IAC Forums
Organised Chaos! => IAC Matters => Topic started by: kenberg on June 08, 2017, 05:37:45 PM
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Ok, I have an idea. The hand below was played by very good players. Here they are simply named South A, North A, West B, East B.
http://tinyurl.com/y7do7k2m
Imagine four IAC players, named South B, West A, North B, and East A.
Is it technologically possible for possible to to have a match where North, South, East West A are one team, and North, South, East West B are another team so that the play goes as follows?
The IAC players play the hands. At the other table the result is 3H down 1. The IAC players are then given an imp score just as if they were in a live team game.
For example, perhaps at the IAC table S plays 3D making 5, +150. The NS at the other table are +50. So that's 3 imps to the IAC NS pair.
Now, if this much is possible then I can imagine something like this:
Let's say we get 24 players, enough for 6 tables. Each IAC team of four plays 12 boards. Each board goes as above. We could rank the 6 teams by their imp scores, or not, that's not really the point.
Afterward, we could select a few of the boards and look at what the experts did, what the IAC players did, and see if there is something to learn. I could imagine myself helping some with this sort of discussion. The point is that players could look at what the experts did. They could listen to something I say if they wish, but I would recommend looking at what the experts did first. But we could discuss.
If the technological problems of setting this up can be solved, I think the rest could go pretty easily. If a player disappears, his pard could just see if he can find someone else. Or we stick in a bot. The matches would go on at whatever pace they go at (within reason). It's not like a movement where one late person screws up the movement.
My thinking would be we take some match and just choose 12 consecutive boards from it. I think most hands can have interesting features, and it can be misleading to put up a bunch of boards that require some special exotic gadgetry. I would try to find matches where the bidding agreements are not too exotic. Although exotic can be in the eye of the beholder.
As you probably can imagine, I like this more than some other things we have talked about because the primary learning experience would be from playing hands, and then seeing how experts played the same hands. The conversation would flow from comparisons.My goal would be to become superfluous.
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it's an interesting idea. Hoki does something similar in that the hands he brings to his play and discuss sessions are generally hands from Vugraph or some international tourney, or sometimes from a bridge text. I think they're great but it's frequently a battle to get people to sit.
What is the thinking behind all the players at a table being on the same team? Wouldn't that be likely to lead to some possibly questionably cooperative bidding and play?
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i didn't mean for all the IAC players to be on the ame team. Let me illustrate with a hand, board 9, from the USBC
http://usbf.org/docs/vugraphs/USBC2017/html/USBC2017_F_1_s1.htm#bd9
Let's say you and I are at the live table, sitting NS, playing against yleexottee and whiterabbt as EW.
The open room result is at the other table.
Our partners would be the EW pair, Diamond/Platnick. Joe and Anne are partnered with Nickel/Katz.
We play the boards at the IAC table. At the other table, Nickel/Katz, blast their hides, have bid and made 6H.
If we bid and make 6H, it's a push. If we are in 4H making 6, Anne and Joe get 11 imps. At the actual event, it was 4H making 6 at the other table so there was an 11 imp swing, but that part of the history is irrelevant to us. We are simply the replacement team here, playing in the closed room aganist whatever happens in the open room.
So that's the plan, if it can be done. I have no idea whether we could set a match where one table would play live, and then imped against a hand from the files.
Yes, it is a lot like what hoki does but there are some differences. In actual play, Hampson and Greco (or Hansel and Gretel as I like to think of them) stopped in 4H. Now it is safe to say that they will not be calling me to ask my advice. But we have a hand where one very good pair reached 6H, the other very good pair did not, and we can draw whatever conclusions we wish.
Here it seems to me that the discussion is apt to be pretty straightforward. A trump trick must be lost. If we pick up the !S Q we make 6, if we lose to the !S Q we go down. This would be a hand where there is no reason for NS to fret about not reaching 6 !H . One could look at the play and see if there were clues as to how to play the spades, but basically I would say that 6 !H is about a fifty percent shot. No reason to apologize for not being in it.
Other hands will no doubt be more subtle.
So yes, it is a lot like what hoki does, but there is a difference that appeals to me, namely that my role is lessened. The hand is there as it was actually bid and played at the event, the IAC players see what actually happened, and at the highest level of play.
