How about challenging the Acol club to a teams match?

[blubayou]

A "tweak" for hoped-for future events  just occurred to me Thursday:  We would like the match to be divided into THREE THIRDS  (3X 6  or only 3X 5).  This would be a giant step forward for Democracy for 6+player teams,  as all of us  could join for 2/3  of the deals, instead of having one anchor-pair plus two "helpers"!

[Curls77]

ACOL side had lots of drop out in last couple of days, giving Coling hard time to have full 2 pairs on each team.
We apologize for not being able to set captains discuss the systems timely, it was just impossible with constant changes.

I so hope this today's event will run smoothly, and I depend on all of you to be ready to play, promptly accept the invitations, and be nice to partners, teamies and ACOL "cousins".

A "tweak" for hoped-for future events  just occurred to me Thursday:  We would like the match to be divided into THREE THIRDS  (3X 6  or only 3X 5).  This would be a giant step forward for Democracy for 6+player teams,  as all of us  could join for 2/3  of the deals, instead of having one anchor-pair plus two "helpers"!

This is one great suggestion Blu : )
It would work for all teams, regardless if they have just 2 or 3 pairs. If we repeat the event, which we all hope, this might be exact setup for next events, 3*6 boards is not too long, the break can be just 5 mins allowing u get a drink, etc.
 

See you all shortly, matches start in just 3 hours from now.
GOOD LUCK IAC 

[kenberg]

With regard to Blu's suggestion: Presumably it would not be difficult to let the teams decide whether, with three pairs each team, to play in thirds or, with two pairs on each team, to play in halves.
Of course if one team had two pairs and the other team had three pairs, they could try to play midway in between but that would require some serious innovation!

AFAIK, the 7NTrumpers will be there, ready and rarin. Well, anyway, we will be there.

[kenberg]

Congrats to the dreads.
It was a very pleasant game, I hope we do more.

[EddyHaskel]

Anybody compile the results of the matches?

[kenberg]

7NT versus the dreadnoughts: 29-26 in favor of the dreads.
We lost the first half 24-11 and won the second half 15-5, totally we get the dreads winning 29-26. I would say we needed a last-minute field goal ti tie the score but that might not resonate.

I had might look up another score later. No. I think I will let others list the scores of others.

We (the 7NoTrumps) had a close and enjoyable game that we lost by 3 imps. As always, it's not difficult to find errors accounting for 3 imps. Oh. Did I mention I enjoyed it? Well, I enjoyed it. So did Carl, my partner.

[palych]

H.M.S. Dreadnought:    scottdunda - egg46 - ccr3 - DonnaS                            5
Somewhere Across the:        bluBAYOU - Palych - tislafl - Toasterln         22

Somewhere Across the:    tislafl - Palych - RMT2 - FleuretteD              21
H.M.S. Conqueror:    DonnaS - draculea - egg46 - scottdunda                     34

For a total 43-39 for Somewhere...

Enjoyed too.

Looks like boards were the same for all matches, would be good to see butler score

[kenberg]

Huh! I thought we were playing against the dreadnoughts.

Whoever they were they beat us!

[Curls77]

THANKS SO MUCH TO ALL THAT PARTICIPATED,
you guys are jewels!!!
And VERY SPECIAL TY to Donna, Pat and Vlad, that subbed!

Congrats to the best IAC team:
Somewhere Across the Border
bluBAYOU & Palych
Toasterln & tislafl
FleuretteD & RMT2
WTG guys!!

Of course, congrats to all ACOL teams that won!

I tried to attach a file here, with full scores of all teams, but I can not, sorry.
See it here:
https://freeimage.host/i/1yQ1G2
I will also mail all captains with PDFs of all matches, ask them to send you if you are interested.
I also have "travellers" of all boards, if you want them, let me know, and I will send.

Once again, thanks for accepting the challenge, I hope you enjoyed the fun, and look forward next?
Do not forget that there is the review of all boards, at Cedar's table, with Poco1, WackoJack and Brian_m. Monday - 28th Feb, at 1900 utc.

[kenberg]

I hope that today's (Monday) discussion will discuss play as well as bidding.
I find play more interesting than bidding.
But also good play can often rescue an overreach in the bidding.

