Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Technical difficulties
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
A long day
OK, it's been a long day and I'm hitting the sauce, so this is just going to be a brief note. This afternoon I directed a 17-table game, which is not the biggest thing by any means, but it is the most awkward size for us movement-wise. At 18 tables, we split the thing into two comfortable 9-table sections and play 8 rounds at 3 boards a round, no problem. At 17 tables, you're stuck with 12 rounds at 2 boards a round, and keeping everybody moving at the right pace is like one of the labors of Hercules. In addition, all my house players got used up, and I had to play as well as direct, to avoid a half-table. Not everybody pays when they first arrive, so that means when you are dummy, you are running around collecting money, setting up the game in the computer, and trying to keep an eye on how the movement is going. And every so often there's a director call too, just for variation. Basically, after a couple of hours of this torture, I was feeling like a one-legged guy in an ass-kicking contest - really busy, not making much progress, and thoroughly kicked too.
At the end of the game, three-quarters of the tables finished more or less on time, the one I was at included (exactly on time for me). Not bad, especially since my scratch partner and me (who had never played more than a board or two together before and didn't discuss system at all) scored 66% and won East-West. Hoo-yah.
Then this evening, I was still working, this time on supervised play. But somehow Agent 99 managed to forget that I had cancelled our play-date, and showed up expecting to play with me. Instead, she got... Well, let me put it this way. Do you know those cartoons with a funny little old guy who kind of resembles a turtle, often depicted driving in such a way that his hands are higher than his head on the steering wheel, and he is peering through the wheel trying to see where he is going? OK, this guy became her partner since I wasn't available (that'll teach her, I thought). Wouldn't you know it, with one round to go they were almost a top clear East-West. Sad to say, they had a disastrous last round, and finished third. But I was still mightily impressed. I'm going to have to give her a raise.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Hand Evaluation
I’ve been doing more teaching lately, primarily of beginners, but also some intermediates. That has brought the topic of hand evaluation higher into my awareness.
How do you evaluate your hand? Do you use the Work point-count? Do you adjust your point-count for distribution, or maybe use a different count, like Zar Points? Or maybe you follow the Losing Trick Count? Are you a devotee of The Law in competitive situations, or do you keep adjusting whatever measure you started with?
There’s a plethora (love that word) of methods out there. We start the beginners with a simple 4-3-2-1 point-count, but soon enough they start asking about other things. We can’t help but introduce “adjustments” for long suits or short suits almost immediately, because the truth of the matter is that the 4-3-2-1 count just doesn’t work very well. And once that cat’s out of the bag, we’re left wondering what’s the best method to tell people to use.
Part of my problem is that I’m not entirely sure how I evaluate my hands when I play for real. I do count points, and for balanced hands I pretty much let myself be guided by the count. But when distribution starts to be a factor – like, most of the time – I tend to bid pretty much what I feel like. Now, my feelings tend to be pretty good and consistent, based, I suppose, on my past experience and study. But I’m a bit at a loss to explain how I arrive at the bids I make.
Many years ago, I discovered the Losing Trick Count, chiefly through the writings of Harrison-Gray. I immediately became a convert, and I still think it’s the best practical method for evaluating distributional deals. What sold me the most, of course, is that it seems to provide me with a justification for bidding what I wanted to bid anyway, most of the time. How can I not like a method that agrees with me? But also, the factors that the LTC inherently takes into account make logical sense to me. When you look at the cards covering losers, you are automatically weighting controls and whether the high cards are in your long suits. (Other methods, such as Zar Points, take account of some of this stuff, but the calculations aren’t quite so easy to do, and the results aren’t quite so easy to evaluate either). Once you have found a trump fit with partner, you can start adding your losers together and making adjustments for extra trumps, and there is a logical basis for using these calculations to decide how high to bid. Devotees of The Law also have an easy calculation, but as has been pointed out in detail by Lawrence and Wirgren, they have no reason to think that the answer they come up with is any use. Those authors have come up with their own method of evaluation, and I think it is probably very accurate when you can see both hands. But it isn’t clear to me how to apply their methods easily in the practical situation of looking just at your own hand, so I still favor the Losing Trick Count.
I guess my bottom line is that I go with Work point-count for balanced hands, the Losing Trick Count for distributional hands, and a mystical combination of the two when we’re in the usual murky situation. Oh well.
I didn’t want to weigh this entry down with detailed descriptions of the individual methods, but lots of information is available on the net. Here are some references: I’m not endorsing any of these sites or descriptions as being especially good, but if you want to look up a particular method, here are some places to start.
The Losing Trick Count
http://www.bridgehands.com/L/Losing_Trick_Count.htm
Zar Points
http://www.bridgeguys.com/pdf/ZarPoints2003BOOK.pdf
The Law
http://www.pattayabridge.com/conventions/law-total-tricks.htm
Discussing the Law
http://www.newbridgelaw.com/