Matchpoints March 30, 2009
Posted by justinlall in Blog.Tags: Matchpoints
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Lately I’ve played a lot of matchpoints, and it’s made me think about the right way to approach the game.
When I first started playing, I got the advice to play for average plus on every board, and hope to get enough luck to win. As usual, I didn’t listen, and achieved a lot of success with a top or bottom style. Usually I would get 2 tops for every bottom with this style, but there was just too much variance in it. If things didn’t work out I would get too many zeroes and nothing could compensate it.
Now I believe the best way to play is to follow the maxim of protecting your plus score, and also to follow the advice of Zia Mahmood to not take actions that might result in a zero.
Unless you are being ridiculously conservative, nobody ever got a bottom for +170. If you didn’t bid game there are other people who won’t, and some people will be going down in game or getting +140. That’s the thing about matchpoints, you don’t need to bid close games, there is a bonus simply for playing it correctly. However if you do bid a close game and don’t bring it in you’re going to get a terrible score.
The other advantage of playing a protect your plus game is it goes well with my other rule for matchpoints: get in early, especially NV. If you are opening and overcalling light you’re going to play more of the partials which is crucial NV. Even if you go down 2 it will probably be good because they make a partial, and if you make it will probably be great also. If you want to try an experiment I recommend opening all 11 counts NV and seeing what happens. As long as your partner remembers to protect the plus score you will be fine.
Zia’s rule shouldn’t be taken literally since all actions could lead to a zero, but there are some actions you can make that you know will be top or bottom, or have a high percentage of a zero, and you just shouldn’t take them unless you are very sure. Bottoms kill games and kill momentum.
When I recently played at the club with my dad I was happy to see that my style really had changed, we had no boards below 25 % of the matchpoints, and 3 tops. This is a big difference from our 11 top and 5 bottom days!
I’m really glad you’re writing in your blog again. Your posts are really really insightful and help me a lot.
About playing matchpoints, I’m wondering why you think avoiding zeroes are so important. If you were getting two tops for every bottom before, isn’t that a great 66% game? In other words, why is reducing volatility important if you have great expected value? I think Barry Crane played a top or bottom style to enormous success.
I have talked to many people about matchpoints. One of them thinks that one should blast games at matchpoints because the defense will be worse. Another player thinks that one needs to be aggressive against weak players to pick up all the matchpoints against them, in order to win the event. Another player kibitzed the world open pairs and noticed the success of someone who just blasts to 3NT whenever possible (hiding his hand) and scores very well but with high variance. I’m wondering what you think about these theories.
Great questions LC and I will answer them as an Ask Justin