[pclayton]

Fred:

I kibbed you in the last quarter against your R32 match. Here's one of the last boards (15 or 16 as I recall):

Scoring: IMP

---

You played in 4♥ after 1N - 2♥ - 2♠ - 2N* - 4♦* - 4♠.

The opening lead was the ♥K. I thought you took an interesting line of play, and I'd appreciate it f you could share your reasoning.

[fred]

pclayton, on Jul 28 2007, 04:13 PM, said:

Fred:

I kibbed you in the last quarter against your R32 match. Here's one of the last boards (15 or 16 as I recall):

Dealer: South Vul: ???? Scoring: IMP

♠ KQ987 ♥ J ♦ Jxx ♣ Q6xx ♠ Axx ♥ AT8xx ♦ AKT ♣ 98

You played in 4♥ after 1N - 2♥ - 2♠ - 2N* - 4♦* - 4♠.

The opening lead was the ♥K. I thought you took an interesting line of play, and I'd appreciate it f you could share your reasoning.

What I did was duck the first trick. (!)

This play fell into the category of "seemed like a good idea at the time". I have absolutely no strong conviction that it was the right play. From a technical point of view it was probably not the right play, but I have tried this sort of thing before and found that the defenders often get confused because they have trouble placing the missing high cards.

For example, on some layouts it might seem like the natural defense for West to continue hearts at trick 2.

One thing that was amusing about this hand happened at trick 10 when I led the Jack of diamonds off the dummy. When East didn't cover, I refused the finesse. I was right that Queen was on my left and the result of my decision in diamonds was that I saved an undertrick.

You may be thinking, who cares about -50 versus -100 at IMPs when a game bonus is at stake?

When you win the match by 1 (as we did) you should care. Had I taken the diamond finesse we would have lost the match

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[barmar]

Fred, even though you won the match by a tiny margin, I think it's bad advice to suggest that IMP players worry much about single tricks like that. Making one more game or slam swing would have saved you from thinking about 10-12 over/undertricks. Isn't that where you should be putting your effort?

[fred]

barmar, on Jul 28 2007, 05:19 PM, said:

Fred, even though you won the match by a tiny margin, I think it's bad advice to suggest that IMP players worry much about single tricks like that. Making one more game or slam swing would have saved you from thinking about 10-12 over/undertricks. Isn't that where you should be putting your effort?

I am not sure I understand your question, Barry.

As far as I am concerned, the only thing one should think about is trying to get the best result on each board that is possible given the position you are in.

Of course decisions that involve making games or slams are more important at IMPs than those that involve nothing more than overtricks or extra undertricks, but most players at the highest level put just as much effort into every trick regardless of whether or not the trick in question is critical to the success of the contract.

If putting a lot of effort into the little things has an adverse impact on your ability to get the big things right then it is different. I am fortunate that this is not the case for me.

On the deal in question I was not giving up on my contract, by the way. I thought there was a reasonable chance that the Queen of diamonds was doubleton on my left and I thought there was almost no chance that this card was on my right.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[barmar]

It's a cost-benefit analysis, where the cost is mental effort.

If this isn't an issue for you, that's fine -- perhaps that's the difference between champions and the rest of us. But as a bridge star you're a role model, and I thought it was important to contrast the approach you took on this deal with the general strategy one should take at IMPs. Many players see close matches and then express the opinion that this shows how every trick matters at IMPs, like MP. But statistically speaking, this isn't true.

If you'd made one more game swing (either way), what you'd done on this board wouldn't have mattered a bit. Maybe this type of strategy is really only necessary at high levels, where the teams are full of experts who don't make lots of silly mistakes that cost game swings. On the other hand, they also bid very aggressively, and we see plenty of 10-13 IMP swings. But the big swings tend to go both ways quite a bit because both teams are going full-tilt, resulting in close matches.

[fred]

barmar, on Jul 28 2007, 05:52 PM, said:

It's a cost-benefit analysis, where the cost is mental effort.

If this isn't an issue for you, that's fine -- perhaps that's the difference between champions and the rest of us. But as a bridge star you're a role model, and I thought it was important to contrast the approach you took on this deal with the general strategy one should take at IMPs. Many players see close matches and then express the opinion that this shows how every trick matters at IMPs, like MP. But statistically speaking, this isn't true.

If you'd made one more game swing (either way), what you'd done on this board wouldn't have mattered a bit. Maybe this type of strategy is really only necessary at high levels, where the teams are full of experts who don't make lots of silly mistakes that cost game swings. On the other hand, they also bid very aggressively, and we see plenty of 10-13 IMP swings. But the big swings tend to go both ways quite a bit because both teams are going full-tilt, resulting in close matches.

It seems we are in agreement.

Anyways, I was not trying to give advice about IMP strategy - I was just explaining what happened on the hand because I thought it was amusing.

Sorry to Phil that I am currently unable to relay a better description of the my thinking process on this hand. I suffered a rather sleepless night as a result of the Alice in Wonderland hand that I had to live through (described in another post).

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[ochinko]

As much as I prefer to take the underdog's side, I have to say you're out of line, barmar.

1. This is not some article that Fred wrote advocating ducking by IMP players, just an explanation of a line of play. And a beautiful one, too.

2. Fred himself says he doesn't feel strongly either way.

3. This is advanced/expert forum, so let's hope younger players' minds won't be corrupted too much by that shocking ducking.

[barmar]

I understand his reasoning for this particular hand. I was basically just responding to his remark "who cares about -50 versus -100 when a game bonus is at stake?" That sounded like general advice, not just a decision made for this hand in particular (on which he actually thought this had a better shot at bringing in the game). And pointing out that the match ended with a 1-IMP difference is "result mongering".

Consider all those other threads Aar has started about his poor results in IMP games, because he tries to apply MP strategy to them. Everyone jumps in and points out how inappropriate this is.

In this case, I understand that Fred was really trying to bring home the contract. The saved undertrick was just an added bonus if it doesn't make, and probably wasn't a major consideration in the play. Fred's humorous comment just made it sound more significant than I think it really was.