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

On May 6, 6:20 am, Stig Holmquist <stigfjor...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

I'll make one last effort to demonstrate the absudity of Rubens claim
that quick trick passed out of existence in the 1940s.

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

And I'll make one last effort (well, I best not complete the
sentence).

Perhaps you failed to notice my caveat, where I conceded that it could
be argued that where Roth and Rubens said "quick tricks" they should
have used "honor tricks" to be technically correct.  It is at least
understandable by reasonable people that an editorial decision to use
the more popular and common (in 1968) term could be involved here.

But what is beyond contention by everyone in the bridge universe
except, apparently, for yourself is that the Culbertson honor trick
evaluation method did, in fact, disappear - virtually overnight, once
Goren started popularizing the Milton Work 4-3-2-1 point count.

(In fact, historically, there have been several point counts before
Work's won the day, none of which were able to topple honor tricks
from their position as evaluation method of choice.  The best of them
- the Bissell count - used the theory of honor gaps to evaluate honor
holding, thus giving more weight to holdings like KQJx instead of
AQTx  But I digress.)

One needs only to be a student of bridge history, not a national
champion, to know this.  And that history needs to go back before
Goren and Kaplan and Sheinwold into the 1930s and 1940s and 1950s.  In
fact, you might find it interesting to actually read one of
Culbertson's books on bidding and see how he uses honor tricks as an
evaluation tool to put Goren and Work et al into perspective.

You can continue to persist in thinking that only the old masters use
quick tricks in their evaluation of what is an opening bid, and you
might therefore want to make sure that your students only open hands
that meet your 'rule of 15', which would mean that hands like

KQTxx
KJT9x
Qx
x

11 hcps + 2 length points + 1.5 honor tricks = 14.5 "stig" points

or

AKT9xxx
Qxx
xxx
VOID

9 hcps + 3 length points + 2 honor tricks = 14 "stig" points

or

xxx
xxx
Axx
AKxx

11hcps + 0 length points + 3 honor tricks = 14 "stig" points

are not opening bids.  To this, one might recall the comment of Reese,
who - in response to some wag who said that a hand like

QTxx
J9xx
AKx
Kx

should be passed because offensive potential was uncertain but
defensive prospects were excellent - noted that perhaps this hand
should wait to open for the other 3 aces for then defensive prospects
would be even better.

Look, you clearly have your bra and panties in a bunch because you are
on a don quixote-like one woman campaign to get honor tricks re-
instated as something people care about.

Write your article for the ACBL, write your article for the Bridge
World, write your book on hand evaluation and let the rest of the
bridge community take a whack at it.

Henrysun909