(no subject)

[jack]

I had a good time at the Carlton. I got Simont's opinion on the maths I was working on earlier.

I played bridge with Matt, Matt and Pete. It's strange, whenever we do this and I play with Matt, we have a big string of easy major-suit game-contracts, 4H✓4H✓6H✓3H✓4H✓4H✓. Which is relaxing to play but always feels unfair that you were handed things so easy to bid.

Comments

[simont]

Did you used to play bridge a bit? I'd guess you'd enjoy it, but I admit it's probably not worth the time.

I was cajoled into a brief attempt by a friend at university, but never really got on with it. My biggest problem with it is that I spent a lot of my adolescence playing Hearts variants, so all of my tricks-game instincts are tuned for losing tricks, or losing the lead, or avoiding being forced to play specific cards, plus I have no real experience in how to play with trumps. Turning my card-playing brain round into non-misère mode turned out to feel sufficiently weird to me that I never managed to persevere for long enough to actually learn to play.

I also feel a bit intimidated by the bidding phase. Not just because of the information-theoretic considerations, but also because it's hard to know how to bid if you're an inexperienced player, and getting it wrong makes a bigger difference to the outcome of the hand than any of the later play. Of course this is a general problem in many games – it's a common consequence of the structure of game trees that the first few opening moves can be the most important and yet require the most analysis to get right – but some games seem to suffer from it more than others, and my impression has always been that bridge is one of the worst.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

My biggest problem with it is that I spent a lot of my adolescence playing Hearts variants,

Ah, yes. I found hearts difficult for much the same reason. (Although I think I find it easier to be analytical when playing with a partner as there's less unknown, but that might just be my imagination.)

I also feel a bit intimidated by the bidding phase.

I know what you mean. The bidding and the play are almost two separate (though very interrelated) games, and the bidding may have more to learn.

However, you can still enjoy the play nearly as much whether you get the bidding right or not. If you're playing in a competition, you might have already "lost" that round if you bid wrongly, but if you're just practising, you can either (a) try and make the contract you did bid, which may be just as interesting as trying to make the one you "should" have been in, or (b) see you "obviously" should have bid more or fewer, and try to get a moral victory by making that many.

Now I have only dim memories of being taught bridge. But I think learning the bidding was actually obfuscated by having too many ground rules put down. Possibly it was only me, but I remember actually being confused between what were rules and what conventions.

I think getting someone to bear strongly in mind what they want to achieve (typically "have the suit where you and your partner have the most cards in as trumps" and "if you have about 25 points between you, be in a game contract" to a very first approximation) and how the convention helps that. Then you'll get lots wrong, but you'll feel like you're working toward a consistent goal. Alternatively, just abandon the bidding to start with and learn to think in terms of "what contract I want to reach" in a mini-bridge style, replacing an auction with "everyone announces their points (with some modifications for shape if you like", "the player with the highest points of the partnership with the highest total points is declarer", "her partner lays down her hand as dummy, and she decides what contract she thinks she can make."