[lcsmw]

I've played bridge on and off for 55 years. I started with Goren and KS. Around 1975, I bought the Rosenkrantz Romex book. I skipped over the chapters on the dynamic NT, strong 2c and Mexican 2d and learned a lot about the opening 1 bid auctions, weak 2 and preempts. I found the concept of loser count and cover cards to greatly improve bidding than the straight point system. I taught my wife the system and we played it for many years. As a beginner, we won a sectional swiss team event because she bid a grand slam based on losers and cover cards. For years she resented that I never taught her "standard" bridge because she felt uncomfortable playing with another partner. We played together for 15 years and then took another 12 years off from playing bridge. When we resumed, we found that bridge had changed somewhat, generally more aggressive bidding. I bought some more of the Rosenkrantz books written in 1985 and we tweaked our system and improved it a great deal. It put us more in line with the current bidding style and still retained the emphasis on losers and cover cards.

I know that there has been a lot written about tweaking point count for hand evaluation. A few years ago we took some advanced bridge classes and I still strongly believe in the loser/cover card approach.

My son who is a very good holdem poker player has been teaching me how to play. One of his first lessons was not to play a weak ace; an ace with a low second card. KQ, KJ, QJ are much better. A square bridge hand with 4 aces has 9 losers.
A square hand with kq, kq, kq has 6 losers and will generally take more tricks as declarer. Overall texture of the spot cards is also important in evaluating overall strength. I play a lot of GIB tournaments and find the auctions disappointing because of the reliance on points. I assume the GIB 2/1 style is very much in line with current bidding.

[Zelandakh]

I am afraid I do not know the cover card system in enough detail to comment on it but you should be aware that the MLTC (that's the one where KQx KQx KQx xxxx is 4.5 losers is equivalent to a version of a 3-2-1 (or 4.5-3-1.5) point count) and the original LTC (where KQx KQx KQx xxxx = AKx AKx AKx xxxx = 6 losers) simply equates to a point count system counting aces, kings and queens equally. In other words, LTC systems are actually less flexible and, arguably, more complicated than simply using a modified Milton count. In my view, over-reliance on LTC and MLTC is one of the things that often holds intermediates back from improving and something I always recommend against. For the most part (and yes Rainer you are no doubt the exception that proves the rule ) players use the LTC more out of ignorance than from any inherent benefit of the system.

Finally, whether to play a hand in hold'em is dependant on position, stack and the other players at the table far more than the cards you are dealt. An ace with a low kicker is a very good hand heads up on the button, not so good playing early holding a decent stack on a full table.

[blackshoe]

I don't play poker any more. Too many people are better at it than I am.

[lcsmw]

Bridge is about taking tricks and basing bidding entirely on points is not accurate. Overall hand texture is best. Playing with a partner that is expecting a certain point count range like robots will produce bad results and not allow you to show the true trick taking value of your hand.

[Zelandakh]

 lcsmw, on 2016-March-26, 11:13, said:

Bridge is about taking tricks and basing bidding entirely on points is not accurate. Overall hand texture is best. Playing with a partner that is expecting a certain point count range like robots will produce bad results and not allow you to show the true trick taking value of your hand.

That rather depends on what you mean by "entirely on points". If you have a point count system that accurately expresses the trick taking value of the hand then this is going to work extremely well. The evaluation methods most closely allied to trick taking are HTs and PTs; experience has shown that neither of these are optimal for most situations. So you need to back up your assertions with an evaluation method that is demonstrably better.

[mgoetze]

 lcsmw, on 2016-March-18, 13:33, said:

I play a lot of GIB tournaments and find the auctions disappointing because of the reliance on points. I assume the GIB 2/1 style is very much in line with current bidding.

Yes, playing like a robot and evaluating hands strictly based on a simple algorithm is absolutely the mainstream nowadays. Everyone sucks and winning the world championship should be easily within your grasp. Good luck!

[nullve]

 lcsmw, on 2016-March-26, 11:13, said:

Bridge is about taking tricks and basing bidding entirely on points is not accurate. Overall hand texture is best. Playing with a partner that is expecting a certain point count range like robots will produce bad results and not allow you to show the true trick taking value of your hand.

 Zelandakh, on 2016-March-26, 19:13, said:

That rather depends on what you mean by "entirely on points". If you have a point count system that accurately expresses the trick taking value of the hand then this is going to work extremely well.

I agree with Zelandakh. Trick taking value is exactly what points are supposed to measure, and ideally the number of points is simply the trick taking value times a constant, where the constant is chosen just to make the counting easier.

And nothing prevents you from converting hand texture to points. See e.g.

http://bridge.thomas...ons/points.html