As is often the case, I can't think of any hand from the 16 that we played where it much mattered whether a 2 over 1 was or was not game forcing, and offhand I cannot recall a hand, there may have been some, where playing a weak or a strong no trump was decisive in reaching a final contract. Judgment was important, it always is, and then the hand needs to be played.

Anyway, I plan on listening and I hope to hear some discussion of play.

[wackojack]

A big thankyou to Sanya who did the bulk of the work in getting the teams togetherto play the Acol teams and to getting the results out. 

My particular match was lost by 3 imps.  I will in the next few days post some of the hands that were interesting and where I think we should have done better.  I note that one of the matches was between iac players and not against Acol club.   (Blu's team winning by 4 imps) 

I have to say that our results against the Acol club were disappointing as we were beaten in every match.  We could and should have done better.  imo It did not suggest that Acol was better than 2/1, SA and OCP.  All it meant that we lost out through inferior hand evaluation, bidding judgement and play of the cards.  Maybe that does not matter so long as we all enjoyed ourselves. Or does it?

We must not conclude that Acol is a better system than SA, 2/1 or Precision.  We only have to look at the top world teams and see that Acol just does not figure at all. 2/1, variants of SA, Precision, and Polish club dominate.  I was brought up on Acol and then switched to SA and 2/1 because I saw that on the world stage that Acol was not up to it. 

Sadly imo the UK particularly at club level is soundly Acol based and it is being tought to youngsters here.  One of the reasons is that (wrongly) Acol is thought to be more natural than SA or 2/1 because any opening bid promises at least 4 cards and so is easy to teach. 

I expected the OCP (Precision) team to do better.  I have absolutley no doubt that it is an excellent system (and possibly world beating) for experts and so it was particularly disappointing to see that they were defeated.  Is the problem that the mental energy required to grap the complexity of the system leaves little left to refine hand evaluation and card playing skills? 

[kenberg]

Yes, thanks to everyone.
I hope we can do it again, the work might get easier the second or third time around. Or not.

You say
"I have to say that our results against the Acol club were disappointing as we were beaten in every match.  We could and should have done better.  imo It did not suggest that Acol was better than 2/1, SA and OCP.  All it meant that we lost out through inferior hand evaluation, bidding judgement and play of the cards.  Maybe that does not matter so long as we all enjoyed ourselves. Or does it?"

Oh, it matters. It matters in the sense that I always try to win. Otoh I long ago realized that I will often lose. And I was not representing my country or representing the Standard American tribe, I was representing me.

However, it is an opportunity to look at a pet theory. My expectation is that if we look at the good and bad results of the 16 boards and ask the cause, we will see that which bidding system we were playing mattered on at most 1 or 2 boards.  I also expect that many boards came out good or bad based on the play. I believe I quoted Rodwell before as saying that he did not know whether bidding or play was the more important part of bridge but he knew that he wanted it to be play. I agree.

I read somewhere that at the level of the Bermuda Bowl bidding is more important. The thinking was that everyone in the BB plays the cards extremely well so the edge has to come from their 200 pages of notes on their bidding system. Maybe so.

I posted board 3 from the second half and I see that you have commented. I will follow up on that. Our bidding was off, but I could have rescued the hand with good play. And the defense could have made it tougher for me. Or easier for me. This is often the way it is. Bidding is a way to get to a reasonable spot and sometimes you end up in a spot that needs luck to make. Or maybe in a spot that should make but doesn't.

Anyway, I hope we discuss the hands, and I hope we get to play some more with the acols.

[Curls77]

I have to say that our results against the Acol club were disappointing as we were beaten in every match.  We could and should have done better.  imo It did not suggest that Acol was better than 2/1, SA and OCP.  All it meant that we lost out through inferior hand evaluation, bidding judgement and play of the cards.  Maybe that does not matter so long as we all enjoyed ourselves. Or does it?

You are SO RIGHT Jack.
Systems do not matter, or won't matter much in 16 random boards. What matters is be on the same page with your partner, concentrate on the game, and of course, ENJOY

Please check new thread.

[kookee]

I have found a partner Neha. So Neha (nehabridge) and Shankar(kookee). Hope we can find another pair playing 2/1