There was a hand I kibbed the other day where a pair reached a no-play 4 !H . No-play double dummy that is. But the defense, good players, did not beat it. Should they have? Well, they didn't. I may put it up to illustrate something or other. I don't have it handy right now.
Anyway, that's what I have in mind. If it can be done.
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Nice idea, Ken.
The only concern I would have is only having IAC players actually "playing" and comparing the result with a vugraph hand from the archives. I think half of the "value" of this kind of event is having the "expert" table thiniking out loud and explaining their thinking during the bidding and play for the benefit of kibitzers. If your "expert" table is just what happened in the USBC, for example, you don't get that feedback from the expert pairs.
Maybe better just two tables as now you could play it as a regular TM. The Expert table plays as is, and the IAC table can swap around partnerships as we see fit. I know we now have only two scores to compare, but that enough to make a talking point afterwards (which is the whole point, after all. If you have 3 or 4 tables in play you either need two separate TM's (so the Boards won't be the same) or you have to filter out all the other scores (from other tables) which is more messy and the other scores will affect the IMP scores at "our" tables.
This would be, of course, a little similar to the "Play with the Experts" that was mooted a while ago, but which never took off. I like the twist of having two "expert" partnerships playing at the same table, and IAC partnerships playing at the other (or at other tables). Hard part may be finding expert pairs to take part who are prepared to (1) "think out loud" for the benefit of kibbers, and (2) to stick around for the hand discussion afterwards.
If the format seems to work, we could try to do it once a month, which hopefully would give us enough time to find a couple of decent pairs to participate in between each event.
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Experts giving their time, playing hands and explaining as they go, would be great, but would they? A lot of work.
A lot can be done without that much help. A couple of hands.
Hand 1: This one I from above, the USBC hand
http://usbf.org/docs/vugraphs/USBC2017/html/USBC2017_F_1_s1.htm#bd9
I think it is useful for players to see that even though there was an 11 imp swing nobody really did anything wrong. Exert advice is not needed here to see that there are either 11 or 12 tricks depending on what happens in spades.
Hand2: This one I posted as an amusement it the sleight of hand forum.
http://iac.pigpen.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=54.0
This one is definitely more complex, and there are a lot of lessons to be gained from it, but still it does not require an expert.
Declarer needs 8 tricks. From where? If he can make two spade tricks, he will come to 8 tricks
Spades in dummy: K983
Declarer holds: J2.
It is known from the bidding and the play to the first two tricks that RHO holds most of the unseen points and he holds four spades. Ha. If LHO holds the spade T, we can develop a couple of spade tricks.
An important lesson: K983 in dummy is a lot better than K765 in dummy, but you have to take advantage of this or your good spots will be wasted.
However good I am or am not, I think that one good trait I have is that I can look over a hand later and usually see whether a bad result was due to bad luck or a failure of thought. Of course the hand is then over, but a person can learn to do better next time.
Guidance can help, no doubt. I think anyone can see, with hand 1, that it all comes down to picking up the spade Q. There are some carding issues for the defense, but generally I think that there isn't that much to say. In the second hand it might well be that someone needs to say "Hey, look at what can be done with those spades".
But I think a lot can be learned even without an expert on hand.
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Hand 1
I wasn't talking about the hand you exampled originally. I agree, it's ultimately a 50% slam. The difference there was in the bidding: Nickell chose to transfer at the 2-level and then bid game, which most pairs treat as a mild slam try. Hampson took the more conservative route, with a 4-level transfer, which normally shows no slam ambitions. Consequently Katz was happy to oblige, and Greco went quietly. I always find it's interesting to hear the reasons WHY people choose the route they did, and it's certainly instructive.
Katz found out as much as possible about the EW hands before committing himself in Spades: On the early tricks, East played or discarded 4 Clubs ending up with the Jack and Queen, and 2 Diamonds ending with the 10, which makes it highly likely that East started with !S ? ? ?, !H xx, !D Qxx, !CKQJxx. Allowing for an occasional false-card from the defence, it still seems likely that the Spade length is with East, and that's why Katz played East for the Queen of Spades - simply by counting the hand and going with the probabilities.
