Re: luck in the game of bridge
Posted: Tue May 14, 2013 9:19 pm
skydyr wrote:cyclops wrote:In bridge a deal is a partition of the deck of 52 cards over 4 players. Each player gets 13 cards.
Usually such deal is played at several tables. Each table using the same partition. At each table 2 pairs of players compete for a better score at the cost of the opponent pair. Comparing the score on some deal among different tables measures the performance of a pair relative to another holding the same hands. In bridge you don't depend on a good deal but you depend on getting the most out of a deal in cooperation with your partner. You might compare it with two neighbouring farmers farming the same type of land. If one gets a good result and the other a bad one luck is not the probable explanation especially not if it happens on the average over many years. In this sense bridge is not a game of luck or chance. Most of the luck factor is canceled out by comparing between tables playing the same deal and the rest is levelled out by the number of deals played in a match. In the end you can have about just as much faith in the result of a bridge tournament as in the result of a go tournament.
Duplicate bridge for tournaments is a bit of a different animal from bridge as you'd play it socially, as players will often try to push a hand to the very limit to score better than others playing the same hand instead of taking what they are fairly certain to make independently.
Well, yes and no.
In bidding, you are willing to bid slightly light games and small slams, but probably not grand slams, since most of the opposition will miss them anyway (i.e. a 50% small slam may well be biddable, but a 50% grand slam is not, since making a small slam +1 is still a good result).
In play it depends on whether you have reached a good contract or not. If you have bid a light but sound game, you will play it safe, since if made, it will yield a good score. Furthermore, IMP scoring is yet another animal, where you may bid even lighter games and small slams, but try to make them as safely as possible, not caring about overtricks.