Sabermetrics and bridge

January 29th, 2012  ~  linda  ~  7 Comments 

I am currently reading Moneyball.  I liked the movie and my family was actually subscribers to Bill James abstracts at one point.

The word Sabermetrics comes from the abbreviation SABR, Society for American Baseball Research and the word metrics  which in this context is used to mean the application of statistics and mathematical analysis to a field of study: You may have noticed that the word Sabermetrics could equally apply to bridge if we were only to have an existing Society for American Reserach,  Bridge could use its own SABR. 

Why?  Because bridge is a statistical game and subject to mathematics at least as much as baseball.  Several books have been published on the mathematics of the game of bridge.  The law of total tricks is a form of such analysis as is restricted choice.  Rules like 8 ever and 9 never (when considering whether to finesse a queen or play for the drop) are examples. 

In fact, point count itself is a practical example of analysis and bridge.  The idea was that certain cards are more likely to take tricks than others and therefore should have a higher value than others.  The results were simplified to create the 4-3-2-1 system of counting high cards that bridge players use.  The system of assigning value for length and shortness is similar.

How good is this analysis?  What makes a hand good enough to bid not only when opening but throughout the deal.  Most serious bridge players would say that they apply judgment.  What that really means is that through their personal years of experience as a bridge player they have found that bidding in a certain way works for them.  It is an experience based “rule” and of course differs from person to person.

David Bird and Taf Anthias have recently written a book called Winning Opening Leads.  The authors used a large numbver of deals which matched the bidding and analyzed the results of the leads to create ideas about which leads are most effective.

Over the years others have used coputer simulation of various sorts to work on other related bridge ideas.  But with the advent of good bridge playing programs it is possible to analysize the results if different ideas much more readily than in the past.

Years ago I took a pass at trying to determine which aspect of the game was most important in winning or losing imps at a world championship level.  One of my conclusion was that competing for partscore was a very small factor.  First because often you got a similar result whether you bid on or whether you allowed the opponents to play in their partscore and second because the number of imps exchanged was small in any case.  As it turned out the opening lead was a relatively large factor in winning or losing imps.  (Maybe the game is not ONLY about bidding at the highest levels).

The results would obviously be different in games of lower quality.  Result might also be different at different forms of scoring. 

It seems to me that we ought to spend more time at looking at different aspects of the game from a statistical perspective. 

Autobridge anybody … try out this new bridge site

January 24th, 2012  ~  linda  ~  3 Comments 

When I was starting out as an oh so young bridge player I ran into a game called Autobridge.  Autobridge was a nechanical device that let you play a bridge hand by yourself.  An expert provided a set of deals which you could play through.

This is a 1950 version of the game with deals by Charles Goren.

The game could be fun and instructive but it did have some problems.  The biggest problem was that you had to guess the exact card it wanted you to play.  If you were drawing trump and had all the honors you had to figure out which order Autobridge expected you to play them in even if it didn’t matter.  You would push down the tab for the Ace at trick two and it would have a four on it or a six.  that number represented the trick where you were SUPPOSED to use the spade ace. 

Over the years friends who knew I was a bridge player gave me Autobridge that they inherited when a bridge playing relative died.  So I still have various sets.  I haven’t played it in years but I did find that it was fun at the time.  How technology has changed things.  Now there is a new Autobridge website called Vu-Bridge.

This is a free site that has garnered a huge following already.  If you are a bridge player you can play a lot of hands with expert comments, many from major events.  Sometimes the order that you play the cards doesn’t matter and Vu-bridge like Autobridge can be expecting a specific order but the software handles this much better than the mechnical Autobridge and I didn’t find it detracted from playing the deals at all.  There are a huge number of deals up there now from some very talened people.  According to the website as of December 2011 16,000 visitors hadn played over 96,000 hands.

Bridge teachers can use the site for free for their students or others and it can be used by bloggers too.  I haven’t explored any of this yet but I admit I often go and play deals on the Vubridge website.

Sometime soon I am going to try to create a vubridge deal and post it to this website.  It may take a while for me to do this because the weather in Sarasota is perfect and the outside keeps calling me.

Have fun playing deals on the website.  I am on the mailing list (you can be too) and get emails when some new series of deals are posted.  Today I got an email called Series 61, Anthony Moon squeeze you. I had to try a deal (being a squeeze lover)  Board 1 was a criss-cross squeeze.  Knowing what it was in advance did make it a bit easier but I was happy to figure it out.

