[ceeb]

Kibitzing a strong game the following occurred

---

West led ♣8, A, 10, x. Subsequently E followed suit (to the ♣K) and discarded his remaining intermediate clubs leaving himself ♣Q3 against declarer's ♣65. No one but a kibitzer noticed what had happened and the consequent potential for an extra trick.

My feeling is that even the very top players do not track the exact spots reliably enough to have picked up this opportunity at the table. Maybe there are one or two exceptions -- Martin Hoffman perhaps? and it used to be said that Charles Goren could write down the exact hands after a session. What do others think? And do you think it possible and/or worthwhile to cultivate the ability?

[JLOGIC]

I think you are wrong, I doubt any "very top player" does not know the spot cards on a hand. I think you underestimate how much better a very top player is to a "strong game on BBO" and even if it was actually a very top player playing on BBO, how much they care about the BBO game compared to how much they'd care in real life. It's bad to make conclusions from online play, almost nobody I know who is a very top player takes it seriously.

FWIW I am not a very top player but I doubt there are many times in real life that I could not tell you the exact spots of a suit, and never of a suit that seems to matter at all.

[pooltuna]

 JLOGIC, on 2011-January-23, 12:29, said:

I think you are wrong, I doubt any "very top player" does not know the spot cards on a hand. I think you underestimate how much better a very top player is to a "strong game on BBO" and even if it was actually a very top player playing on BBO, how much they care about the BBO game compared to how much they'd care in real life. It's bad to make conclusions from online play, almost nobody I know who is a very top player takes it seriously.

FWIW I am not a very top player but I doubt there are many times in real life that I could not tell you the exact spots of a suit, and never of a suit that seems to matter at all.

you mean never not I presume in your last sentence

[inquiry]

Top players and even run of the mill experts watch spots. If for no other reason than try to figure out what signals are being sent. Did East give count, did west give a suit preference. Was it remaining count or original count. Was it attitude. Even I think about spot cards. Would I be able to put it together? I am certain that when WEST showed out on second club and EAST never played the club 3, I would notice that and be wondering why. (3 would show something somewhere else perhaps). So I can't imagine run of the mill good players not picking up on East being Q3 club left out in a serious game or even in a non-serious one, as I try to play seriously all the time to keep from forming bad habits.

[ceeb]

 JLOGIC, on 2011-January-23, 12:29, said:

I think you are wrong, I doubt any "very top player" does not know the spot cards on a hand.

Maybe. I'm always interested in your experience.

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I think you underestimate how much better a very top player is to a "strong game on BBO" and even if it was actually a very top player playing on BBO, how much they care about the BBO game compared to how much they'd care in real life. It's bad to make conclusions from online play, almost nobody I know who is a very top player takes it seriously.

Sorry, I misled you by including the irrelevant information of "strong game". I'm using the hand from BBO only because it reminded me of my question and because the suit here seemed like a good illustration, not because I imagine that the actual pretty good declarer's oversight bears in any way on top level performers. I had more in mind examples like a (serious) London rubber bridge hand in which Bob Hamman overlooked a sure trick line because he missed a spot in the trump suit, and he didn't seem astonished to have done so.

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FWIW I am not a very top player

seemingly not yet, but no reason to suppose that the margin by which you fall short has anything to do with spot watching.

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but I doubt there are many times in real life that I could not tell you the exact spots of a suit, and never of a suit that seems to matter at all.

Let's try to refine this a little. I've heard top players (sorry I don't specifically recall who) say that they figure they always know the spots when it matters, or that they figure they can always reconstruct the spots in a suit if necessary. That's consistent with what you say, but it's qualified. It doesn't rule out in fact probably implies occasionally being surprised by a suit where the spots rated not to matter but did (vide my example). There is a difference between "being able to reconstruct" and always being on top of the situation in real time.

[WellSpyder]

 ceeb, on 2011-January-23, 15:18, said:

I've heard top players (sorry I don't specifically recall who) say that they figure they always know the spots when it matters...

I think this is very relevant. Any strong player will find they are keeping track of intermediate cards when there is a chance of a trick being promoted - if in the OP example declarer had started with, say, 8432 opposite AKJ, then I think everyone would expect to notice if Q109 had all fallen. With 6542 it seems inconceivable that a trick can be promoted unless the suit breaks 3-3. Yes, a good player will normally still notice the spots in order to interpret signalling, but I find it much more plausible that even a world class player will sometimes fail to appreciate the scope for promoting a trick when he knows RHO still has two clubs - it is just not something you will normally spend mental energy on when there are more important things to focus on.

[whereagles]

I usually play considerably better on a strong competition than online or opposite weaker opps.

[Phil]

I've watched enough vugraph to be convinced that the top players do not always watch the spots. However, the opponents do not mindlessly throw intermediates either, so I'm not sure what Ceeb is trying to say, or maybe he just chose a poor example to make his point.

When I saw the title of the thread I was hoping there would be a discussion about in what circumstances the top players signal and whether or not their opponents watch or even believe their carding.

@Ceeb - you realize Goren usually wasn't nearly as good as his partners, right?