No, Katz didn't have a perfect count on the hand, but the play at trick 1 and West's double of 5 !D certainly suggests that (1) West probably didn't have the Queen of Diamonds, and (2) they had at least 4 cards in the suit. Even allowing for a false-card from West at trick 1 and from East in their Minor suit discards, it's still a good bet that East has the Spade length.
At the other table, on the other hand, Greco didn't have the need to guess where the King of Spades was because they were only in Game. He simply got lucky, but he only needed 10 tricks and was certain to get 11, so no pressure.
I think it's really instructive for the average IAC Member to hear how experts think and how they count the hand and reason out what is going on, if only to stress to them why it is so important to count the hand. That is the single most important thing that distinguishes experts from the rest. Experts religiously count everything about every hand they play. They might still sometimes get things wrong (West might have started with !S Qx, for example), but it's usually for the right reasons.
Hand 2
(answered in that thread)
The problem is just seeing the hands without having the people concerned there to explain the reasons for their actions is a bit like seeing a finished painting rather than watching an artist create it from scratch, and seeing how they achieve it. If you just watch Katz's play on the first hand it's not immediately obvious why they chose to play a Spade to the King at trick 9 rather than cashing the Ace and then finessing the Jack, so an ignorant observer might put it down to luck. I think they'd be wrong, however. :)
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The idea of starting out with two tables rather than 6 seems MUCH more feasible to me and I am fairly sure it wouldn't be a lot of problem finding 4 experts to comment to the kibs on what they are doing and why. It would possibly be easier to find experts to play if they are playing vs other experts than with us peons, more interesting for them. :) I think it would also be relatively easy to find 4 IAC members to take part, it would be delightful to think we might have people competing for seats!We could start by working down the list of people who won the last team matches or who are on the Hall of Fame perhaps, make it worth something :).
Having all the experts hanging around later might be asking a lot, would we need them all, do you think Oliver? or maybe one as a general spokesperson? For the Junior tourneys on Tuesdays, the experts play with Junior partners and then wander off, one expert stays and goes through the hands. We could ask who was interested in doing what, either just playing/talking to the kibs, or playing and then reviewing the two results.... do you think that would work?
It's also possible to set the hands for the match... There is a program to do that for multiple tables but it's a huge complicated hassle to try to set up, with just the two tables it would be relatively easy I believe.
The main issue I see with it is the timing, as always, trying to coordinate 8 or more people can be a bit of a headache. That is not insurmountable but that would likely be the hardest part in terms of finding experts to commit to playing. Anyone have any suggestions as to day/time?
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Let's give it a shot on a small scale.
If we try it my way:
We need four people.
We need some hands. I have some.
We need someone who knows how to set it up. I don't know, but I could learn.
I have saved hands that I have not seen, so I could be one of the four players, or I could just provide the hands and then, with guidance, set it up. We could take turns setting it up and playing.
I like simplicity, I always have. I think getting four people to agree to play at a set time is simple. 12 boards sounds good, I would be up for 16. Learning how to set the match should not be too tough (famous last words!). If it works out, it could be expanded . Experts could join. but fair warning: Experts disagree. That's why boards are not flat.
I think we can do something here. Probably Oliver and I will always disagree (some) on the importance of having experts. In any aspect of life that I regard as important, I rely first on my own thoughts. I read, I listen, but at the end of the day I do it my way. And I am not even all that much of a Frank Sinatra fan. More Jim Croce "I've done it the hard way every time".
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Continuing, here is the question (or my question anyway):
http://tinyurl.com/y8vljnqv
Can we set up something where four of us play this hand, and it is scored against the result on this hand?
My analysis: Yes this should go down Not because Gib says so, it is obvious it can go down. But how to find the correct defense? The key play is the !D 6 at T2. The !D lead was completely normal. The !D 3 at T1, with the J in clear view in the dummy, was a standard count card. The K is about to be taken. When the K is taken and the next !D is led, W will hop up. The J will be good. W will know there is no ruff available. But what to make of the !D 6, rather than the 5, at T2 ? N is doing his best to get a shift to !S . Yes it's a slim thread, but it's better than nothing.
