[relknes]

Hi, everyone. I am currious what the best way to develop bidding judgement is. Is it simply a matter of bidding and playing more hands, or does going over how professionals bid cirtain hands help more? Does the system you play matter? For instance, would a natural system do a better job, or an artificial one? How about constructive vs preemptive? Does it help most to look over professionals who use your system, or to look at how they bid with different systems? Or does it help to stick with playing one system, or to use a couple of systems?
Bidding judgement is hard to quantify, I know, but what do people think is the best way to get better at it?

[blackshoe]

Play. Play some more. Read books that talk about judgement (Lawrence's Judgement at Bridge for example). Play some more. If the book you're reading has "quiz" hands at the chapter ends, do the quizzes. There are some CD's that may help. And go over the hands after a game to see where you may have screwed up. Oh, and play some more.

[Hanoi5]

And try finding and reading magazines with MSC type of problems, like:

{comments}

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But of course in the magazine you'll find the answers. And comments by great players. I'd recommend subscribing to one such magazine (like the Bridge World).

And of course, play some more (and go over the results).

[aguahombre]

relknes, on 2011-June-12, 00:34, said:

For instance, would a natural system do a better job, or an artificial one?

That part of your question is very interesting. There are people I know who, in the beginning, knew they had no clue or judgement skills; so they totally memorized Power Precision (this was a while ago) as written by Sontag ---every bid, every response. This actually made them somewhat competitive during their early development. Of course, they didn't know why they were bidding as they did --only that it seemed to work out.

When they realized this crutch had served its purpose, and wanted to play with others, they went to natural systems and started developing judgement.

That does not mean artificial styles shouldn't be used by people who have good judgement skills, or anything against those systems.....merely an anecdote.

This post has been edited by aguahombre: 2011-June-12, 01:20

[quiddity]

Do not play more. Play less. And use the time to discuss interesting hands with good players and read (and think about) bidding panel discussions like the Master Solver's Club and old BBO forum threads. This is more efficient than just playing a bunch of random hands or kibbing pros on vugraph without hearing their thought process.

[Zelandakh]

Bidding judgement is quite a nebulous term. I have 2 systems, one is acol, a very natural and simple system; the other is a strong club relay system. Both systems require judgement but the nature of that judgement is completely different. I could play acol for 10 years and not get the correct judgement for the strong club system and vice versa (although the strong club system uses some natural bidding so there is some overlap). When most people talk about bidding judgement they are referring to the types of decisions made in natural bidding so clearly playing a natural system is better for developing this type of judgement.

Having settled on a system the other part of your question is about how to use the time. Here you need a mix of play and analysis. If you do not go over difficult hands and think about what the options were then how can you learn where the lines are? That is really the key - learn the options and have guidelines for where the rules are. In many cases ths is something that cannot be done with pick-up partners so you also need to do this in conjunction with a regular partner. This is because the boundary for one bid affects the boundaries for the responses - hence experts might disagree violently on a bid in a given situation but most of the time their partners will also disagree on the continuations from the other side allowing both pairs to reach the same end-contract. But you also need experience and without playing you do not get this. Going over how professionals bid a certain hand will help you only if you play the same system and have the same agreements as them - it is perhaps helpful for getting a feel on some things such as 5-level decisions but I think it is better to build up a library of experience generally here and to go through the possibilities with partner as above.

Another aspect which noone has yet touched upon is to understand various evaluation methods and their adjustments, their pros and cons. Then if decisions are very tihht you can compare answers between them. In doing this you have the added advantage of seeing over time which evaluation method best suits your partnership's style which might result in a positive change. Again this is just another way of defining your boundaries between bids; the more accurately you do this the better your judgement will be, even when you have not even noticed the improvement in terms of "feel".

[Vampyr]

aguahombre, on 2011-June-12, 01:17, said:

When they realized this crutch had served its purpose, and wanted to play with others, they went to natural systems and started developing judgement.

That does not mean artificial styles shouldn't be used by people who have good judgement skills, or anything against those systems.....merely an anecdote.

Anecdotal evidence is strong that people who mainly have experience with Precision (or some sort of home-grown strong ♣ system) have to start from scratch developing judgment when switching to natural systems.

[Phil]

quiddity, on 2011-June-12, 01:29, said:

Do not play more. Play less. And use the time to discuss interesting hands with good players and read (and think about) bidding panel discussions like the Master Solver's Club and old BBO forum threads. This is more efficient than just playing a bunch of random hands or kibbing pros on vugraph without hearing their thought process.

Kibbing good players on vugraph can be quite beneficial if you choose the 'kib (one player)' option and you have some commentators that understand the game. While a few commentators are pretty hopeless, they will stick to debating the players bids and won't try to take on analysis of the play.

