Adam - Thanks for sharing your goals. As for the Vugraph study - please let us know exactly how you're doing it. I haven't found a very good way yet. I play much of Gavin's system so I can use events that he played in. I would like to test myself against how we bid if possible and definitely against the card play. I can download LIN files from BBO and use them in SharkBridge but it seem clunky. What are you doing?
Adam - I see that you previously mentioned the "kibitz" feature on BBO. I have used it many times to watch a live match. However for an archived event, the options are to either download the file or to use the viewer. I tried using SharkBridge with a downloaded file. When using the viewer, as far as I can tell, you will always see all of the bidding and can only step through the card play. I didn't find LoveBridge to be that easy to use either. Help appreciated. Thanks
When you're viewing the VuGraph archives on BBO, if you click on a player's name, it should make the rest of the cards disappear, so you're kibitzing them.
Unfortunately, VuGraph is much better for reviewing the play than the auction. Hopefully BBO and LoveBridge will add a feature to go bid-by-bid through the auction.
Adam - I totally agree. I emailed LoveBridge in the past to ask if they can do more to make use of their incredible database. Perhaps a suggestion from you would get more attention. Thanks
Hi Adam. Regarding # of books (your goal =1 per month), has that worked for you in the past?
With regular (non-bridge) reading, I have found setting a number of pages per year more practical. For example, 5,000 pages per year (an average of 416 pages per month) can accommodate books of varying length and density. I might start with that!
Are you also doing a comparative analysis, i.e. comparing your results vs the winners, to determine the deviations in play or bidding that needs to be adjusted? Are they bidding more games than you? Setting more contracts? Getting more overtricks? Balancing more often, etc. This type of analysis is quite tedious, since it requires a lot of data to see a trend and also requires building the data yourself. I wish BBO displayed it.
I'm definitely looking at what I'm doing compared to others. Sometimes they score higher than me but did the "wrong" thing. Sometimes I was wrong. I'm trying to note this in my spreadsheet. I'm not great at this sort of statistical analysis, so any advice is appreciated.
I'm doing it on a board-by-board basis, and trying to give extra weight to results from expert players. Not always a simple task.
Determining how to analyze data is difficult at best. I'd suggest first looking for trends, in order to determine where you need improvement most, which is where you'll get the most return on time spent. Where is their winning margin: in games bid, overtricks, slams, hands set, etc. This is "big picture" analysis. In sports analogy, quit signing sluggers if your outfielders can't field. Put the money into better fielders. If the winners consistently bid and make 3% more games than you do, that's a pretty big margin to overcome. Same for slam bidding or defense, for example. Excel is useful for this. Put the totals for different categories in columns for tournaments, along with your numbers, and see where the biggest differences appear. In addition to identifying weak spots through such trend analysis, continue to analyze the hands you scored poorly on to strengthen your play analysis. Just suggestions. Good luck! Looking forward to watching your journey, while I'm on my own.
Thanks, Ron. I'm not sure that it's worth tracking for club games on BBO or robot games. But at the Nationals I'll try to gather as much data as I can.
Your discussion of measurable goals inspired me to make my goals measurable -- I summarize:
150 total MP including 20 Gold and 35 Silver. Play in the Bean Red Ribbon Pairs (summer NABC) and read a book a month.
Fantastic!! I'll be publishing my preliminary reading list next week, so you're welcome to read along with me if you want.
Adam - Thanks for sharing your goals. As for the Vugraph study - please let us know exactly how you're doing it. I haven't found a very good way yet. I play much of Gavin's system so I can use events that he played in. I would like to test myself against how we bid if possible and definitely against the card play. I can download LIN files from BBO and use them in SharkBridge but it seem clunky. What are you doing?
Adam - I see that you previously mentioned the "kibitz" feature on BBO. I have used it many times to watch a live match. However for an archived event, the options are to either download the file or to use the viewer. I tried using SharkBridge with a downloaded file. When using the viewer, as far as I can tell, you will always see all of the bidding and can only step through the card play. I didn't find LoveBridge to be that easy to use either. Help appreciated. Thanks
When you're viewing the VuGraph archives on BBO, if you click on a player's name, it should make the rest of the cards disappear, so you're kibitzing them.
Unfortunately, VuGraph is much better for reviewing the play than the auction. Hopefully BBO and LoveBridge will add a feature to go bid-by-bid through the auction.
Adam - I totally agree. I emailed LoveBridge in the past to ask if they can do more to make use of their incredible database. Perhaps a suggestion from you would get more attention. Thanks
Hi Adam. Regarding # of books (your goal =1 per month), has that worked for you in the past?
With regular (non-bridge) reading, I have found setting a number of pages per year more practical. For example, 5,000 pages per year (an average of 416 pages per month) can accommodate books of varying length and density. I might start with that!
That's a good idea. Bridge books can vary greatly in length. And also in depth. Some of them take a long time to get through.
I'm going to see how one per month goes for the winter and if it's not the right goal I will reevaluate in the spring.
Thanks!
Are you also doing a comparative analysis, i.e. comparing your results vs the winners, to determine the deviations in play or bidding that needs to be adjusted? Are they bidding more games than you? Setting more contracts? Getting more overtricks? Balancing more often, etc. This type of analysis is quite tedious, since it requires a lot of data to see a trend and also requires building the data yourself. I wish BBO displayed it.
I'm definitely looking at what I'm doing compared to others. Sometimes they score higher than me but did the "wrong" thing. Sometimes I was wrong. I'm trying to note this in my spreadsheet. I'm not great at this sort of statistical analysis, so any advice is appreciated.
I'm doing it on a board-by-board basis, and trying to give extra weight to results from expert players. Not always a simple task.
Determining how to analyze data is difficult at best. I'd suggest first looking for trends, in order to determine where you need improvement most, which is where you'll get the most return on time spent. Where is their winning margin: in games bid, overtricks, slams, hands set, etc. This is "big picture" analysis. In sports analogy, quit signing sluggers if your outfielders can't field. Put the money into better fielders. If the winners consistently bid and make 3% more games than you do, that's a pretty big margin to overcome. Same for slam bidding or defense, for example. Excel is useful for this. Put the totals for different categories in columns for tournaments, along with your numbers, and see where the biggest differences appear. In addition to identifying weak spots through such trend analysis, continue to analyze the hands you scored poorly on to strengthen your play analysis. Just suggestions. Good luck! Looking forward to watching your journey, while I'm on my own.
Thanks, Ron. I'm not sure that it's worth tracking for club games on BBO or robot games. But at the Nationals I'll try to gather as much data as I can.
You only need to compare the top 4 or 5 against your results.