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Mike is an alias for "Chiel" or "the mafkees", the author of MAF and also of this site.
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MAF was designed because existing bidding systems, the ones I knew, did not have enough possibilities available to describe various hands of cards accurately in an efficient way. By efficient I mean exchanging much relevant information at a low level of bidding.
I did examine only the bidding systems applied by people I used to meet at the bridge table. I wondered if I could develop a system which had less shortcomings then the ones I knew.
After the inspiration I got out of Jaap van der Neut's "Dutch Doubleton" the start of MAF was made quickly.
Now at the end I am satisfied with the result. It meets all my initial desires.
I must emphasize however, that I never tried to learn all the systems of the world. This is impossible because they are too numerous. Only a minuscule part of these systems have been described properly. Most of these descriptions are not generally available in libraries.
There must be better systems than MAF. If you know one, please let me know too.
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The main properties of MAF are:
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Is it possible to download this homepage completely?
Learning MAF can be done by everybody who knows how to play bridge. It is of course only functional if you and your bridge partner both learn it. It is worthwhile to do it. You will never regret that you took the pains. You must also know the next few things about MAF:
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Yes, and it's very easy too. Just click onthis link you'll see a page with the necessary indications and a download button.
If it does'nt work please warn me. I'll repair it again in that case.
The download zip-file is updated periodically, around the first day of every month. This appears to be necessary because I have made many mistakes (in language, in sentences, by omitting words, by bad presentation, and even worse: in thinking; some of these mistakes may put you unintentionally on the wrong leg.)
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That is a pretty nice question. This drive must wait untill MAF is a bit more accepted. Anyway interested pairs can enroll now in advance, just mail me.
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A very short answer:
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A multi or a multi way bid is a bid at bridge that has any (each with an exactly known probability) of several well defined meanings. Every type of bid, opening, following and responding may be "multi".
When a bridge player makes a multi-bid he reveals the correct meaning of the multi-bid on his next turn. A multi-bid is necessarily always also a forcing bid.
In MAF comparatively many multi-bids, of all three types (opening, following and responding), are incorporated.
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Multi's can be very efficient. They enlarge the number of types of hands that can be described.
In practice the disadvantage of needing two succeeding bids to describe a certain hand is partly compensated by restricting the number of allowable responses, and at the same time adapt the meaning of these few answer bids exactly to the actual situation.
It is surely a disadvantageous fact that multi's make a system complicated and more difficult to learn. However if you are not afraid of a little bit of learning, you will enjoy multi's because of their power. Once you know and experienced a MAF-multi it is not difficult any more to remember it.
If a multi may have four or more meanings, you may choose for two meanings at first and add the other meanings one by one later on, when you can apply the first restricted multi easily.
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Sohl is special response to an opening bid. In MAF it is used very frequently.
You may find all on it in the special chapter on Sohl. Here you'll be enabled to link to all applications of the principle too.
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"HCP" stand for "Honneur Count Points", every Ace 4, every King 3, every Queen 2 and every Jack 1 point. That's all.
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The value of and hand is determined by strength and distribution and is expressed simply in HCP's (or shortly points).
The strength is equal to the number of HCP's
The value of a hand is measured in total points, which are determined by adding the distribution points: 3 points for each void, two points for each singleton and 1 point for each doubelton to the strength-points.
after the trump suit has been established.
Both players of the team are allowed add one extra point for each extra trump card. The trump suit may also be established by the holder of a very long suit, without consulting or telling his partner.
REMARK:
With "total points" the total of all HCP's, including the distributional values, of both players of a team is meant. During the auction this figure is important. It is used for estimating the chances of making a certain amount of tricks. The bidding serves, among other things, to gain information on the "total points". The bidding system should optimize this process.
Rules of the thumb:
To make 3NT or 4©/ª 25 total points are needed, for 5§/¨ you need >=27 total points. For small and grand slam you need respectively 32 and 35 total point's. In the "total points" just mentioned, of course the distributional values are included.
Remark 2:
There is another rule of the thumb, "Law of Total Tricks", which says that the total number of tricks equals the total number of trumps. Here is meant by total: the "total number" which "can be made" and which "are possessed" by both teams, playing against each other. The law may be applied in competative situations.
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If a hand does not contain a 5-card major, 6-card minor and a void or singleton, this hand is called "balanced".
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This question is not very clear. We mean to ask: Does it happen, and if so, does it happen often that more then one opening bid can be done on the same hand?
The answer is "yes". This happens occasionally when the result of the value weighing process of a particular hand is near to the boundaries of two of the classes: "weak", "normal", "strong" or "very strong". This happens quite often.
It does not matter very much which choice is made. There are always arguments every possible choice.
A bidding computer program should choose randomly, while a human player may choose according to his mood, his preference or whatever else she or he likes.
The overlaps between the classes were made on purpose, just to create some allowance for circumstances.
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Please browse topwards to read the answer to last question again. The answer here is similar.
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A limit bit invites for the game. It is usually a jump bid by the partner of the opener in the opening suit on 3-level. It may also be a return to the opening suit on 3-level.
The opener also can make a limit bid in the suit called by his partner, also by calling this suit on 3-level.
If the partner of the limit bidder has some unknown extra value, e.g. if he hold more than the average HCP's in the interval he showed during the auction, he should bid the game, if not he must pass.
When there is much overvalue controls must exchanged to explore the possibilities of slam. This may be started after a trump establishing limit raise, by responding game forcing in the cheapest controlled (i.e. holding Ace or King) suit.
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The use of the tables is mainly to satisfy the authors curiosity. Besides the fact that I think that this is a good reason, also some aspects of bidding systems may be compared through applying the tables.