 For more information email didier@vubridge.com

Two Champions

January 18th, 2012  ~  linda  ~  2 Comments 

I watched a few hands from a practice match that Sharyn Reus and Diana Gordon played on BBO against Sondra Blank and Sylvia Caley.

Diana and Sharyn had racked up a great score and they did it by outbidding the field several times.  Here is a

Board 3 was an example when they were the only pair to getg to a grand slam in spades.

Sharyn ♠ AJ9432  ♥ AQJ6  ♦ 5  ♣ AJ

Diana ♠ K10765  ♥ K53  ♦ AQJ  ♣ Q5

 Test yourself and see if you would get to the grand.  Here was their auction

2NT was Jacoby and 3♦ showed the singleton.  3♥  was a cuebid and a slam try.  3NT indicated slam interest.  4♦ was a cuebid.  4NT was keycard and 5♠  showed two keycards and either the ♠ Q or extra length.   5NT showed all the contols. 

Then a few boards later Diana held these cards.

 With everybody vulnerable Sylvia passed and Sharyn opened with 1C.  Sondra passed and Diana bid 1D.  Sylvia bid 1NT showing both majors and DIana bid 3C.  Sondra passed and now Diana made a big bid.  6C.  Do you like it?  Once again they were the only pair in the right slam.  Sharyn held

 Three boards later they reached an excellent slam in diamonds but this time they had some company.  One other pair had bid the slam.  There were more nice deals.  These two ladies really put on a clinic.

It’s Only a Board!

January 14th, 2012  ~  linda  ~  2 Comments 

Waiting for my sister to go with me to the farmner’s market this Saturday I logged on to BBO to catch a couple of boards of the TGR auction pairs.  The first board I saw was quite a douzy.   I am not giving names to protect the protaganists who were very fine players, most of the time.

North held this hand vulnerable against not.

On his right he heard 1♦ and his partner bid 3♣  preemptive.  It went 3♥  to him.  What now?  Do you like 4♣ ?  Maybe 5♣  is better but you do hate the vulnerability.  Pass of course is possible too.  Anyway he bid 4♣ . 

Now it was East’s turn.  East held

 Partner obviously has a good hand for his “free” 3♥  bid and the J9 of hearts look like help.  East also has a spade suit that can play opposite a doubleton small and six diamonds.  There are certainly many slams possible.  North-South are vulnerable and they are bidding clubs so it seems likely they have the club honors.  Partner could easily have most of the top red cards.  BUT, what to bid? You do have some heart support but you don’t want to commit to hearts.  Besides 4♥  is an underbid.  You could bid 4♦ but that “loses” the spade suit (at least for now).  4♠  should show 6-5 but may not suggest slam.  I understand this is a problem but I personally do not like the bid East chose which was …….. 5NT which was passed to West.

 Now here is West’s hand.

Let’s think about the auction from West’s perspective.  Remember the earlier part of the auction

What does partner have for 5NT?  What does 5NT mean?  Obviously it is some sort of grand slam try.   Surely it is not just a grand slam bid in hearts saying bid the grand slam in hearts with two of the top three honors since partner is known to be missing the AK of diamonds too.   Partner must mean this as showing a great hand.  I can think of two possible reasons for this bid.  Partner has excellent heart support and wants to try for a grand in hearts.  Partner has moderate hearts and diamonds and wants to go responder a choice of slams.

Partner must have a first round control in clubs and since he is missing all these red suit cards top spades and most of the missing red honors.  Let’s try to imagine a hand that makes sense of this auction. 

A) Partner is trying for the heart grand

♠  AKQ
♥  QJxx 
♦  Qxxx
♣ Ax  

B) Partner wants responder to pick a slam

 ♠  AKx
♥  QJx 
♦  Qxxxxx
♣ A  

What if partner had bid 5♣  over 4♣ or even 6♣ over 4♥  what would that have been?  Somehow I think that with good heart support partner might cuebid clubs.  So I think hand B) is more likely.  Maybe your partnerhsip has discussed this – good for you!

But does West have to figure it out.  Whatever type of hand partner has a grand seems likely so if West bids 7♣ over 5NT he lets partner pick the grand. 

North passed and it was up to East now to sort out what to do over 7♣.  It seems to me that partner is giving you a chose of red suits since if diamonds or hearts was clearcut from his hand he would have bid it.  I personally would have bid 7♦ now.  If partner’s hearts are good enough he would have already bid 7♥  I think.  But then again who knows.  I am sweating here.  East had a different vision and bid 7♥ . 