Anyway, we should see what we can do here. W is Benito Garazzo, E is Drew Casen, so setting them would be a satisfaction. North, of !D 6 fame, is David Carlisle. I think that the 3 followed by the 6 is absolutely the best he can do to suggest a spade shift.
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Hi All,
Of course we can try it without any "live" experts. Very easy to set up, but at the end of the day it'll just be 4 IAC Members playing pre-dealt hands with a few kibbers. That's not much of a draw for the Kibbers (so we may not get many), and the end-of-hand discussion may not focus on the real point of the hand because, for example, South may not think the K !D is the obvious lead and might lead the 10 !S or a small Spade instead.
The 6 !S signal should be glaringly obvious to most experts but probably transparent to the average IAC member, because they will not be looking hard at the spot cards and wonder what happened to the 5. If East has the 5, why did North not play the 6 at trick 1 and the 3 at trick 2 to encourage a !D ruff. If North had the 653 to start with why are they playing the 6 rather than the 5 at trick 2. Most IAC Members probably wouldn't give it a second thought. Clearly South fell asleep on this hand, because they've evidently missed that signal.
I just feel that having David Carlisle (or whoever) playing the 6 !D at trick two and explaining why they are playing that card on that trick, and having South explaining "in real time" whether they've picked up on the signal, and why they lead a Spade at trick 3 or not, and which Spade they lead, if any, is going to be more helpful to the onlookers. Moreover, having two pairs of experts playing the hands as well as two pairs of IAC "peons" (what a lovely word, Pam, LOL), is more likely to engender some interest amongst our Members, I feel, and we can publicise it as more of an "event".
I don't care which way we do it, though. It's worth a try either way. Easy to set up a teaching table using the pre-dealt hands (or 2 teaching tables if we have "live" experts). Plenty of advance publicity and we'll see how it goes.
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Technicalities: The rock bottom simplest is to load a hand, have people play it, and then display the actual hand, with bidding, play etc. That much I could probably do. But I gather you are saying more could be done, and that is what I am hoping. A bunch of hands, 12 or 16 or whatever, would be pre-loaded and the game would be set as a team of four match. At one table, the IAC table, the IAC players would play the hands just as if they were playing a team of four match. Each IAC pair is partnering a pair at the other table. At the other table, the loaded hand would be bid and played just as it had been bid and played at the event, whatever event this was taken from. An imp score would be assigned. On to the next hand. At the end, one IAC pair would be on the winning team, the other pair on the losing team.
This more complex version could be useful. The most obvious thing is that the work could all be done beforehand. This is convenient in general but it could then be done at multiple tables. We could have four tables, or eight tables or whatever, all doing the same thing. And I would rather see four tables all doing the same thing rather than one table doing it and twelve kibbers watching.
If this more complex version can be done, can you say briefly, or post a link, as to just how?
I would like to see if there is interest. My own preferred mode is that about 90% of learning comes from me thinking through things myself with the other 10% (or other half if we are to quote Yogi) from expert guidance. I like going over hands and saying to myself, "Did I miss something here?". Seeing what happened at other tables is useful, but just looking at BBO results can be, often is, misleading. Seeing what happened with strong players might be more helpful.
Here is something that happened in the club that Joe in particular might find amusing. Partner was playing 4D. Joe the coyote often remarks that 4m is a terrible contract. Well, they can make 3S but not 4S and we can make 4D but not 5D. And 3NT by us would be down a zillion. So we get a good board, right? Wrong. They took an AK and an A at our table and then partner claimed. At other tables they decided to do something different. So there were score for 4D making 5 and even 4D making 6. We can't do anything about that. Bidding 5 would only make things worse, assuming the defense is the same.
Back to technology: BBO hand records have differing degrees of flexibility. Suppose I am watching a match, and after the hand is played I save it. I can do anything with this saved hand. I can remove the names, re-arrange the cards, change the dealer, and so on. Contrast this with looking up a hand after the match is completed. As near as I can tell, I can look at the hand and follow the play, and I can email it to someone, but I don't know how to do much else with it.
