I enjoy bridge, but high level competitive bridge sounds like a nightmare.
"Expert poker players often take advantage of a skill they call table feel: an ability to read the facial expressions and other unconscious “tells” exhibited by their opponents. Bridge players rely on table feel, too, but in bridge not all tells can be exploited legally by all players. If one of my opponents hesitates during the bidding or the play, I’m allowed to draw conclusions from the hesitation—but if my partner hesitates I’m not. What’s more, if I seem to have taken advantage of information that I wasn’t authorized to know, my opponents can summon the tournament director and seek an adjusted result for the hand we just played. Principled players do their best to ignore their partner and play at a consistent tempo, in order to avoid exchanging unauthorized information—and, if they do end up noticing something they shouldn’t have noticed, they go out of their way not to exploit it."
How can you possibly play like this, and expect others to play like this, in a genuinely competitive setting?
You can't. It's a game that is fundamentally flawed at the base level, just like blackjack.
The fact that both these games outlaw certain thought processes, be that counting cards in your head or acting on your partner's hesitation, shows that they've been shoehorned into something they're not.
>Adding intermediation (either other humans or computers) removes most of the problems.
Perhaps, but that just reinforces the notion that the game is fundamentally broken. If a card game works better on computers, then it's not really much of a card game, is it?
There are a lot of games and sports where computer mediation made, for example, what had been flawed human judgement more objective, or that made tedious housekeeping/accounting processes less burdensome, etc. And generally those sports and games are improved thereby. It is also the case that that computer mediation doesn't have to be applied to every level of play. It's not hard to imagine professional bridge being played so that teammates are isolated and "noise" like variable delay is inserted where hidden channels of communication could be used.
I may be picking a nit, but counting cards is legal in all casinos in the US. You are not breaking a law by counting cards, but the the casino has the right to stop providing you its service if you are, or if they even think you are (right up there with "No shirt, no shoes, no service").
Perhaps you mean that casinos in Atlantic City actually will not kick you out if they suspect you're counting cards, or they're bound by some law to allow you to keep playing?
If counting cards were actually illegal, we'd be a lot further along on our way to Orwell's 1984. You can't outlaw thought (yet).
Yes, you are correct. What I meant is that the casinos are forbidden from asking you to stop playing or to leave the casino based on counting cards. It's really in the casino's best interest though, because there are more people who think they can count cards than there are people who can do it effectively.
>counting cards is legal in Atlantic City, but if they suspect you of it they'll shuffle every hand or not let you change the size of your bet.
The fact that there's something to "suspect you of" is the whole problem. Doing the same (counting cards) in poker is explicitly encouraged, and the ability to know what cards remain in the deck is highly prized.
If you don't want people counting cards, shuffle between plays. It is in no way a problem any game is faced with.
The weird thing about card counting is that casinos want the people who are bad at counting cards. So it is not a flaw in the game, but just a weird rule that in the casino world you are not allowed to win.
1) Anybody playing at even a remotely competitive level has their bid and play conventions so well down that answering the question "what would I have played had I not seen my partner hesitate?" is not hard.
2) Varying your tempo will get the director called to the table regardless of whether or not it conveys information; playing at a steady rate is part of the game.
3) It has actually been fairly easy to identify cheaters for the past decade or so (since hand records have been computerized), they are the ones who regularly succeed when making the wrong decision (from the odds point of view). The ACBL just didn't want to run the analysis because they don't want to get sued.
If the play is so standard and automatic then where does skill come in? Or just skill just correlate highly with how many situations one has observed before and potentially memorized?
The bidding is a game that you can describe something like:
"Using an open channel, and an open communication protocol, communicate hidden resources in a precise enough way to mutually agree on what can be accomplished with you and your partner's resources combined".
The playing is a game of "Given a set of resources, maximize your results" (if you won the bid) or "Communicate with your partner and together maximize your results given your resources" if you did not win the bid.
Vague as hell, but sure.
The difficulty in the bidding process is based on incomplete information understanding what resources you have combined. There are a number of edge cases that can't be expressed well, so you need to have a collective thought processes to understand where you're going (and your opponents can also disrupt your bidding, so its not a clear channel either).
The challenge in the play is understanding what combination of playing orders will give you the highest odds. There is some amount of memorization (there are some squeeze plays that aren't obvious unless you learn them) but mostly it is pattern recognition, improvisation and odds calculation on the fly.
I'm underselling it - bridge played against relatively equally good opponents and with a good partner that you have played with for some time is imo one of the best games there are.
Seems very arbitrary. There's a very similar card game in Spain called Truco (and in Italy called Briscola). Truco accepts communication and even bluffing as a core component. There are very standard system for hidden communication, like a wink representating a particular strong card and pursing the lips means another. Because these are so well known, its common to either wait for the right moment to share info, or intentionally share incorrect values to confuse your opponent. At the end of the round, there's an opportunity to bluff and call "BS", increasing the stakes at every hand. Its a very similar game, but accepting implicit communication changes it completely.
In a similar way, another Italian card game, "tressette", has a set of formalized signals which you are forced to use (and are limited to) when opening a round, without lying - "i have other cards of this type", "this is my last card of this type" and "I want your strongest card" (I know them as striscio/volo/busso, but they change regionally). So you have a situation where card and signal technically mean one thing everybody knows, but might ask different strategies of the partner depending on his interpretation of the matter, the sequence of calls, and his tactical skills.
Obviously it later generates untold amounts of discussion and fighting over such interpretation, which is what us Southerners fundamentally crave ;)
I have to say, I miss card games. They used to be a fundamental part of Italian education, a social icebreaker and a great generational bridge. Electronic entertainment completely obliterated them, and unsavory vices like slot machines and drugs have now replaced them in public spaces. There are less fights and loud arguments, sure, but it's all very sad.
The golf example (from later in the article) is telling: if those most looked-up-to in the profession publicly and exhaustively exhibit a dedication to fair play, and it's part of the culture down to the lowest levels, then it can work much of the time. You also have to be brutal in enforcement: golf pros who sign an incorrect card, even if they just misunderstood a local rule, are disqualified (though this is changing, see http://espn.go.com/golf/story/_/id/13975820/rules-golf-elimi...).
It's true that once people start getting away with cheating, even minor cheating, and others see it, it quickly becomes universal. Like cycling (also from later in the article).
> How can you possibly play like this, and expect others to play like this, in a genuinely competitive setting?
Honesty is not as hard or unusual as people think. There is a notion that people will do anything to win but if you look at humanity, most people are honest, follow the rules (and laws), and have little interest in cheating. Not everybody feels and acts that way, and nobody does it all the time, but it's hardly uncommon.
"Expert poker players often take advantage of a skill they call table feel: an ability to read the facial expressions and other unconscious “tells” exhibited by their opponents. Bridge players rely on table feel, too, but in bridge not all tells can be exploited legally by all players. If one of my opponents hesitates during the bidding or the play, I’m allowed to draw conclusions from the hesitation—but if my partner hesitates I’m not. What’s more, if I seem to have taken advantage of information that I wasn’t authorized to know, my opponents can summon the tournament director and seek an adjusted result for the hand we just played. Principled players do their best to ignore their partner and play at a consistent tempo, in order to avoid exchanging unauthorized information—and, if they do end up noticing something they shouldn’t have noticed, they go out of their way not to exploit it."
How can you possibly play like this, and expect others to play like this, in a genuinely competitive setting?