There are two types of events at our upcoming regional that will be scored based on IMPs. Those are Swiss Teams and Knockouts. Your strategy for these games should be a bit different than your strategy for pair and Board-a-Match games. We will have celebrity speakers between sessions each day at the regional, and I'm sure some of them will talk about various strategies for the different types of games. I encourage everyone to attend these brief lectures.
For now, though, I'll talk about IMP strategy. First, let's look at the International Matchpoint Scale:
Diff. in Pts. IMPs Diff. in Pts. IMPs Diff. in Pts. IMPs Diff. in Pts. IMPs
20-40 ………..1 270-310 …..……7 750-890 ……..13 2000-2240 …..19
50-80 ….…….2 320-360 …..……8 900-1090 ……14 2250-2490 …..20
90-120 ………3 370-420 ….…….9 1100-1290 …..15 2500-2990 …..21
130-160 ……..4 430-490 ………10 1300-1490 …..16 3000-3490 …..22
170-210 ……..5 500-590 ………11 1500-1740 …..17 3500-3990 …..23
220-260 ……..6 600-740 ………12 1750-1990 …..18 4000 and up …24
When you compare scores with your teammates, the difference in your scores will determine the number of IMPs that you win or lose. In a matchpoint game, an overtrick might be the difference between a top board and an average score. In IMPs, an overtrick is just worth one IMP. The real swings come from making games that your opponents miss, doubling the opponents when it's right, sacrificing when it's right, and finding your slams.
When you're declaring in IMPs, your goal is to make the contract. Overtricks are of little significance, so you should NEVER risk going down to grab an overtrick. Don't give the opponents a chance to set you if you can help it! If you've sacrificed and you know you're going down, doubled, don't stress. Just try to hold the contract to down one or two, so the sacrifice is profitable opposite your teammates' making game.
Vulnerability is huge in IMPs. You should stretch for your games and slams especially when you are vulnerable, and preempt and sacrifice more aggressively when you are not vulnerable and the opponents are. -500 is not a bad score opposite a +620 from your teammates -- that's a gain of 3 IMPs!
I sat down to play on a team as a fill in last week, and one teammate said "Okay. Strategy for teams: never bid grands, and never double." NO!!! If you can find a grand, OF COURSE YOU SHOULD BID IT. +2220 is worth 13 IMPs vs. a -1460 if the other table fails to bid the granny. If every other board is a push, 13 IMPs is still a fairly large victory!
Now, you should not be bidding games, slams, and grands just because you're vulnerable and it feels like you *might* have a chance. Accurate bidding is still key, but you just want to push a little bit more than you probably do when you play pair games. It's still wrong to bid a slam missing two keycards, but if you think you have at least a 35% chance of making the slam, it's usually worth it to go for it. Be more conservative about bidding your grands, but by all means at least sniff them out before signing off if you think they might be there.
In team games, you should be especially willing to stretch more for your games. Most matches are won and lost on game swings, where one table bids the games and the other doesn't. Game swings are anywhere from +6 to +13 IMPs, whereas going down when your opponents stop in the part score will usually cost you only 5 or 6 IMPs. You were probably taught that you need 26 high card points to make a game, but the truth is that sometimes you can make a game with 20 points and sometimes you'll go down one when you've got 30. Distribution makes a huge difference in hand evaluation. A distributional 10-count is often much stronger than a flat 14.
As for never doubling, well that's just silly. If your opponents do something stupid, make them pay! +1400 is worth so much more than +500. It's foolish to double when you're not sure you can set them, because you could be turning a -110 into a -570, but if you know you've got the tricks to set them, and you're not sure you have a better score by bidding on to the 5, 6, or 7 level, then by all means, whack it!
This is a lot of information to take for someone who's brand new to team games. Don't worry about nailing it all right away -- it takes practice and experience. You can reinforce the important points by attending the lectures during our regional. I'll summarize the key points, though:
1. Overtricks don't matter as much as simply making your contract. On defense, don't get greedy. If you're on lead with the setting trick, it's usually best to cash it.
2. You want to stretch to bid games, even when you might be light on high card points. It's not right to bid game on EVERY hand, but if it's a close call, it's usually right to go for it.
3. When you're vulnerable, you want to have solid preempts and sacrifices. On the other hand, when you're white and they're red, it pays to be very aggressive.
4. Make sure you and your partner have solid agreements in place about slam auctions. How will you ask for aces? What bids do you use to investigate grand slam opportunities?
5. Don't be afraid to double!
I'm sure the commenters will leave their valuable tips as well. Normally the task of writing this guide would've fallen to McKenzie, but he's out of commission until Christmas, so I trust that you readers will add any necessary information that I left out...
And if you have any questions, feel free to leave those in the comments, too. If I don't know the answer, I'll find someone who does:)
Good luck!
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3 comments:
Meg, you've done a good job here. You showed the forest, without getting your readers lost in the trees.
I would revise the doubling statement. You want to double things that are going down 2 tricks. For partscores, you have to be sure. For games, it doesn't cost as much, so you can be less timid.
When I first started playing IMPs, I made the mistake of balancing overaggressively. Balancing is still important, esp when both sides can make a positive partscore. But I was a little ridiculous.
Here's a good link I found:
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~ball0888/bridge/imps.doc
My favorite book that describes how to play different at IMPs and Matchpoints, is Matchpoints, by Kit Woolsey. Yes, it's a matchpoints book but I learned a lot about playing IMPs from it too.
The IMP scale is important, and a newer player should learn how it works to have a good idea of how to bid and play at IMPs. Like you mentioned, one important thing is that 1 overtrick is only 1 IMP whereas at matchpoint, 1 overtrick could be the difference between an average board and a top or an average board and a bottom.
On doubling, I have to agree with Jenny. It's usually good to double things that are going down two tricks. If you miss a trick, then it is still down 1. Also, down 2 doubled versus down 2 pays much more handsomely than down 1 doubled versus down 1.
Non-vul, 50 versus 100 is only 2 IMPs while 100 versus 300 is 5 IMPs.
Vulnerable, 100 versus 200 is only 3 IMPs while 200 versus 500 is 7.
Games are better to double than part-scores, because a doubled game making is only 4 IMPs in the absence of overtricks. Also, if they happen to bid a good game that makes because it is lucky and your teammates don't bid it, you would already be losing 12 IMPs anyways, and this will only make it 13 or 14.
Part-scores are much more dangerous to double, but then again, you sometimes have to double them... the big 1100s often come from partscore doubles.
On bidding slams, I really wouldn't say that you should bid 35% slams in IMPs or matchpoints. Small slam pays the same number of IMPs when it makes that it loses when it doesn't make (13 when vul and 11 when non-vul), so the mathematical solution would be to bid 50%+ slams. However, people are somewhat hesitant to bid slam, so to reduce variance, you would want to bid your better than 50% (say 60% slams). Usually slam that makes on favorable 3-2 breaks is good, but a 50-50 slam on a finesse shouldn't be bid.
You have to be very conservative when bidding grand, the reason being that opponents at all levels are unwilling to bid grand slams that are not pretty much cold (again assuming reasonable breaks usually). Thus bidding grand slam will tend to cause a lot of variance and swings. The more important reason not to bid grand is that you often get the full reward for bidding just slam. 1460 isn't much worse than 2210 against 710, but -100 against 680 seems just foolish.
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