[Balrog49]

There are many ways to get fixed In club games but this is the one I hate the most. My partner and I often push weak opponents into cold games when allowing them to play in an undoubled partial would get most or all of the matchpoints. Is there a way to detect this during the auction?

We're not overly aggressive in competitive bidding but consistently get suckered by little old ladies who get dealt strong, one-suited hands and make ridiculous underbids. Their strategy is to keep bidding their suit until they get doubled. They don't worry about missing a game because they know the good players will compete and they'll get another chance to bid until someone doubles.

No one I've asked has ever had a useful suggestion, but every time it happens I feel sure that better players would sense what's going on and pass it out. Am I missing something?

Any other ideas about avoiding common fixes would be welcome.

[barmar]

Not just LOLs -- the BBO GIB robots sometimes do this to me.

[Bbradley62]

I would not define the situation you describe as "getting fixed". If you push opps into a making game that they weren't going to bid, you bid badly; if you did it because opps goad you into it, then you were outplayed, and you should certainly avoid playing poker against them. An true example of "getting fixed" would be if declarer opp, playing in a 5-4 trump fit, drops the stiff offside K because she heard someone say "8 ever, 9 never finesse".

I hope the storm misses Nashua; my family is gathered up there!

[Trinidad]

There are two possibilities:

1) The scenario that you sketch:
They have the values for game, should get to game but don't if you leave them alone. Once you balance they get to game "in the rebound". This may be frustrating, but at worst you are level with the field. You could have gotten a top by passing, now you are back to average. Fortunately, LOLs often drop a trick in the play. Unfortunately, you are so frustrated about them getting to game in the rebound, that you will give this trick back to them and you end up with an average. If you are really frustrated, you will hand them two tricks for a top. This is not because they bid game. It is because you took your eye of the ball.

2) The scenario that you don't sketch:
They shouldn't be in game, but they get there after you balance and it makes! There are four possible finesses to take and declarer needs only 3. She takes all four anyway and they all work! This occurs only 1 in 16 times. (OK, a little more often: LOLs are incredibly lucky.) Live with it and enjoy the other 15 times.

Rik

[ggwhiz]

Bid better, play better

[GreenMan]

In Human Bridge Errors Part 1 the authors recommend playing the table to some extent -- specifically, if lesser players take a long time to decide on an action, it's likely to be the wrong action, so if they pass with apparent uncertainty then let them sit where they are. This won't help in all cases but it may in some.

[Phil]

Balrog49, on 2012-December-25, 11:34, said:

There are many ways to get fixed In club games but this is the one I hate the most. My partner and I often push weak opponents into cold games when allowing them to play in an undoubled partial would get most or all of the matchpoints. Is there a way to detect this during the auction?

Did you really have your balance? Its not a crime if you don't balance when you don't have your call.

Quote

We're not overly aggressive in competitive bidding but consistently get suckered by little old ladies who get dealt strong, one-suited hands and make ridiculous underbids. Their strategy is to keep bidding their suit until they get doubled. They don't worry about missing a game because they know the good players will compete and they'll get another chance to bid until someone doubles.

So you might be one of the pairs that doubles them? Maybe out of 'principle' or even spite?

Quote

No one I've asked has ever had a useful suggestion, but every time it happens I feel sure that better players would sense what's going on and pass it out. Am I missing something?

Why do people think that the pairs that consistently win have some strange sense of ESP or table feel in these auctions? Just play a normal game and try not to give up much. There's no secret here.

Quote

Any other ideas about avoiding common fixes would be welcome.

Getting fixed means your opponents did something bad/anti percentage and having it pay off - like bidding a slam needing three finesses that happen to work. A fix is the inverse of a gift. Sorry to say this but you are getting either outplayed or simply exploited. Fix your own leaks and then you can bitch about random fixes.

Frankly I like it when my opponents make suboptimal decisions. They may get some short term luck and make some unusual decisions that pay off but overall you will not see these pairs breaking 45% very often.

A few weeks ago I played in a game with a wide range of players. I had a bad 6 count and JT9xx of spades r/w. LHO opened 1♥ partner x'd and RHO (who is certifiable) bid 4♥. It was a little annoying but I had to pass. It was really annoying when dummy came down with a 3=2=4=4 8 count. Nobody could make more than 8 tricks. Yet this guy does reasonably well at this club, because I imagine other people are getting sucked in on hands like mine and bidding 4♠.

[JLOGIC]

You do not want to avoid being fixed, as Phil says you want your opponents to do has things that give you gifts. Unfortunately that does not mean you always get a gift, sometimes you get fixed, but would you rather your oops play perfectly so that you never got fixed? Of course not.