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You can measure this performance in several ways:
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It took several months to discover a practical way calculate the chances. It is impossible to do this directly with a mathematical formula for each element in the tables.
Luckily for a hand with a given distribution and containing e.g. one A, one K, one Q and one J such an arithmetic expression for the chance of occurrence may be derived rather easily. The same may be done with all the other hands with same distribution containing 10 HCP's. When finally the chances on all these hands (10 points and the same distribution) are added, then the value of the relevant cell in the table has been established
It is impossible to do all the counting and calculating by hand. For this I made extensive use of spreadsheets. I then solved the problem of finding all the allowable honneur combinations forming P (0<=P,=37) HCP's for each distribution. I still needed to solve some related problems as well but this succeeded too. So I finally managed to do the job without making any mistakes.
In order to get the tables on the internet, I was very lucky to discover that the latest versions of the spreadsheets contained very useful tools for this purpose, which I applied gratefully.
Finally I must say here that experiencing the power and the beauty of spreadsheets is great, maybe is even more joyful sensation than playing bridge is.
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A mathematical proof that the problem is solved correctly is impossible. A few facts affirm the correctness strongly.
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S.O.H.L. stands for:
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The answer on this question cannot be given generally. Is a matter of personal preference. It has to do with one's attitude to the bridge game.
Personally I prefer a "rich" game, which is rich in as many dimensions as possible, so also in the dimension "variety of systems". I can imagine beginning players, hating complex situations, and preferring to have only one simple and straight system for everybody. On the other hand I can imagine match drive players preferring anything that is effective in scoring. If their prejudices, based on experiences of course are the same, the latter do not mind playing the same kind of, in their opinion, best scoring system.
You may observe a slight trend that every nation is developing its own one or two national bridge bidding systems:
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Could one calculate probability tables for the responder's hand?
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By pressing the browsers 'RELOAD' button the text gets complete again. Using the scrollbar has an identical effect.
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There are no examples now. The site is primarily meant for advanced bridge players. They can make there own examples of course.
Nevertheless I ioncluded a guestbook in this site, through which visitors are enabledto sent interesting examples to me. If the number of examples has grown a little bit, I will and sort them in a database.
Of course I will also build a tool by which all interested visitors have access to that database through internet communication as well as through downloading.
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It won't happen often, but when you must click "BACK" in the browser's buttonbar.
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You try to neglect the intervention.
If the intervention prevents your intended bid, consider one of the next actions:
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I do not know.
I presume it is a bug in my browser (Netscape 4.04). This phenomenon only appears (sometimes) when applying the multi column feature which is built exclusively into Netscape.
This is also my only bug report. If nobody at Netscape wants to look at this bridge page, then this is their decision, but it would be a pity.
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If you send them to me through the guestbook I'll answer them in a new FAQ.
Similar actions will be taken to reported suggestions, reported mistakes etc.
Did you know that you also can paste html-code into the guestbook's comment-text-area?
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If you send them to me through the guestbook I'll answer them in a new FAQ.
Similar actions will be taken to reported suggestions, reported mistakes etc.
Did you know that you also can past html-code into the guestbook comment-test-area?
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If you send them to me through the guestbook I'll answer them in a new FAQ.
Similar actions will be taken to reported suggestions, reported mistakes etc.
Did you know that you also can past html-code into the guestbook comment-test-area?
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I am no expert in this field. I never had experience with such a type of opponent either.
But I guess the best thing you can in such circumstances is to call the tournament master and if he and if he does not show up, ask for the chairman of the local carnival society.
Did you notice already that MAF contains a real Joker; i.e. the name of a convention, by which after a 1§ opening bid the lengths of the major suits is communicated. This joker is never leaded, but often launched.
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Now I start doubting if you ever tried to read this site, because I had the feeling that behaved like a excessive promotor of a particular type of browser.
Again I must say: Use Netscape and you will have no problems, at most with some features which nobody else has has built in his browsers. At least, this is what I do. I do not know if the Explorer gives problems. I tried it only very superficially.
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Please read again the main characteristics as described in the introduction.
Compare these properties with those of any other system you know of and make up your mind. If you cannot manage that then please read all the the MAF stuff again, but slowly. Keep in mind what is said in the guide.
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That is a good question, which deserves a good answer.
I think elsewhere is told already that the stats, or better probabilities, included in this site, under a button called ODDS, may give one answer to this question. The performance of system depends among other things on:
The final way to judge a system is through trial.
The application of a system is the only real test. Try it for a year or two.
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It is of course allowed to write about MAF, but you should not use parts of this site in your publication.
You probably did not read the remainder of this site yet because I cannot imagine how anybody would consider to publish my site. It is not written as a book and undoubtedly many English sentence constructions are very strange for people who have English as a native language.
Nevertheless it is not permitted copy and publish parts of it without the author's written permission. As long as it is not commercial you may use everything freely.
I even encourage you to do so. If I would keep it all for myself I would never have put it on the internet.
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It is of couse allowed to write about MAF, but you should not use parts of this site in your publication.
You probably did not read the remainder of this yet because I cannot imagine how anybody would consider to publish my site. It is not written as a book and undoubtedly many English sentence constructions are very strange for people who have English as a native language.
Nevertheless it is not permitted copy and publish parts of it without the author's written permission. As long as it is not commercial you may use everything freely.
I even encourage you to do so. If I would keep it all for myself I would never have put it on the internet
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Yes!
Your browser probably has the possibility for downloading html-code and pictures. With the download button you may download a zipped file, containing all files you need for running my site off line. There only a few insignificant differences between some on- and off-line files. If there are sufficient visitors the files will change. I'll go on working on them, like I said in several places.
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