Thinking of the above, I did the following: I watched a match for a while. Then I went on brb. I came back as the match was ending. I saved all of the boards. These hands can be edited. Whether that makes them easier to use in the way I have in mind, I don't know.
Anyway, I pose a question: Would anyone out there be interested in playing this way, assuming it can be set up? I assume it would be in teaching mode, but we could save the hands.
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Not sure if you can set up a TM with pre-dealt hands. Tourney - yes, Teaching Table - yes, but not sure about a TM. That's the issue.
Much easier to do it with a teaching table, because then you can have a brief discussion about each hand in turn before moving [manually] onto the next hand. The Table host controls the speed at which the game progresses.
You can do the same at two simultaneous teaching tables and simply work out the IMP score yourself without actually setting a teams Match as such. If you're using the Windows BBO Client rather than the Browser Client, you can do anything you like in terms of editing the hand, players etc once you have the basic LIN file to work from, AFAIK.
The one problem we face at the moment is a bug that's crept into BBO whereby some spurious hand appears from nowhere that upsets all of the dealers/vulnerabilities. Not sure how we can work around that. It means you don't get the vulnerability or dealer you're expecting on any given set of hands
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It's the old story. Technology is great, as long as you want to do what the designer wants you to do. I want to play with this a bit just to see what the limits are.
I was a hold out for using the Windows version. For one thing, I was used to it. I still have it installed, but when I log onto bbo now I do it via Chrome. I was using Firefox but there is, or at least was, some sort of glitch. When I chatted, I would have to type what I chatted, it would not appear, then I would do a mouse click and the whole thing would appear. If I typed this sentence, I would see nothing until the mouse click. As you may have noticed, my typing skills are minimal and this did not help. So I go on with Chrome.
I would see this general idea as a lot more attractive if it can be set in advance and then just roll on as an ordinary team game. In teaching mode, but just rolling on as a team game w/o a lot of intervention. IAC at one table, file hand at the other. Maybe it cannot be done, but I will play with it a bit before giving up.
If there are four people out there who would like to experiment with the simple version where we just load a hand from the files, play it, and then see what happened at an upscale event, we could try it.
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Here is something that can be done. But it does not much need anyone else to get it done.
Open a teaching window
Select imps (or, I assume, mps)
It will ask you about a deal source.
You can select hands from vugraph matches.
For example, I selcteed imps and then I selected hands from the usbc, senior.
Play the hands.
You will be imp scored against the result at the usbc game.
I like this, and so did others.
I had some difficulties around the edges. Lark was one of the players. He also showed up as a kib. And he brought a partner, she did not at first sho up anywhere. It got a little confusing. But that is just my inexperience I think.
This is ot exactly what I had in mind, but it is close. Any four people could do it, you don't need anyone in charge except to load the hands and such. I hope to do it again. .
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If you aren't playing then you could move from match to match and set up the tables/hands. You would need to have permission to set multiple matches, or use the IAC Id as generally people are only allowed to set one match, but that's easilly worked out. It's more complicated if you are playing and I'm not sure it's possible, maybe if you set your own match last it would work.
one thing to consider, too, with more than one match people will be ending at all sorts of different times, not normally an issue, but it is if you're waiting for everyone to finish so the review can start.
Starting out with two tables ( have to have two to have a match) would be wise simply because then we have to ask only 8 people to be patient while any glitches are dealt with, otherwise sure as taxes some will get restless, messages start flying about, all of which are distracting and have either to be ignored or if not, cause everything you are trying to fix revert to stage 1 etc. It's needlessly stressful.
I am still clutching onto the download version so can tell you the basics about setting up matches on the web version but not the more esoteric stuff like setting 3 or 4 matches simultaneously with preselected hands. Someone in the ACOL club can do this. or at least could on the download version, and sent me the program a couple of years ago but it's on a defunct computer. I wanted to do that for the team matches but they never got running smoothly enough at the start to feel any sort of hope that it would work very well. It depended on everyone doing what they are supposed to when they were supposed to do it and although some teams could be relied on, others were almost always in some sort of crisis at the start. :)
To do the other, have only one table would work and be easier but I honestly don't know how many members are keen to go through the hands like that. People are odd, they supposedly come to BBO to play but then park themselves in kib boxes and put down roots. I expect that if you set up such a table at any sort of regular time, there would likely soon be a regular group who showed up. That could then be expanded, perhaps?