[cherdano]

I have watched enough vugraph to be convinced that vugraph operators don't always get the spots right.

[ceeb]

 Phil, on 2011-January-24, 09:55, said:

I've watched enough vugraph to be convinced that the top players do not always watch the spots. However, the opponents do not mindlessly throw intermediates either, so I'm not sure what Ceeb is trying to say, or maybe he just chose a poor example to make his point.

an unsatisfying example anyway, in that it's hard to construct an excuse for RHO to unblock both spots (one of them might have been count. Cherdano's idea seems plausible.)

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@Ceeb - you realize Goren usually wasn't nearly as good as his partners, right?

Except for the one story I cited, the scuttlebutt I've heard about his ability was muted so yes, I assume that he was a lesser light compared to the stars of his era but I don't have knowledge. I did play a round against him and Helen Sobel -- 1965 San Francisco Nationals I think -- and it was a privilege. We must have had a bad result and there was some glowering between my partner and me (mostly me I'm guessing) and Goren, as tactfully as it is possible to deliver so delicate a message, advised us (me?) to learn to behave better toward partner. Of course I was a little inwardly resentful at being dressed down but I couldn't object "Who does he think he is?" I knew who he was.

[FrancesHinden]

I've played enough on vugraph to know that the operator frequently gets the spots wrong. I remember one hand fairly recently where the commentators were astonished that first of all my partner had needlessly set up a card in dummy and secondly that declarer hadn't noticed it was high. Of course, it hadn't happened (it was a pity, because it was a fascinating hand anyway). Vugraph operation is hard work, and if you mis-click on a spot it can be really tough to fix it in the middle of the hand - you can't say "hang on I need to rewind the play".

I support what JLOGIC says. Any good player ("good" in the sense of winning national teams competitions, not necessarily good enough to win the Bermuda Bowl) will as a matter of course follow every pip played in every suit. I occasionally forget which pips were in my hand and which in dummy (assuming no blockages) but that's usually it.

Of course people make mistakes. It's quite possible Hamman misplayed a hand in a high stakes rubber bridge game (rubber is also generally played much faster than duplicate). You only have to read accounts of big tournaments to find hands where people have made what look like (and often are!) elementary mistakes. Losing track of the pips in a suit is certainly something that happens to all good players at some time. One way to be a great player is to make mistakes very very seldom, then you don't need the brilliancies to make up for the mistakes.

Also as has already been said many games on BBO are not taken at all seriously.

[mfa1010]

 FrancesHinden, on 2011-January-29, 09:45, said:

I support what JLOGIC says. Any good player ("good" in the sense of winning national teams competitions, not necessarily good enough to win the Bermuda Bowl) will as a matter of course follow every pip played in every suit. I occasionally forget which pips were in my hand and which in dummy (assuming no blockages) but that's usually it.

If you mean literally every pip in every suit then I disagree. I think I fit your definition of "good" as above, but I don't try to remember every pip. There are some that are uninteresting. Say I have xxx in trumps and dummy has AKQJ in a 4-4 fit. When declarer rolls three rounds of trumps, I will likely remember only one thing from the trump suit later: If partner played low-high or high-low. Which trump declarer has left or even my own trump pips from start are likely to be forgotten soon. Stuff like that. Pips that potentially could be of any importance must be noticed though. To remember everything important becomes a subconscious thing, but so is filtering out indifferent information.

I would be surprised if "very top players" do these thing much different than what I do.

[JLOGIC]

Maybe it depends whether you play barbu or hearts a lot.

Half joking but in those games watching literally every spot is mandatory to play well (though I suck at barbu now) that maybe it carries over into bridge.

[mtvesuvius]

Especially Last Two

[FrancesHinden]

The problem is the name of the game. If you call it 'Last Two' then I want to play against you, we won't be squabbling because I call it 'No Last Two'

[mtvesuvius]

 FrancesHinden, on 2011-January-31, 16:43, said:

The problem is the name of the game. If you call it 'Last Two' then I want to play against you, we won't be squabbling because I call it 'No Last Two'

I'm just lazy sometimes when I type

I don't have much experience playing Barbu though... Only occasionally after the evening session. Nobody in my family plays

[FrancesHinden]

 mfa1010, on 2011-January-30, 14:36, said:

If you mean literally every pip in every suit then I disagree. I think I fit your definition of "good" as above, but I don't try to remember every pip. There are some that are uninteresting. Say I have xxx in trumps and dummy has AKQJ in a 4-4 fit. When declarer rolls three rounds of trumps, I will likely remember only one thing from the trump suit later: If partner played low-high or high-low. Which trump declarer has left or even my own trump pips from start are likely to be forgotten soon. Stuff like that. Pips that potentially could be of any importance must be noticed though. To remember everything important becomes a subconscious thing, but so is filtering out indifferent information.

I would be surprised if "very top players" do these thing much different than what I do.

If you play a lot of suit preference you start to watch the pips more carefully. We have agreed different meanings for top - middle/bottom, bottom-middle/top, middle-up-down and middle-down-up (although obviously in many cases it will become redundant/irrelevant).