[morgoth85]

Hi all.

After reading book about slam bidding written by Marty Bergen, I created simple web application for exercising counting starter points based on technique introduced by him. I wrote to Marty, and he approved this idea, so I want to share it with all the bridge beginners.

It's available on: this page - it's released as open source (MIT license), so everyone can use it freely.

If anyone has some ideas how it can be improved, please let me know.

[diana_eva]

 morgoth85, on 2013-September-08, 02:21, said:

Hi all.

After reading book about slam bidding written by Marty Bergen, I created simple web application for exercising counting starter points based on technique introduced by him. I wrote to Marty, and he approved this idea, so I want to share it with all the bridge beginners.

It's available on: this page - it's released as open source (MIT license), so everyone can use it freely.

If anyone has some ideas how it can be improved, please let me know.

It's a cute app, but my first suggestion is to make it quiz-style. Let user type what he thinks the the value of the hand is, and then provide answer with explanation. Taking it further you can also score how user is doing, how many hands he got right, how many attempts, something along these lines

[ahydra]

Wow, if I had to do all that maths for each hand I'd never complete a round on time. I much prefer to just count my bog-standard high card points and "feel" whether it's a good/bad hand based on sequences/singleton honours/intermediates, then adjust as the auction progresses.

The principles are the same though: Aces and 10s are under-rated in Milton Work, singleton honours (particularly Q and J) are not good. Long suits are excellent, provided it's trumps, or your side has enough control to be able to make use of it. I'm not convinced that solidity of the suit is worth extra points though - e.g. AKQx is still really just three tricks, and Jxxxxxxxx is probably going to take seven.

ahydra

[Fluffy]

I agree with all ahydra said except AKQx, AKQx is about 0.7 tricks better than AKQ stiff, which is around 2 Milton work points difference.

[y66]

I understand from your post that this is intended for beginners. Perhaps you can make your app more fun by showing 2 similar hands and asking which one is better according to Bergen's criteria. Nice interface!

[barmar]

 ahydra, on 2013-September-08, 06:19, said:

Wow, if I had to do all that maths for each hand I'd never complete a round on time. I much prefer to just count my bog-standard high card points and "feel" whether it's a good/bad hand based on sequences/singleton honours/intermediates, then adjust as the auction progresses.

That's how experienced players do it. But beginners don't know what to look for to get this "feel". Rules of thumb like these adjustments, or rule of 20/22, help them learn.

[Zelandakh]

 barmar, on 2013-September-09, 08:49, said:

That's how experienced players do it. But beginners don't know what to look for to get this "feel". Rules of thumb like these adjustments, or rule of 20/22, help them learn.

Well how about:

Aces: count as 4.5 unless singleton, then 4
Kings: count as 3 unless singleton, then 2
Queens: if with a higher honour then 2; if no higher honour then 1.5. AQ doubleton = 6; KQ doubleton = 4.5; Qx doubleton = 1; Q singleton = 1
Jacks: if with a higher honour then 1; if no higher honour then 0.5. AJ doubleton = 5; KJ doubleton = 3; QJ doubleton = 1.5; Jx doubleton/J singleton = 0

Void = 5
Singleton = 3
Doubleton = 1

If partner shows a shortage, treat any honour except an ace as 0 and treat any shortage as 0.

If hand totals come to 30+ then make a slam try; if 33+ then a slam drive providing you are not missing 2 top tricks.

OK it is not perfect by any stretch and not what I do myself these days. It is workable for an improving beginner/low intermediate though, and introduces them, albeit indirectly, to the idea of upgrading aces and downgrading quacks and honours in short suits. My idea for teaching beginners on this was always to build up an initial library of adjustments, gradually getting more refined, then encouraging them to switch to working on visualising and evaluating possible hands opposite, counting tricks. My experience is that most beginners do not have the ability to go directly from Milton to tricks and the adjustments are in any case useful for understanding evaluation at a more fundamental level than Milton alone.

Out of interest, what are Bergen's rules for this? I do not think I know a Rule of 20/22 for slam evaluation.

[chasetb]

I don't know what Bergen's rules are, but I know the Rule of 26 would work well for Beginners and Intermediates.

EDIT - I read Zel's post a little closer, and see that he covered shortness; the link therefore lends credibility. I would personally add to it that an Ace in the splintered suit should count for 2 rather than nothing, but that's just me.

[dustinst22]

I saw a hand in here that subtracted a point for a "dubious" combination with Kx -- I think Bergen just subtracts for KQ,KJ, QJ, Qx, Jx, K, Q, J

Here is the Hand

[cloa513]

 dustinst22, on 2013-September-09, 17:09, said:

I saw a hand in here that subtracted a point for a "dubious" combination with Kx -- I think Bergen just subtracts for KQ,KJ, QJ, Qx, Jx, K, Q, J

Here is the Hand

It also subtracted for a singleton ace.

[barmar]

 Zelandakh, on 2013-September-09, 10:33, said:

Out of interest, what are Bergen's rules for this? I do not think I know a Rule of 20/22 for slam evaluation.

The rules of 20 and 22 are for opening hands at the 1 level, not slam evaluation.

[Zelandakh]

Wow, Rule of 22? Seriously? Over on this side of The Pond, these are Rules of 18/19/20. OK, I can see now you were talking more generally than just about slams. Indeed, as someone that learned from a Culbertson book, the first rules I learned were the Rule of 500 (aka Rule of 2 and 3) and the Rule of 4, 5 and 6. I love such rules, since they provide a baseline from which to make adjustments. That is obviously helpful for beginners but many of them also have their uses for quite advanced players imho. As examples, Ben sometimes talks about Zar Points regarding light openings and many posters refer to the LoTT. I do not know of any of these laws that can be used without any adjustment of judgement but that does not mean that they do not serve a useful purpose, despite the detractors of such "crutches".

[morgoth85]

Thank you for all your feedback.

@dustinst22 - indeed there was a bug with Kx treated as dubious doubleton - it is fixed now
@cloa513 - I believe there was no problem with dubious singleton A - if you find hand with such a behaviour, please let me know (and paste the URL)

I added calculating dummy points - this technique can also be found in Marty's book.