being_kinder wrote: ↑09 June 2023, 21:27Maybe my biggest resistance against it is because it is just a convention. Basic things like finesse and bluffs are built on a pure logic. So a clever enough player could understand(or reinvent) the move without smbd explain it to him. But rules like color only play and number only save are based on a convention, not strict logic. The game lacks purity in some way.
It's off-topic, but we could talk a lot about that point.
Everything you assume will be a convention.
Even if you play with new players, if another player turn 1 give red: x-r-x-x to his next player, and that player discard, you learn that player usually discard on that specific case. It seem it's not a convention, since that answer was deduced from scratch.
If now you play a second game, and turn 1 your previous player clued you red: x-r-x-x to you his next player, you learned how to react to that clue, knowing the cards of others players. So this clue has some similarity with the previous situation. From that, you can either react to that clue the same way you did before, but then it became a convention. You are not deducing that action from logic, but you are just either copying what happen in the previous game, or playing what others seemed to expect you to do.
Or you can check other hands, assume those hands is the reason why you should assume something different than the previous game, and do your own move to it.
Or, if what happen in the previous game seemed bad, you can do something diffferent too.
But even if you do something else, you just move the problem. Next time this situation will happen, you will get two previous ways to react instead of one.
After a certain point (we are humans :p), in most moves, you should start following the same interpretation. And you got a convention.
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Here is a real example: "3-bluffs" from hgroup (level 13). You are enough experienced to see that you lose most of your games because you lost early one useful non critical card, and search a way to save them more.
Furtheremore, finesses are 'logicals' (you clue red on r2, next player plays r1 from the clue. r2 plays after)
Then, bluffs are 'logicals' (you clue red on r2 and next player plays y1 from the clue. You then know you got r2).
Then, you learn about finesse+bluff / double half bluff (you clue red on r3, next player plays r1, second next player plays y1, r3 is known).
You then arrive on a situation where someone clue red on r3, next player plays his finesse position and it's y1. Then another player plays in between. By default with the previous rules, the r3 is assumed to be r2. So you need to assume/do something to correct that.
There is lots of ways:
- you can ignore the problem until r1 is played
- you can assume you got two r2/y2
- you can clue r2/y2 (if available)
- you can clue 2/3 to that player and make the clue do something else (if available)
- you can clue 2/3 to that player to fix that problem and assume the clue do nothing else (which look bad)
- you can play your finesse position to create a situation with two bluffs, which should resolve the problem
- you can assume you got r2 in finesse position and save it for later (implied bluff)
- you can do another interpretation
If you want to play 'logically', it usually means that you will assume one of the most obvious interpretations which are listed there.
But that reasonning will be worst for 4s and 5s.
When you give a red clue on a 4, it will require 3 diferents cards.
When you give a red clue on a 5, it will require 4 differents cards.
What is interresting about '3-bluffs', is that it's very powerful, but it's not listed here.
'3-bluffs' are pretty simple, they just assume that 3s (which don't connect, and red don't connect with 3s, even with self finesse) ask for only a single bluff.
That let you make '4s-double bluff' which ask for 2 bluffs. (5s are different, look at ejections (slot 2 play) level 16).
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Bga has a very big community, changing any rule, even very simple is extremely difficult and take some years. Just see how difficult is it to make experts and masters plays their 1s from right to left (it's not the subject, but compare hands x-g1-g1-b1 and x-g1-b1-b1 with the possibility to wait someone to discard once). People are so used to play from left without thinking, than even a logical play from right will not be done.
On the other hand, hgroup got a small community to build their own conventions, and was open for discussion of changing any conventions. They were just taking in account the complexity-cost (ie not adding an hard convention to follow if it's too complicated) and historical cost (ie not changing a convention for something slightly better if that would cause too many fails in the short run)(there were some big changes, but for big upsides, like ejections).
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But to try to conclude my long post, you can't play without conventions, you will just follow someone else logic. You can play with random players every time, but you will ask more questions about "What if that player make a mistake?", "What's the probability of X?", "What mean the clue X? Was there more than one interpretation"?
And it's very interresting too, but it's very different. Like Wreckage said, the most popular is 'logical leftism'. It start with the assumption that you give play clue as early as possible (unless you got a reason not to). And for me, it's a convention. It depend of how much you follow the rule, but again, since there can be difference between people, you got more ambiguity in conventions.