Reading old Bridge Worlds and Master Solvers Clubs is a great way to develop judgment, but unless you want to plunk down $400 for a bunch of old years you will need a friend or mentor with a collection and many won't have this opportunity. I was very fortunate to have a local player who gave me about 100 BWs when I was 16.

BBF is a great resource since you get to read the thought processes of good players.

Ultimately you need to play, because there are real-life issues you need to cope with like distractions, director calls and time clocks. You will also develop table feel which is difficult unless you are actually at a table.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

you develop the judgement by thinking about the game.

So this means - play and than discuss with things that
happened on the table with other peoble.
Play alone is not sufficent, but you need to play a lot
to see lots of different situations / hands.

Reading papers / books is helpful, but in the end most
papers / books describe special scenarios, but you also
need to learn / understand the brad and butter hands.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[jjbrr]

quiddity, on 2011-June-12, 01:29, said:

Do not play more. Play less. And use the time to discuss interesting hands with good players and read (and think about) bidding panel discussions like the Master Solver's Club and old BBO forum threads. This is more efficient than just playing a bunch of random hands or kibbing pros on vugraph without hearing their thought process.

I think this is totally backwards. Definitely playing more is the answer. Play as many hands as you possibly can. You'll realize that bidding judgment is an extension of how well you play the hand. How can you expect to bid well if you can't play the hand correctly?

These things come with experience.

[benlessard]

At the beginning you need to gain experience and for that you have to play and watch.

The 2nd step is were many players hit a wall its because they dont do mental simulation, they just look at their hand weighting the good and bads and they wait for an "inspiration" that will help them take the decision. Some hands you just have to calculate and make a quick check of partner possible cover cards and possible shapes to see if they are going to fit well with your hand. When deciding to bypass game for making a slam try check some card combination in wich its possible to go down at the 5 level.

[nigel_k]

IMO a lot of good things follow from the ability to analyze a hand correctly. Bidding lots of hands will not improve your judgment much unless you are accurately analyzing what was the best contract, why you did or didn't get there, and understand what you would be giving up if you change your approach in order to arrive at a different contract on the given hands. So I think the right question is how to learn to analyze a hand well. I don't know the answer to that but I think quite a large part is natural ability rather than something you can learn from experience.

[mtvesuvius]

I agree with Jeremy here -- I learned almost entirely by playing, and after playing enough with reasonable partners/opponents, you'll find your judgement and ability to recognize certain situations will improve a lot.

[Mbodell]

I think it depends a lot on your personal learning style, your opportunity/ability to form partnerships (as opposed to lots of random pickups), and your opportunity/ability to find good players to talk about hands and learn from.

For some people books and learning CDs will be key, for others playing lots of hands, and for others thinking about their own hands or talking with mentors or more experienced players. All of the above help, but some people due to inclination and opportunity will find one path easier/quicker than others.

With respect to system, it is important to have a partnership understanding sufficient that you aren't worried about what bids mean (or what your partner will think a bid means) but can instead focus on the right bid. But to learn from the better players near you will be easiest if you play the same or similar system as they do.

[Zelandakh]

mtvesuvius, on 2011-June-12, 14:20, said:

I agree with Jeremy here -- I learned almost entirely by playing...

Adam, that approach works for you because you are someone who naturally analyses and thus learn from the hands you have played. I would suggest that it is the combination of playing the hands in combination with the analysis that has brought your judgement forward rather than just playiung the hands. For other players who do not naturally analyse played hands, simply playing is not the right way forward. It is the combination of experience and thinking about the bidding approach, and thus where the boundaries are between options, that pushes (natural system) bidding judgement forward.

[aguahombre]

IMO, Vugraph with competent commentators is a great resource for developing judgement. This is not to say that, even at the top levels in big-time matches, the competitors don't make blunders; but we can even learn from those blunders.

It certainly is an improvement over at-the-table kibbing, which is all we had back in the old days.

Of course, having first read certain important works on bidding and play would give the serious student a solid reference, so that the comments have more meaning.

[matmat]

Zelandakh, on 2011-June-13, 09:03, said:

Adam, that approach works for you because you are someone who naturally analyses and thus learn from the hands you have played. I would suggest that it is the combination of playing the hands in combination with the analysis that has brought your judgement forward rather than just playiung the hands. For other players who do not naturally analyse played hands, simply playing is not the right way forward. It is the combination of experience and thinking about the bidding approach, and thus where the boundaries are between options, that pushes (natural system) bidding judgement forward.

