[Cthulhu D]

StevenG, on 2012-October-14, 06:53, said:

In the Acol Club, most "no transfers" players are intermediates who don't fully understand them. There's a high correlation with people who play strong twos, which suggests they learned a long time ago but have never played club bridge.

How can someone who doesn't understand transfers be classified as intermediate?

[TylerE]

Don't knock it, necessarily. We had an older couple here (both were over 90) that played 4 card majors, staymen, transfers, and blackwood, and generally bid like Charles Goren after a few bottles of wine. Suffice it to say their auctions were....erratic at the best of times. Yet they still would manage a respectable placing (e.g. top 3 in Flight A) about one session out of 4...the wife especially could play the spots off when on her game.

[TylerE]

Don't knock it, necessarily. We had an older couple here (both were over 90) that played 4 card majors, staymen, transfers, and blackwood, and generally bid like Charles Goren after a few bottles of wine. Suffice it to say their auctions were....erratic at the best of times. Yet they still would manage a respectable placing (e.g. top 3 in Flight A) about one session out of 4...the wife especially could play the spots off when on her game.

[Cthulhu D]

TylerE, on 2013-June-05, 21:25, said:

Don't knock it, necessarily. We had an older couple here (both were over 90) that played 4 card majors, staymen, transfers, and blackwood, and generally bid like Charles Goren after a few bottles of wine. Suffice it to say their auctions were....erratic at the best of times. Yet they still would manage a respectable placing (e.g. top 3 in Flight A) about one session out of 4...the wife especially could play the spots off when on her game.

That's great cardplay though, and a great discrepency between the two parts of your game - it's obviously not a one dimensional question what your skill level is, and secondly they are employing transfers, which more or less makes my point I guess

[StevenG]

Cthulhu D, on 2013-June-05, 20:46, said:

How can someone who doesn't understand transfers be classified as intermediate?

From the BBO definitions

Quote

Novice
Someone who recently learned to play bridge.

Beginner
Someone who has played bridge for less than one year.

Intermediate
Someone who is comparable in skill to most other members of BBO.

Advanced
Someone who has been consistently successful in clubs or minor tournaments.

What else - for players who learned before transfers? Transfers, in my experience, have not reached much social bridge in England. I suspect, without analysis, I see the same thing for Australian Acol players too. I must check a few profiles sometimes.

I don't see why failure to know one particular convention, however prevalent amongst serious players, can make one a permanent beginner.

[Vampyr]

StevenG, on 2013-June-06, 02:25, said:

I don't see why failure to know one particular convention, however prevalent amongst serious players, can make one a permanent beginner.

Nor do I. I play from time to time without transfers, and I suspect that many here would be surprised at how infrequently you wish you were playing them. Of course the same holds true for pretty much any convention.

[mycroft]

Playing a weak NT, there are several times I wish I *wasn't* playing transfers. Not only the two bites issue, but also 2♥ "5+hearts, 0-10 or so, any hand" has advantages of being hidden that "protecting the 'strong' hand" doesn't because opponents can place cards better (again, less useful in a strong NT world, as protecting the strong hand from the lead is a bigger issue, and because drop-dead 2♥ is 0-7 *and* more likely to not be a "competitive" auction at other tables.

There are benefits to playing transfers, of course, even with a weak NT, and in the system I'm currently playing, the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.

And there are people with many years of experience who don't now, either in general or in their partnerships, what 1NT-2red-accept-4NT means, or 4♣, or 4♦...or how to show "slamtry with 5" in general. Not just "intermediates".

[Vampyr]

mycroft, on 2013-June-06, 11:31, said:

And there are people with many years of experience who don't now, either in general or in their partnerships, what 1NT-2red-accept-4NT means, or 4♣, or 4♦...or how to show "slamtry with 5" in general. Not just "intermediates".

Quite. This is why, if I played on BBO, I would probably have "no transfers" on my profile.

[Cthulhu D]

Quote

Playing a weak NT, there are several times I wish I *wasn't* playing transfers. Not only the two bites issue, but also 2♥ "5+hearts, 0-10 or so, any hand" has advantages of being hidden that "protecting the 'strong' hand" doesn't because opponents can place cards better (again, less useful in a strong NT world, as protecting the strong hand from the lead is a bigger issue, and because drop-dead 2♥ is 0-7 *and* more likely to not be a "competitive" auction at other tables.

Yeah sure, there are lots of reasons not to play transfers, but they are so prelevant that you need to understand them imho even if just to defend against them. If you don't have a working understanding of them, you don't know what's going on in common auctions like (1NT) - P - (2H!) - X are. If you don't have an agreement about what that means, in my view, you are a beginner. I do agree that you can get by without knowing the difference between 1NT-2H-2S-4S and 1NT-4H-4S is.

StevenG, on 2013-June-06, 02:25, said:

From the BBO definitions

What else - for players who learned before transfers? Transfers, in my experience, have not reached much social bridge in England. I suspect, without analysis, I see the same thing for Australian Acol players too. I must check a few profiles sometimes.

100% of ACOL players at my club understand transfers - not everyone plays them, but understanding is universal and people have a clear understanding of what doubling a transfer means etc.

[StevenG]

Cthulhu D, on 2013-June-06, 22:52, said:

100% of ACOL players at my club understand transfers - not everyone plays them, but understanding is universal and people have a clear understanding of what doubling a transfer means etc.

"at my club" is the critical phrase. Most intermediates in the BBO Acol club don't actually seem to play club bridge (certainly, checking real names for English players against the EBU database comes up with more misses than hits). I think you are forgetting that bridge exists other than in clubs.

The point at which social players, however able, learn transfers seems to be when they start playing in clubs.

This is speaking from the perspective of an English player in an area where, with few exceptions, the only players coming into the game are of retirement age.