Do you like all of this so far?  7♥  was passed to North who now made a really awful call.   I remember an expression we had in the old days, “I stood on my chair and passed”.  The opponents have arrived in one of the few contracts North KNOWS he can beat.  But he didn’t pass, he doubled.  Is this the effect of playing pairs?

East decided correctly that North had a heart stack abnd so he bid 7♠ . Beating this one was not so clear for North.  South passed and it looked like North had changed a great board into a terrible one.  But now West started to think.   I imagine it went along these lines.  If East’s spades were that good why didn’t he bid them?  We could be on a 4-3.  Partner surely has a club control and gee I hope it’s the ace??!  Yes, West bid 7NT and this one South who had the ♣A could double and this one went 7 down.

 Here is the whole deal and the auction.

Dealer: Vul:	North  ♠ 103 ♥ Q8752 ♦ 4 ♣ J8432
West ♠  842 ♥  AK1043  ♦  AKJ8 ♣  K		East   ♠ AKQJ9 ♥ J9  ♦ Q107652  ♣ –
	South ♠ 765  ♥ 6  ♦ 93  ♣ AQ109765

The only good news for East-West was that since this was pairs it was “just one board”.

A new “baby” and a new bridge class

January 12th, 2012  ~  linda  ~  3 Comments 

The last few days have been quite exciting.  Today Ray and I bought a Mazda Miata convertible and drove it back to our Sarasota home.  The weather was perfect and Ray had some fun working out the 6 gears.  Yesterday we had a big group of beginner and intermediate bridge players in our first bridge classes at the Landings.

I was working with the beginners and I remembered just how much fun it was to teach a class LIVE as opposed to working with online students.  By the end of the class my students were doing really well at counting their losers, deciding whether to draw trump and making a plan.  Some of the questions were fairly insightful.  Is it better to play in a 4-4 fit or a 5-4 fit when you have both?  I showed them how a 4-4 fit could work out better on some occasions but recommended that they focus on finding the best fit.

In any case it was so wonderful to see so many people excited about bridge.  Ray had the beginners and he drew a few laughs when they discussed why husbands and wives have to work to be nice to each other when they play.  We had more phone calls today from more would-be bridge players.

The questions always make me think.  Today I mentored my student from Israel.  He just had a new grandson – a much more wonderful new baby. We had some bridge bidding to discuss.  One thing that came up is the problem of rebidding with 17 high card points a balanced hand and a good five card major if you DON’T open 1NT.  Then this deal came up

North ♠ K32  ♥ Q3  ♦ A54  ♣ K10862

South ♠ Q76  ♥ K10652 ♦ 6 ♣ AQJ3

South was dealer and opened 1♥ .  North bid 2♣  game forcing and South bid 3♣ .  What should North do?  North bid 3NT which seems pretty logical.  Should South bid?  Is South sure that the eleven trick club game will be better than notrump?

Maybe these day you just tough it out in notrump and hope for a spade lead.  Or as an old friend once said: playing in notrump means never having to say your sorry.  Any thoughts?

Happy holidays to all of you

December 15th, 2011  ~  linda  ~  3 Comments 

Ray and I are heading down South leaving early on Friday.  We should be in Sarasota by late Saturday if the traffic and weather are kind.  We are very excited to spend the next four months in Florida.  We hope to see some of you who are in the area at the local bridge club or maybe on the beach!

We were saddened to learn that a longtime local bridge player Gord Chapman died a few days ago.  I have known Gord for around forty years.  I realized that when somebody like Gord dies it affects the entire bridge community.    Bridge people are close and we are a relatively small group.

Our last few days in Toronto have been a social whirl.  I had lunch with my friend Victoria on Friday.  We had dinner with Colin, Luise and the kids Saturday, some of our best friends over on Sunday and then dinner today with David and Barb Silver.  It is kind of a long goodbye although Colin, Luise, Jessica and Marcus will meet us in Sarasota for the Christmas holidays.

Things have been very busy in the office of Master Point Press too but for us things slow down for a while tomorrow with a staff Christmas lunch.

Ray and I wish all of you a happy holiday and a great 2012. The best of bridge to all of you.  2012, when I started working after college my pension date was 2012.  I remember looking at it and laughing.  It seems so far in the future.  Not laughing now.

A New “Mentee” hears my 2 rules

December 5th, 2011  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

I am mentoring a new student.  He is from Israel and we have to work out the 7 time zone difference.  But so far so good.

