[lcsmw]

I'm a decent bridge player and play a lot of robot tournaments. I will go through cycles where I do very well and others cycles of not doing not so well. I complete almost all of the 8 board tournaments. My match point average is 57% and my imps average is 9.38. I know that 8 board tournament results can fluctuate a lot and my bidding and play intentionally slightly deviates from the norm. I still find it puzzling that my results are so inconsistent.

[Bbradley62]

Players who intentionally deviate from the norm are intentionally causing large variations in their scores. (Of course, the hope/expectation is that there will be more or greater up-swings than down-swings.) As you say, 8-board scores can fluctuate a lot, and there could easily be several hands in one tourney where things either do or don't go your way. If you were trying to always be in the "field" contract and relying on superior declarer play to score well, then you should expect more consistent results.

[kenrexford]

Bbradley62, on 2015-December-22, 08:04, said:

Players who intentionally deviate from the norm are intentionally causing large variations in their scores. (Of course, the hope/expectation is that there will be more or greater up-swings than down-swings.) As you say, 8-board scores can fluctuate a lot, and there could easily be several hands in one tourney where things either do or don't go your way. If you were trying to always be in the "field" contract and relying on superior declarer play to score well, then you should expect more consistent results.

Eh, not always the case. I occasionally play in a club where the field bid is a swing action. For example, I repeatedly face a problem. I could decide to go for the set against the partscore, perhaps doubling. It might make, or I might get 100, with 300 the big hope. Or, I decide to declare, hoping to score up +110 or +130, risking -50, or -100 if doubled or bad luck, with a remote risk of -300. So, I make my decision. The field results are +500, -500, and -570. Thus, the defensive decisions, the declaring decisions, the bidding decisions, and the question of whether to double or not all seem like pointless frivolity.

[lcsmw]

I guess I'm not an expert on declarer play, but the line I take gets good results. Sometimes I feel that I declared perfectly and don't get the maximum result. Some of it might because of the auction. I believe that the robots are best programmed for auctions starting with one NT. I'll open that with 14 hcp and a 5 card suit even a major. I don't think this is radical and will get very good results more often than poorer results and this might be part of the reason for fluctuations in scores. There are others that still don't make sense. The replay feature is a great teaching tool.