What you seem to be asking is how to maximally exploit your opponents errors, eg not balancing them into game when they have made a big mistake already. That is obviously too open ended of a question, sometimes it is unavoidable though.

[JLOGIC]

You do not want to avoid being fixed, as Phil says you want your opponents to do has things that give you gifts. Unfortunately that does not mean you always get a gift, sometimes you get fixed, but would you rather your oops play perfectly so that you never got fixed? Of course not.

What you seem to be asking is how to maximally exploit your opponents errors, eg not balancing them into game when they have made a big mistake already. That is obviously too open ended of a question, sometimes it is unavoidable though.

[billw55]

It sounds like these little old ladies do this frequently. I would think people would start to wise up

[barmar]

I didn't think Balrog was talking about any specific pair, but just that type of player in general.

And I think people tend to worry about this more than necessary. It doesn't really happen all that much, but we tend to remember them because they're so annoying. You don't remember all the gifts they gave you other times, because they don't know how to defend well (they probably don't signal) and don't go for overtricks in normal contracts. In the long run, the gifts almost certainly outnumber the fixes.

[pigpenz]

had hand come up in club game
couldnt touch 4♠ at all opps were also missing AK♥

---

same pair next hand with 6♥ down one next hand
on auction of

---

so what goes around comes around
opps dont play unusual vs unusual or RKCB
the 3♥ call took about 2 minutes to be made

so what Justin says there is no right way, you just try to keep stats or the odds in your favor

[Balrog49]

barmar, on 2012-December-26, 14:02, said:

I didn't think Balrog was talking about any specific pair, but just that type of player in general.

And I think people tend to worry about this more than necessary. It doesn't really happen all that much, but we tend to remember them because they're so annoying. You don't remember all the gifts they gave you other times, because they don't know how to defend well (they probably don't signal) and don't go for overtricks in normal contracts. In the long run, the gifts almost certainly outnumber the fixes.

You're right. I wasn't talking about any specific pair, but just that type of player in general. The type of auction I mentioned in the original post is just one particularly annoying example of people deliberately playing bad bridge in order to get a top or a bottom.

Since I started playing again after a 20 year retirement (raising a family), it seems like club games are now even more random than I remember. It's as if the players who have little or no chance of winning deliberately try for top or bottom scores so that they actually can win once in a while if they have a hot streak. The rest of the time, they couldn't care less whether they have a 55 per cent game or a 25 per cent game.

My local club runs a 5-6 table Howell once a week and it seems like almost every board has at least two impossible results. No matter how well you bid, play, or defend a hand, you can't get a top because someone else was handed a better result on a silver platter.

Sometimes I wonder whether or not this is a reflection of the change in American culture over the last 20 years with respect to lack of patience. The way people drive certainly is. Everyone is in a big hurry these days, tailgating, speeding, running red lights and taking awful risks that result in being one car closer to an intersection when waiting for a red light to turn green.

[billw55]

Balrog49, on 2012-December-26, 14:50, said:

You're right. I wasn't talking about any specific pair, but just that type of player in general. The type of auction I mentioned in the original post is just one particularly annoying example of people deliberately playing bad bridge in order to get a top or a bottom.

Since I started playing again after a 20 year retirement (raising a family), it seems like club games are now even more random than I remember. It's as if the players who have little or no chance of winning deliberately try for top or bottom scores so that they actually can win once in a while if they have a hot streak. The rest of the time, they couldn't care less whether they have a 55 per cent game or a 25 per cent game.

I think you overestimate their ambition. Probably they are just bad, not deliberately shooting for wild results.

[Antrax]

Balrog49, on 2012-December-26, 14:50, said:

Sometimes I wonder whether or not this is a reflection of the change in American culture over the last 20 years with respect to lack of patience. The way people drive certainly is. Everyone is in a big hurry these days, tailgating, speeding, running red lights and taking awful risks that result in being one car closer to an intersection when waiting for a red light to turn green.

Cars are much better today than they were 20 years ago, so it's safer to drive like that. I wonder if there's an analogous explanation to the higher Bridge variance

[blackshoe]

Balrog49, on 2012-December-26, 14:50, said:

Everyone is in a big hurry these days, tailgating, speeding, running red lights and taking awful risks that result in being one car closer to an intersection when waiting for a red light to turn green.

Hey, that one car length is important! It means you'll get home 0.5 seconds faster than you would otherwise. Assuming you survive the drive.

"Patience, my ass! I'm gonna kill something!" -- A. Vulture.