for strong hands was a poor method compared to 1C forcing openings.

I don't think that problem has changed over the years. It is then a matter of style.

The pressure is always on the respondent to know the upper and lower ranges of the opening bid from his partner. I agree it is a matter of style.

Early on I stated this distributional hand could be opened 1♠ under rule of 20.
I didn't mention it but it has 7 losers and thus has minimum opening bid strength even though low on HCP, but I and someone else mentioned a 2♥ response bid dilemma.

But I agree today's bridge requires you bid 1st and unpack those rebid concerns later. I just want to make sure we give the respondent his proper due for the additional pressure and expectations thrust upon him for the wider range of opening bids.

[Winstonm]

Kaitlyn S, on 2017-June-17, 10:14, said:

BTW, I noticed that you didn't vote in the poll

Fixed that.

[Nabooba]

No I stand by my comment. This is an obvious opening for me. I would not play with someone who disagrees with that. She would be unhappy if I opened it and I would be unhappy if they didn't. This does not make for much of a partnership.