[aguahombre]

Phil, on 2012-July-31, 11:12, said:

Yup. Have had good results not leading entryless minor six baggers at MPs. Well, not every time obv.

P.S. pard had KJTx.

In hearts, or in clubs?

Not sure I know how to evaluate "entryless" here. The club ace looks like an entry. If I lead hearts, I might get that entry and not have another heart to lead. If I lead clubs, partner might have an entry elsewhere, but no club to lead.

[lalldonn]

I thought that was the hand where dummy had Tx of clubs, partner KJ doubleton, declarer Qxx. On any lead but a club they make easily. On a club lead declarer has a 'guess' at trick 2 of playing his RHO for KJ doubleton and ducking or KJ9 alone and covering. It was definitely a good hand for falsecarding the spot card lead in clubs.

[Phil]

lalldonn, on 2012-July-31, 11:50, said:

I thought that was the hand where dummy had Tx of clubs, partner KJ doubleton, declarer Qxx. On any lead but a club they make easily. On a club lead declarer has a 'guess' at trick 2 of playing his RHO for KJ doubleton and ducking or KJ9 alone and covering. It was definitely a good hand for falsecarding the spot card lead in clubs.

Yes, you are right come to think about it. The relative thing was that a heart seemed to work pretty lousy, and I tilted in the endgame and let them make 6 which is why the hand is registering so negative in my mind. I think partner held something like Kxx J9xx xxxx KJ.

[Vampyr]

I have been thinking lately that if I am playing in an event with a qualifying stage, especially a short event with maybe two sessions of qualifying, that I should change my bidding system for the qualifying stages. A couple of years ago I played in a field where most people in a very strong field were playing strong NT and 2/1 game forcing, and I wasn't. The cards happened to be very unlucky for our system and we didn't qualify, but it seems that with a system that is very different from most pairs we need more than average luck to qualify. Is there any sense to this, or should I just play better?

[nigel_k]

Vampyr, on 2012-July-31, 14:35, said:

I have been thinking lately that if I am playing in an event with a qualifying stage, especially a short event with maybe two sessions of qualifying, that I should change my bidding system for the qualifying stages. A couple of years ago I played in a field where most people in a very strong field were playing strong NT and 2/1 game forcing, and I wasn't. The cards happened to be very unlucky for our system and we didn't qualify, but it seems that with a system that is very different from most pairs we need more than average luck to qualify. Is there any sense to this, or should I just play better?

If you can change your opening 1NT to the same as the field and keep everything else more or less the same, then do that. Switching between four and five card majors is too hard though due to the flow on effects, and a different NT range is the major anti-field risk.

If you normally play weak NT and four card majors, I would not switch. Strong NT and four card majors is hard to play. But five card majors is just better IMO so I would switch permanently for that reason (but keep the weak NT, especially if playing in England).

[dake50]

Does NAP district qualifier weed out the field
enough to "go with the field"?
Is that field voided of rabbits - surely compared
to a club game some filtering has occurred.

[aguahombre]

dake50, on 2012-July-31, 21:02, said:

Does NAP district qualifier weed out the field
enough to "go with the field"?
Is that field voided of rabbits - surely compared
to a club game some filtering has occurred.

The NAP district qualifier is somewhat similar to a country's Olympic trials. The Jamaican bobsledding team comes to mind.

[Siegmund]

It's extremely easy to meet the qualification requirements for district NAPs and GNTs in most districts (many allow anyone who wants to play to buy in even if they didnt qualify.)

The district finals are certainly better quality competition than random sectional players, yes. But they are still shortish events and the best players dont always win. I am not sure I would expect the field the first day at the national level to be any better than the field of an open national event on the second day.

[keylime]

I can say that my local GNT, for Flight B, was a very interesting experience. I had in my mind that District 6 would be a tough crowd to navigate through, but, due to the way they did the seeding, the three leagues had uneven strength, and my team being a solid outfit, was able to get into both day 2 and the semifinals where we lost. Just from that experience, I would treat day one of a GNT qual as a "don't beat yourself" and "execute" day.

[JLOGIC]

paulhar, on 2012-July-30, 07:57, said:

Are we all better than this drooling field? Maybe the rest of you can guarantee qualifying by simply sitting back and doing nothing on Day 1, but if this is a national event, I'm not good enough to do that. (I've won a few regional events - and I still think that.) I don't pretend to think that I'm good enough to get anything more than 50% by taking what I feel is the 'field' action, so if my judgment says that I can get 53% by taking an anti-field bid, I take it.

Dude I would laugh at myself if I decided that an anti field bid was 53 % to work out lol. It reminds me of the whole "72 % of statistics are made up." Yes, in theory the most marginal decisions should depend on a lot of factors but since we are just guessing at those factors (like, this anti field bid is FIFTY THREE PERCENT TO WORK), it is kind of a joke, just do the best you can to figure out what is going on on a hand based on the clues available to you.

It is extremely rare that you should be thinking about "the field", typically for me it would only be if I got to a grossly anti field game that was inferior to another game (like 3N instead of 4M with 9 hearts and a singleton). In that case, how many 4M would make would strongly influence my play, but luckily this doesn't happen to me very often since I don't make such grossly anti field bids

[gszes]

The point the criticism is trying to make is this---your strong bidding/play/defense will
increase the probability that you will end up with a good MP session. Going anti-field
will eliminate your natural advantage and replace it with judgement. Here is the rub--
by playing with the field you rate to finish with say 58%--when you opt to go anti field
your natural 58% edge is out the window so your judgement has to be strong enough
to make up for that 58% edge you are willing to lose.

The stronger your expected MP score vs the field the more accurate your judgement
has to be before taking a anti-field stance. This does not mean avoiding anti-field slams
that you arrive at using a superior bidding system. It means more along the lines of
why would you bid 6 (knowing it is anti-field) if the prospects of success are less than
your natural field advantage.

[pigpenz]

one of the sad things is that matchpoint events never get reported on in Bridge World, maybe its been like 25 years since they followed a set of hands around in the finals of the blue ribbon pair finals.

with todays technology, like Stephen Picketts Bridgebrowser software, it would be neat to see all the hands in the finals, all the bids and how the cards were played. See what influences bidding and leads have on the contracts. For a lot of players these events are mystery events, no one really knows what goes on unless you have the time and money to go kib them. We have records for major imp events but not for matchpoints.

[Phil]

pigpenz, on 2012-August-11, 11:34, said:

one of the sad things is that matchpoint events never get reported on in Bridge World, maybe its been like 25 years since they followed a set of hands around in the finals of the blue ribbon pair finals.

with todays technology, like Stephen Picketts Bridgebrowser software, it would be neat to see all the hands in the finals, all the bids and how the cards were played. See what influences bidding and leads have on the contracts. For a lot of players these events are mystery events, no one really knows what goes on unless you have the time and money to go kib them. We have records for major imp events but not for matchpoints.

Larry Cohen did this for the Blues when the Fall NABC was in Honolulu. '04 maybe?

[pigpenz]

Phil, on 2012-August-11, 11:46, said:

Larry Cohen did this for the Blues when the Fall NABC was in Honolulu. '04 maybe?

yes he did some hand but back in the late 70's they followed a set of boards around for all 13 rounds.
I do remember his comments now about how players must be exhausted cause of the plays they made or didn't make.
he made it sound like a war of attrition.

so I stand corrected we have 2 reports in about 25 years in Bridge World on matchpoints for the Blue Ribbon Finals.
too bad we don't get more.