calm01

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Thankyou Barmar. What you describe fits GIB's behaviour very well both in choice of initial lead and follow-up. I also agree about implied loss of tempo. Since the tempo of the opening lead is the main advantage of the defence over a NT declarer who can see the partnership resources, giving up this tempo advantage seems a losing strategy for the defence in the long run.

I have asked four partners and they all said, albeit in very different words, that they would consider any of the their partners who did not pass 3H in a blink would be having a very poor day. The sequence: 1H 1S 3H asks the following questions: a) if you have 2 or more hearts (or a high honour and 10 or more mostly Ace/King based points) bid on to game or better in hearts or NT, b) if you have 1 poor heart, 10 or more points (to compensate for communication issues) and a partial stop or better in both minors try 3NT, c) if you are strong enough bid 3S to show 6 good spades & tolerance for hearts - here this means 1 card or show me a second suit at the four level, d) if you have a complete misfit (no hearts) then devalue your hand by at least 4 points. On this basis a holding of: AQ7432 - 10952 Q92 is devalued to 4 points and so qualifies only for pass. All my partners polled were unanimous is passing 3H without any qualms even when I suggested that one opponent had bid on. Why would you even consider 3N with a misfit and no real playing strength in spades and no guarantee of a stop in a minor? Why would you rebid such ragged spades without a safe home in 4H? Where are 8, let alone 9 tricks coming from in NT? Can you stand 4H?

I have asked three partners and they all said, in different words, that they would consider any of the their partners who did not pass 3H in a blink would be having a very poor day. he sequence: 1H 1S 3H asks the following question:

Lots of Laughs. In the 1960's we had the rise of the Sputnik or negative double. One beginner at Harrow Bridge club in London in the early 1970's was heard asking her (equally beginner) partner "What's so negative about the negative double?" Now we have the constructive double - so called as it helps construct a big winning score for the opponents!

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http://tinyurl.com/7vbjg8o Learning to pass on weak misfit hands comes to beginners, often slowly, after several expensive doubled losses and encouragement from patient partners. I suspect GIB has no equivalent learning skills and human encouragement over time so just needs to be reprogrammed to recognise such hands and be instructed to just pass.

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My experience is that GIB cannot usually effectively cope with partner offering 2 suits to select from. Even at the 2-level GIB can sometimes prefer a known 5+/1 major fit to a 3+/5 card minor fit. In this example your 4H bid is reasonably described as 6+ C and twice rebiddable H. Often GIB appears to ignore such length information in its preference decisions. I get round this common employment of selection blinkers by GIB by bidding any 5 card major first even when minor is a good 6 carder - it seems to cause less damage in the long run. GIB bids reasonably or well in reply to a single suited partner so it usually seems to pay to decide which single suit you will express to GIB and suppress any second suit which just seems to confuse.

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http://tinyurl.com/8x3wek7 At trick 8 (lead of spade towards AK10 in dummy), GIB:West fails to split QJ to give declarer a way of going wrong.

Fred, You wrote: "Unlike you apparently, GIB has some appreciation for the notion of risk/reward. Fred Gitelman Bridge Base Inc. www.bridgebase.com" I am sorry you feel under personal attack - I hope all is well in other areas of your life. To shoot the messenger is a strategy with a long history - a history with few victories and all of them pyrrhic. The best place to look for the source of any anger is often in the mirror. Unconditional love enables one to distinguish between the actor and any perceived sins of the actor. With unconditional love, Ric.

Barmar said "Since 7 makes in most of the simulated hands, it just bids it." Using this logic, next time I am driving towards an American STOP sign and I know there is rarely any cross traffic I will not bother to stop and check for traffic.

http://tinyurl.com/7wk5ckk Surely if I had the description of 5D bid I would have chosen 4NT or 6D.

http://tinyurl.com/6slh54j GIB description of 2C bid bears no relationship to actual heart holding. The misrepresentation is repeated in the description of the 3H bid. At least the 5 diamonds was true. What is relationship between the GIB bid descriptions and the GIB bidding? Of minor importance the description of the diamond holding of the 1H bid makes little bridge sense.

GIB leads, in general, promise little. As another contributor recently said if GIB were human it would be made an enemy. However obscure GIB programming might be, surely it is worth fixing opening leads once and for all, not one issue at a time.

Aversion to re-bidding minors is another fairly common GIB behaviour that reinforces the view that original authors of GIB did not fully comprehend the first principle of bridge bidding - namely showing length first and strength as a by-product. In a 5-card major system when an opening minor can be 3 cards, it is even more important to show minor length if you have it. This bidding error is probably a symptom of a generic design flaw that may be readily fixed once fully recognised.

http://tinyurl.com/6r5wrfk Do you thinks GIB Hearts are solid? What about supporting partners spade suit? You really have to 'hold your nose and hope' when bidding slams with GIB as in general GIB does not correctly describe its holdings.

http://tinyurl.com/7fklkop Would you reopen with a double?

http://tinyurl.com/6wx9zz5 Why does GIB offer a choice to partner if GIB is going to ignore partners preference?

http://tinyurl.com/8ygphmv Would you bid 3C on a 4 card suit?

Thought provoking question. I like both the Siegmund and Fred treatments. For the partners that like 2H to mean spades and an undisclosed minor I will ask of their preference.