He is a decent card player but wants to come up to speed with modern bidding after a long pause from bridge.  (I know just how he feels having done the same thing myself).

Even though he has some skill as declarer, he still has to learn Linda’s two rules of making a plan in a suit contract.  Count your losers and as part of your plan decide whether or not to draw trump right away.  if you don’t draw trump you should have a reason.  There are many reasons available, of course.  And I am going to ask why you didn’t draw trump when we are learning together.

I was surprised that my student did not know how to count losers.  I thought there might be some of you who are still learning who might want to read my brief explanation of counting losers.  I doubt it is the same as explanations in textbooks but it works for me.

First look at your hand, not at dummy.  There can be some hands where you mentally switch and dummy becomes “your hand”.  Let’s not worry about that for now.  Going suit by suit look for losers in your hand.  You may borrow high cards from dummy.  So if you have 1054 in your hand and A8 in dummy you have two losers.  You are borrowing dummy’s ace.  The fact that dummy is short in the suit does not affect the number of losers in your hand.  You can only borrow HIGH CARDS.

What if you have AQ in a suit opposite 873.  That counts as one loser.  Yes, you might be able to finesse and avoid the loser but that will be something you decide on later.  For now you have one loser.  No help from dummy.

You can consider the number of total cards you have in a suit when you decide how many losers you have.  If you have an even number of cards in a suit you can assume they split evenly.  If you have an odd number of cards in a suit assume they don’t split perfectly.  So if you have AK76  opposite Q542 you can count that as no losers.  You have an even number of cards (8) and if the outstanding 5 cards split evenly (3-2) then you will have no losers.

After you count your losers you make a plan to get rid of your excess losers.  The three main ways to get rid of losers are: ruff, discard, finesse.  Less common (and more advanced) approaches are endplay or squeeze or even deception.

Some times things aren’t completely obvious.  How would you count QJ43 opposite 1065.  If you force out the ace and king using your high cards then you will have three losers if the suit splits oddly (4-2) as you expect.  But if entries are no problem you can lead towards the QJ twice.  That means that on many 4-2 splits you will only lose 2 tricks and of course you will only lose 2 tricks on any 3-3 split.  Still by counting that as three losers when you make your plan you will make sure to play this suit carefully to maximize your chances of having only 2 losers.

I was thinking about what Eric Rodwell suggested about counting winners and losers.  He is right you do want to count both but you count winners as you make a plan.  The number of winners will depend on how you play the hand.  If you draw trump right away you may not be able to ruff a loser in dummy and that might mean an extra loser.

But after you form your plan, then it is a good idea to count winners to make sure you have enough.

We play again tomorrow so I may have a deal or two to report then.

The ladies who play bridge (and cook)

November 22nd, 2011  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

Maggie Simony drew my attention to another Canadian bridge accomplishment.  It is the Best of Bridge cookbook series.  You can read their story on their website but to summarize for eight ladies the highlight of their bridge group was the food they prepared and then enjoyed together.

They have now been publishing cookbooks for more than 30 years and have sold over 3.2 million copies of their books.  I have some of them and they include  some of my favorite recipes.

There are quite a lot of recipes on their website.  Here is a link to Killer Quinoa Salad.  I include this one because I am determined to try quinoa, it seems to be the healthy “in” grain.

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Does this have anything to do with Bridge with a capital B.  Of course it does.  Bridge is not just be about cut-throat competition.  Bridge is about having fun together.  Bridge is social, as social as the food you eat together when you play.

I just hope there are still lots of friends who get together and play bridge for fun.  

Simple if you don’t fall asleep at the wheel

November 17th, 2011  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

I watched this deal from the French Open Trials where one defender won 10 imps for his side defending a game perfectly.

West, Toffier held: 

The auction in the Closed Room went like this.

2♥  showed 5-6 hearts and 18-22 points.  South, Adad, showed his secondary club suit and Ringuet gave Toffier a choice between hearts and notrump.

How do you defend?  The opening lead is often very important and this deal is no exception.  Clearly a club is out in this auction. Spades seem risky. A diamond is possible.  What do you do?  

Toffier decided on a trump.  He picked a small one which still let him maintain control of the suit.  This is the dummy he saw.