As far as experts: some years ago now I organized play tables in IAC and had an expert come to be "on call" as it were for people who were having difficulties deciding what to do, a bid or a lead or a play, whatever.
People showed up to play, we usually had about 5 tables, BUT... NOBODY would ever ask for any help!! So the poor experts would be wandering from table to table, and eventually started just offering comments if they saw something they felt deserved comment. That came to halt when a member took fairly direct offense at having his bidding/play remarked upon, albeit nonjudgementally. So between that and the total lack of participation by the players, I cancelled the sessions.
I'd thought people would be keeping the expert running from table to table, not wandering like a lost soul wasting his time. At least one of the experts said at the time he'd be perfectly willing to return if we started that up again, but of course things may well be different now. To be honest don't now remember everyone who was doing that for us.
that's possibly not pertinent other than to demonstrate how totally unpredictable the members are. At least to me.
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Herding cats can be difficult, and I can be one of the cats. But I really only need three other cats. When/if we get more cats, we can see how to make that work.
I'll give you a hand from yesterday's cat fight.
http://tinyurl.com/ybuwydsc
Maybe I should have bid 4S. I have no quarrel with Anne's pass. Zia, at the other table, did bid 4S. Zia went down in 4S. Zia could have made 4S, but he has to play the cards without seeing the EW hands, and he went down. But of course the hands were played at another table, and there they also went to 4S but EW went on to 5DX. Off 2.
This gives a lot to think about. Ideally, I go on to 4S and I make 4S. That would be nice. Under the reasonable assumption that I do not play the hand better than Zia, it would be nice to have them go on to 5D over my 4S.
I plan to put up a couple of the hands I played, and mis-played, in the sleight of hand forum.
I played with Anne (whiterabbt) first against robots but then Lark 16 and Hi Its Me (Roni and Stacy) joined in. I owe an apology to David Grab and others for botchinig up the seating. Lark sat and was a waiting for Hi, and David sat. He graciously gave his seat to Stacy. My error for not reserving seats. I was concentrating on the loading of deals and such. Anyway, I think everyone enjoyed having the results imped against Zia et al.
My plan is to do this again, and if it catches on we can see if some sort of organization would be good. Sometimes cats just need to be left to be cats.
About experts: I do take advice. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don't. I (almost) always listen to advice.
A simple example: DaveG has to be one of the most generous minded guys in bridge. And of course he knows a lot. Listening to his lessons, I learned that if he has a minimum hand with a 4=4=3=2 shape he opens his two card club suit. I open my three card diamond suit. I don't plan to change my style. Now there is a modern trend to open this 1C, but this is then coupled with transfer Walsh responses. OK, if I wanted to get into all of that, maybe I open it 1C. But if I am playing straight stuff over 1C openings, I prefer 1D on the 4=4=3=2 hands. I have thought some about this, and I have experimented a little with 1C on two. I could supply arguments for my preference of 1D: On an auction 1D-1M-1NT partner knows I have 4+ diamonds, and if the auction goes 1D-1M-2M he doesn't care. But there are arguments in the other direction I know. We could poll experts. Or we could just let it be that I prefer 1D.
Similar problem: Holding 3=2=4=4 and minimum count, open 1D or 1C? I prefer 1D. A partner prefers 1C. Frank Steward used to write about the advantages of opening 1C, but I haven't seen him do so lately. Steve Robinson says open one of them. I like that. But I almost always, open 1D. One issue: If the auction begins 1m -(1S)-X(neg)-P I have to find a call. If my two card heart suit and three card spade suit are such that I am comfortable with 1NT as a rebid then opening 1C will be ok. But if I am not going to be comfortable with that as a rebid, I prefer 1D. Yes partner might think/hope that I have five diamonds when I bid 2C over his double, but he should keep in mind that my choices were limited. Probably we will land on our collective feet.
The mistakes in life that I most that regret are those where I followed the advice of someone else even when I thought a better choice was available. So I listen but then choose as I think best. In bridge or life, it is all the same.
