Re: What's wrong with the Roth point count?

On May 4, 5:32 am, henrysun...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 wrote:

stupid computer.....

 teach beginners to add HCP + QT +LP for a total point count and if
it ccomes to 15 they have an opener. It works for every hand I can
imagine. Is my imagination missing something?

**************

That depends.  Do you think this hand is an opening bid?

Axx
Axx
Axx
xxxx

Even in a precision context, Belladonna and Garozzo passed it in first
seat in a bidding competition.

How about this?

AKT9xxx
Qxx
xx
x

9 HCPs + 2 quick tricks + 3 length points (? 1 for the 6th card and 2
for the 7th card?) = only 14 total points.

Stig, I don't know if you subscribe to the Bridge World or any other
magazine, but before you continue looking like an ass with respect to
hand evaluation and quick tricks, at least read re****ts of what
experts are doing instead of criticizing books designed to simplify
things for beginners. At the very least, pick up the last couple years
Bermuda Bowl or Olympiad re****ts and start analyzing whether your '15
hcps+QT+length points = opening bid' formula accurately reflects what
the top international experts are doing (of course, I assume they are
doing something right.)  Forget about the special systems like the one
played by Fantoni and Nunes, where 2-level opening bids show 10-13
hcps and 1-level opening bids show 14+, are unlimited, and hence are
forcing for one round.

I guarantee you that the re****ts will show that these experts are
opening at least 30% more hands than your 15 points formula would
allow.

If you want to be safe and conservative and only open such hands, and
if that is what you teach your students, well that's your business.
Teaching beginners to be safe and conservative is probably a
reasonable pedagogical standard.

But flaunting a more conservative standard in the light of current
expert practice isn't good pedagogy or bad.  It just makes you look
like an ass.

Henrysun909