Dealer:  Vul:	Ringuet ♠ 3    ♥ 76   ♦ KJ108752   ♣ 753
Toffier ♠ A52   ♥ A42 ♦ Q942   ♣ Q93

Partner, Pilon followed with the ♥ 9 and declarer won the ♥ Q.  Declarer cashed the ♦A and partner followed.  Then declarer, Adad, played the ♥ J and Toffier was in with the ♥ A.  What does he know and what should he do?  Toffier knows declarer has no entry to dummy since all the diamonds are gone from south and east.  A trump lead is safe and will force Adad to play from his hand.  Adad won the trump return as partner showed out playing a small spade.  

Declarer now played the ♣ A, ♣ K and another. On the first club Pilon played the lowest outstanding club.  And Toffier threw the ♣Q.  

Could the ♣ Q be the setting trick?  Declarer’s shape is pretty well known.  Assuming Pilon gave count on the club then Adad has 2-6-1-4 shape and probably at least 20 high card points since he accepted Ringuet’s invitation.  

If Adad has the ♠K then the contract cannot be defeated unless Pilon has the ♣ J.  If Toffier holds onto the ♣ Q he will be enplayed and forced to either lead away from the ♠ A or give declarer the ♦K in dummy.  

If Adad has the ♣ AKJx and Pilon has the ♠ K the Toffier will be throwing away the setting tricks.  Good partnerships have agreements on signaling and with the ♠ K  Pilon could have done something in the carding to let Toffier know he had a high card in spades. Perhaps even more dramatic and effective if Toffier has the ♠ K and xxx of clubs he could throw a low club on the third round of hearts!  The fact that he is holding all his clubs should indicate that he does indeed have something in clubs.

Dealer: Vul:	Ringuet ♠ 3    ♥ 76   ♦ KJ108752   ♣ 753
Toffier ♠ A52   ♥ A42 ♦ Q943   ♣ Q93		Pilon ♠ QJ98764   ♥ 109   ♦ 6   ♣ J86
	Addad ♠ K10   ♥ KQJ853   ♦ A   ♣ AK104

Bragging About Canada

November 11th, 2011  ~  linda  ~  2 Comments 

When I was in grade school we were taught that the seventh prime minister of Canada, Sir Wilfred Laurier said the following in 1904:

“The 20th Century Belongs To Canada”.

This was interesting in that Canada had pretty dismal economic prospects at that time.  If you happen to be interested you might want to read  “A prediction that belonged to the 20th Century”.  While this was clearly incorrect it feels a bit like right now Canada is having it’s time to shine.

Future Brand has named Canada as the world’s most powerful country brand.  This is the second year in the row for Canada. You might want to read the 2010 press release which I found quite interesting.  It explains how some countries rose and fell (for example the Obama effect).

This comes just after Canada was named as the best country for business by Forbes Magazine.

Now we don’t have awards like that in bridge.  But if you don’t mind a little more bragging I think Canadians have made a disproportionate contribution to bridge, given our large geography and small population.  (Geography makes it harder to get people together for events.)  We have contributed a lot of young bridge players who are making a mark on the scene as they have matured.   Two of North America’s most famous bridge teacher/writers, the world’s bridge coach, the bridge calendar (now sadly done), bridge software including Bridge Base which started in Canada.  Not to mention the world’s largest (and humbly best) publisher of bridge books.

What has Canadian bridge lacked?

1. While we have produced some good players we have never produced good teams.  Maybe this is partly because at least till recently we have hadn’t had any serious sponsors.

2. We don’t really have a national organization since the ACBL sort of assumes that role.  The CBF does a bit of this and that but mostly its job is to pick teams which hasn’t worked all that well.  (see my first point).

3. We aren’t doing a good enough job of recruiting new young players.  Perhaps this is partly because we don’t have an organization with that role (see 2).

Still this blog is about congratulations and handing out some bottles of maple syrup to a few people who have made Canadian bridge special.

Here are a few bridge people who I am giving a hypothetical bottle of maple syrup to this year.  You can add your own.  And don’t complain if you don’t agree with all of mine.  In no particular order

1. Eric Kokish
2. Fred Gitelman
3. Eric Murray
4. Barbara Seagram
5. Audrey Grant
6. Gavin Wolpert
7. David Silver
8. John Carruthers
9. Jan Anderson
10. David Lindop
11. Mike Yuen
12. Kismet Fung

And of course Ray Lee (hugs).

This is not intended to be a scientific list.  These are some of the people that came to mind when I thought about some who have contributed to bridge in Canada over the last while.

I hope you didn’t mind this little Canadian smile.