I think if you are looking to improve your bidding judgement and don't take the time and effort to analyze the hands you have played, then you are out of luck and not going to improve your bidding judgement. Going over the deals you have played is a great habit to get into, even if you start off being wrong most of the time. You can read all you want, you can watch vugraph all you want, I don't think either will help you figure out how to evaluate your hand better than playing. Of course it would be ideal if you did have access to a good player so you could pick their brain about calls, but even average players should be okay for this if you and they have an open mind. Nothing wrong with being wrong during a productive postmortem, a lot wrong with not ever having one, even a private one.

aguahombre, on 2011-June-13, 09:38, said:

IMO, Vugraph with competent commentators is a great resource for developing judgement. This is not to say that, even at the top levels in big-time matches, the competitors don't make blunders; but we can even learn from those blunders.

It certainly is an improvement over at-the-table kibbing, which is all we had back in the old days.

Of course, having first read certain important works on bidding and play would give the serious student a solid reference, so that the comments have more meaning.

I actually don't think that vugraph is that fantastic of a resource, well... at least not the commentators. The vast majority of them do not take the time prior to a session to check the players' cards (so can't really help with bidding in context of the systems being used, which is useless with helping bidding judgement). The commentators also result like crazy using all 52 cards on a deal to justify calls, rather than trying to figure out what a single player staring at the auction and their own 13 cards can tell. There are exceptions, of course. The situation is a little bit better when it comes to the cardplay.

Reading can give you a good foundation, but unless you try to practice it a lot at the table, you'll always feel lost there.

[helene_t]

For me, it has been very helpful to deal four hands for myself and trying to analyze how the bidding might go, how it will be played, and thus whether the contract will be made or not. I myst have done this some 10000 times by now.

Reading, and listening to more experienced players' advice, also helps. Bergen's Points Schmoints books, along with magazines, have been helpful.

As for playing, I don't think it has been that helpful to me. On an average club night I get to declare six boards. Can't learn much from the remaining as it is only when I get to declare that I get a reasonably accurate picture of the relation between bidding, combined assets, and result. Playing dublicate matchpoint robot tourneys may be more useful.

But I will certainly echo Mbodell. To each his/her own. I certainly won't dispute that many players have aquired good judgment skills primarily by playing lots of hands.

[xxhong]

If you are talking about guessing factor in the game, I strongly suggest you to work a lot more on partnership understandings to eliminate a lot of guesses. To me, good judgment usually means that you can explore some situations where you can find more intrinsic values of hands others usually don't; or you can find pitfalls of the hands other usually don't. In that sense, it is more a matter of hand evaluation work, which can be done with the aid of computers. Of course, if you can design the bidding sequences to allow you to find more information in some situations, you certainly find the holy grail of the bidding. For example, in old days, two players may only know both have strong hands. They don't know whether they miss two aces. So if you happen to invent the 4NT blackwood convention, you have a huge edge. Nowadays, there are still many such kind of situations, such as finding the important K or Q or J in key suits, or showing more accurate shape information than others. In that sense, system always beats judgment.

[jjbrr]

Quote

Imagine that you, a tennis player, are standing just behind your deuce corner’s baseline. A ball is served to your forehand — you pivot (or rotate) so that your side is to the ball’s incoming path and start to take your racket back for the forehand return. Keep visualizing up to where you’re about halfway into the stroke’s forward motion; the incoming ball is now just off your front hip, maybe six inches from point of impact. Consider some of the variables involved here. On the vertical plane, angling your racket face just a couple degrees forward or back will create topspin or slice, respectively; keeping it perpendicular will produce a flat, spinless drive. Horizontally, adjusting the racket face ever so slightly to the left or right, and hitting the ball maybe a millisecond early or late, will result in a cross-court versus down-the-line return. Further slight changes in the curves of your groundstroke’s motion and follow-through will help determine how high your return passes over the net, which, together with the speed at which you’re swinging (along with certain characteristics of the spin you impart), will affect how deep or shallow in the opponent’s court your return lands, how high it bounces, etc. These are just the broadest distinctions, of course — like, there’s heavy topspin vs. light topspin, or sharply cross-court vs. only slightly cross-court, etc. There are also the issues of how close you’re allowing the ball to get to your body, what grip you’re using, the extent to which your knees are bent and/or weight’s moving forward, and whether you’re able simultaneously to watch the ball and to see what your opponent’s doing after he serves. These all matter, too. Plus there’s the fact that you’re not putting a static object into motion here but rather reversing the flight and (to a varying extent) spin of a projectile coming toward you — coming, in the case of pro tennis, at speeds that make conscious thought impossible. Mario Ancic’s first serve, for instance, often comes in around 130 m.p.h. Since it’s 78 feet from Ancic’s baseline to yours, that means it takes 0.41 seconds for his serve to reach you. This is less than the time it takes to blink quickly, twice.

Books? Computer programs?

They're fine for learning concepts, but there's a reason your 6th grade math teacher assigned you all that homework you hated.

You don't actually know it unless you do it. You don't know it well unless you do it a lot. If you do it enough, you don't even have to think about it; it just comes naturally. Bridge is no different.