Saturday, September 02, 2006
The importance of system - 1
Hi, I know it has been a long time since I posted something here but I will try to make more frequent posts now.
Recently a pair of not so experienced players in my club started to play a Strong Club system and what happened was frightening: total chaos. So how important is system really?
Let's start with the club level. Here system is completely irrelevant. Players make so many other mistakes that are not system related, not just in the play but also bidding judgement. It doesn't matter what system you play, just get those other things right first.
Let's look at an example. Partner opens 1 Heart (natural of some sort), RHO doubles and you have:
♠ QJxxxx
♥ KQJx
♦ x
♣ Jx
Does it matter if you are playing "really cool Precision", "Magic Diamond" or "Stone Age Acol"? No! The player here redoubled since he had 10+ HCP (or perhaps added some distribution points?). UNTIL you get these kinds of bids right you have no business investing much time in a brand new system. The correct answer here is not to Redouble for strength but to make a forcing raise of Hearts like 2NT Truscott, or if system allows showing some other feature at the same time like 2♠ Fit Showing Jump.
Never mind the bidding problem, but if you Redouble here no system can save you. It is true that some systems will be more fun to play than others, and some will give you good results because they apply pressure on your opponents, but what use are those good results if you are throwing out points on the other side at an even greater speed?
Recently a pair of not so experienced players in my club started to play a Strong Club system and what happened was frightening: total chaos. So how important is system really?
Let's start with the club level. Here system is completely irrelevant. Players make so many other mistakes that are not system related, not just in the play but also bidding judgement. It doesn't matter what system you play, just get those other things right first.
Let's look at an example. Partner opens 1 Heart (natural of some sort), RHO doubles and you have:
♠ QJxxxx
♥ KQJx
♦ x
♣ Jx
Does it matter if you are playing "really cool Precision", "Magic Diamond" or "Stone Age Acol"? No! The player here redoubled since he had 10+ HCP (or perhaps added some distribution points?). UNTIL you get these kinds of bids right you have no business investing much time in a brand new system. The correct answer here is not to Redouble for strength but to make a forcing raise of Hearts like 2NT Truscott, or if system allows showing some other feature at the same time like 2♠ Fit Showing Jump.
Never mind the bidding problem, but if you Redouble here no system can save you. It is true that some systems will be more fun to play than others, and some will give you good results because they apply pressure on your opponents, but what use are those good results if you are throwing out points on the other side at an even greater speed?
# posted by Gerben Dirksen @ 11:51 
Comments:
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At club level, nothing is important. You can't depend on opponents' decisions, bids and cardplay, so just play solid bridge and you'll win. In the beginning you may get a lot of great scores if you psych them out by alerting every bid you make, but after a while they get used to that...
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