Anyway, I will put up a couple of hands from yesterday. One in particular bugs me. I should have gotten it right.
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Thanks Ken :) If you establish some degree of routine when you are in the club I'm sure some cats will plan to join the table. Let me know if I can help in any way.
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any further thoughts on this Ken? I think that if we had a specific sort of time/date this would be very much worth taking a shot at. Let me know if you are interested and need any help setting up hands and so forth, I'll do my best to (learn how to) take that on.
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If we really want to make this fly. My recommendation would be to create a “Ken’s corner” either in the teachers section or as a stand alone. If in a stand alone, Ken could post under categorized themes, not necessarily in order, but as to whatever hand he is presenting at the time; corresponding under his own designations. A routine post per week by a certain time could be helpful. This way everyone would know what and where to expect a post and cue in to which topics might be interesting based on our own preferences. Just a thought and I do appreciate Ken’s posts and efforts here :).
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What I would most like to see is "Discussion corner". But wait, we have that! It's called the IAC Cafe. But if you look at the posts, you might think it is called '"Ken's corner".
Oliver's creation of the Forums was at least in part a response to a suggestion I had made. In many ways the Forum has been a success but in the way that I imagined, people sharing interesting hands and discussing them, it has not worked out so well. Elsewhere Dick Hy mentions that he has read some of Kantar's books. A very good idea. If someone is up for getting teacher/student guidance, going to Edwin Kantar is a far better idea than going to Ken Berg. Not just Kantar, there are many truly excellent authors. So what I had in mind was not that I would teach and others would listen. I was hoping for discussion.
I'll illustrate by pulling up some of what I wrote in "Are humans obsolete?"
The hands were
4
AQJ63
QT92
Q94
opposite
9632
K752
A
AK72
My bot partner N opened 1 !H, I bid 2NT, N showed his stiff spade and we got to 6 !H, making. So why post it? The title brought up the possible obsolescence of humans. I had amused myself by sitting 4 bots at the table to see what they would do. Their auction went 1 !H - 4 !D - 4 !H - Pass. So this time the human did better than the bot. I got a kick out of that. Maybe someone else would find it interesting. Maybe someone else would try sitting 4 bots at a table and having them replay a hand that s/he had played before.
I did explain how I played the hand. I played it [the software switched me with the bot after the auction so I rather than the bot was declarer] ok but as soon as I finished the hand I realized that I could have played it better. The lesson here, my opinion, is not in the exact way that this particular hand should be played but rather that there is often more than one way to play a hand and it can be worthwhile to go over a hand later and calmly see if you could have done it better.
I have accepted that hand discussion, as opposed to hand instruction, simply is not going to happen. I have chatted with a few on this, and it is not something that they want to do.
People differ in their interests, their experience, their native ability. When I was 13 I took algebra in high school (yes, I know, the kids are now in AP Calculus when they are 7 or something like that, but this was in Minnesota in 1952). There was a kid, Lug Larson, who was competent but I was better and I helped him. Later we both took a class in metal shop. I was competent but he was better. He helped me. We both enjoyed the interactions all around. I like discussion. I just like it. I also think a strong case can be made that discussion is a good way of learning, but mostly I just like it.
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What I would most like to see is "Discussion corner". But wait, we have that! It's called the IAC Cafe. But if you look at the posts, you might think it is called '"Ken's corner".
HAHAHA Ken !! :D
But do not be discouraged, many of read what u say, just have nothing smart to add on ::)
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What I would most like to see is "Discussion corner". But wait, we have that! It's called the IAC Cafe. But if you look at the posts, you might think it is called '"Ken's corner".
HAHAHA Ken !! :D
But do not be discouraged, many of read what u say, just have nothing smart to add on ::)
We need to work on you about this. There is a lot of room between "Expert" and "Have nothing smart to add on". I have stories to illustrate this. I learned to play tennis when I was 13 or so and could sometimes win, sometimes not. I agreed to play aganst a guy I had never met before. This consisted of me serving the ball to him, watching his return go past me at lighting speed, but well within bounds, and then me fetching the ball to repeat the experience. So when someone asks if I am good at something, I always recall the Roberta Flack song Compared to What?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG_RvYTfDk8 in case this was before your time.