[whereagles]

fred, on Nov 30 2006, 08:09 PM, said:

Suppose a beginner witnessed an expert pair arrive at a sensational contract through a series of complex artificial bids. Do you really think it would benefit the beginner to try to include these bids in his regular system?

I believe that the issue we are discussing is analogous.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

Well... I must confess I'm a bit alergic to analogies because they are quite prone to skewness

Anyway, in the case at hand I don't clearly see where your analogy is trying to get at, though I think I can volunteer the following. If your point is that high levels of complexity are undesirable when teaching a beginner, then I agree. Now, whether or not a preempt with side 5-card major introduces such high a level of complexity, that I'm not so sure.

[hrothgar]

whereagles, on Dec 1 2006, 03:54 AM, said:

Anyway, in the case at hand I don't clearly see where your analogy is trying to get at, though I think I can volunteer the following. If your point is that high levels of complexity are undesirable when teaching a beginner, then I agree.

I apologize for putting words into Fred's mouth, however, here's my interpretation of what he getting at:

Most bidding systems have "holes" in them. There are certain hand types that present very clear bidding problems for specific bidding systems. The "Bridge World Death Hand" is a classic example of a hand type that posses a nasty rebid problem for most natural bidding systems.

You can, of course, always sidestep the problem. Its always possible to redefine a few bidding sequences such that you're able to show precisely the hand type that so bedevils those poor sods at the next table. However, this normally created some nasty little ripples elsewhere in the system. That bid that you redefined probably meant something.

In some ways, it might be better to confront the problem head on and make the best of a limited set of tools. In an ideal world, it will help you develop judgment that can be applied to a wide variety of issues.

[awm]

Perhaps another point is that these kinds of preempts are extremely high-variance actions. They will often have either a really good result (no one can find a takeout double because they have too many in your side major, and they miss a game) or a really bad result (you're cold for 4M and partner passes your preempt).

Of course, sometimes taking high-variance actions is good. This is especially true if you're behind in a short match, or up against superior opposition. And experts can often judge whether the "really good" or "really bad" results are more likely and play the odds.

But for beginner/intermediate players, it will be harder for them to improve if they are making decisions (or playing methods) that tend to give their results a very high variance. It's more important to learn to make good decisions on the "normal" hands and to be able to see their scores gradually improve.

Notice that the decision of how to bid these hands depends a lot on factors like:

(1) The state of the match.
(2) The seat and vulnerability.
(3) Your side's general opening style.
(4) Which particular suits you hold.
(5) The relative strength of suits, and the spot cards.
(6) The distribution of the cards in the side suits.

These are a lot of factors to consider, and beginner/intermediate players usually aren't up to it. They need to learn a lot of things before being ready to make accurate decisions on these kinds of hands.

[cherdano]

Richard, I think you still don't get Fred's point. This is not about tools or problem hands etc. Fred wants B/I's to get the chance to develop the skill to make bidding decision based on visualizing partner's hand.
This is easiest if you have some pure bids where you know very exactly what to expect.

I always thought that among all the "rule of xx"s, the "rule of 17" is the worst. It says (if I remember it correctly) that you should bid game opposite a 2M weak two if the sum of hcp + length of trump support is 17 or higher. In my mind, it is a disservice to B/I's to tell them such a rule. It maybe improve their bidding in the short term. But they will miss out one of the best opportunities to learn to evaluate their hand based on picturing partner's hand. Instead I would tell them to imagine a few of partner's possible hand (KQxxxx and out, then add a random useful card here or there) and bid game if it looks like 10 tricks more often than not (and maybe teach them feature ask).

But then, I have read this "rule of 17" from people waaaaay more experienced in teaching bridge than me. Your mileage may vary, depending on your audience maybe. (And I suppose those who read the B/I forum are part of the audience that does better without rule of 17.)