Talk:Charles Goren

Comment

Charles Goren did not "contribute" the practice of opening four-card suits to bidding theory. Nor was the high-card point-count his invention. However, his contributions were huge and I don't want to seem to belittle them, so I will explain:

-- The practice of opening four-card suits was commonplace when Goren devised the methods that would supercede Culbertson. Culbertson's methods, easily the most popular, were not Five-Card Majors methods. The methods that would be called Five-Card Majors (should be called "don't open four-card Majors") was unknown or not widely known. After Five-Card Majors began to make inroads, Goren was the most influential exponent of the older methods. He, or the people who wrote under his name, discontinued this rear-guard action toward the end of his career and they advocated a Five-Card Major system.

-- Milton Work devised the point-count for high cards where an Ace is valued as four, King as three, Queen as two and Jack as one. Work himself said that Aces were somewhat undervalued and Queens and Jacks somewhat overvalued in this point-count but he felt that good players could make adjustments for that. Goren adopted the point-count for high cards and then, along with an associate named, I believe, Anderson, developed a simple set of methods to count points for _distribution_ which changed the bidding habits of a generation. Great bidders did not improve when point count bidding came along, or not much, but good bidders became much more accurate and ordinary players were now reaching what we call normal contracts with regularity, something not seen in the early years of the game.

-- Will in New Haven
— Preceding unsigned comment added by ‎ 65.223.226.178 (talk • contribs) 17:10, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Seven years later, I know that Will is wrong about some of the historical facts but I agree broadly:

Section 2. Bridge contributions is bad --potted history that Will and I and many other wikipeditors "know better". (Pardon my grammar and idiom.)

Section 2 remains the longest one. Not longer than the other prose sections 0, 1, and 3 together, as it was a few hours ago. I greatly expanded those sections and also the list of works section 5. Publications (and added 6 of the current 10 formal references). But with a little distortion I worked around section 2, except to add template {{unreferenced-section}}.

--P64 (talk) 00:42, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

"Wikipeditors" is a new word on me. I call us "Wikipedians." But '-peditors' or '-pedians,' thanks to you all. Now, how about adding a picture of Mr. Goren to the article, if someone can find one in the public domain. Wigly Pigly (talk) 13:06, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Just on the point of the Work Count, it really is down to Charlie Goren. Bryant McCampbell discovered the count by accident in 1915. The 4321 point count was used to score a completely different card game. McCampbell, casually adding the points on his bridge hands, noticed that with 13 points he normally opened and with fewer points he normally passed. He wrote a casual "Isn't this interesting?" article. Work declared that the point count was stupid and was exceptionally vehement on this subject. in 1927 he changed his mind and suggested it might have a place in No Trumps but not in a trump contract. Then Charles Goren took the concept and included it within his comprehensive bidding system. It was the Goren system that popularised the point count. Further it was Goren who got the point count called Work Count. OrewaTel (talk) 05:42, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Work, Peterson, the Goren System?

Yesterday I inserted this at the head of section Publications, today thought better of it:

Sometime during the 1930s, Goren wrote the foreword to a book by Olive Peterson, who had predated him on Milton Work's staff and had been one of his own playing partners: Common-sense Contract: Featuring the Goren System (Peterson, 193?), 80 pp., OCLC 51572224.

Olive Avery Peterson was a Goren teammate, perhaps playing partner, into the 1940s. She assisted Goren at least re teaching operations for the rest of her life (1894 maybe to 1965).

Milton Work#Selected works is intended is chronological by year, then alphabetical by title, iirc. It's a long selection, intended to be complete for titles (not editions) of both books and pamphlets. From 1930 these terms appear in his titles: 'common sense system'; 'common sense contract bridge'; 'contract official system'; 'standardized official system'; 'Work–Peterson accurate valuation system'.

--P64 (talk) 19:01, 10 December 2014 (UTC)