Creeksider

What I'm getting from this (and further comments are certainly welcome) is that although the one-level rebid is not technically forcing, it's rarely a good idea to pass (assuming you weren't stretching to make a one-over-one to begin with), and my favorable results from passing in auctions like this may well be an aberration.

And as a coda to the discussion, immediately afterward I played this hand where a four-card overcall led to a top score by disrupting opponents' bidding: Handviewer link

Thanks for the responses. Summing up, it appears that among better players, a four-card overcall is acceptable in some situations, and GIB apparently has this possibility built into its logic but not the rollover description of its bid.

Yes, this is the auction. When I played this hand, those who went on to bid 1NT went down after partner bid them to a higher level, while 1♠ made with an overtrick for a nice score, so pass worked out best. But I'm less concerned with this particular hand than with the general question: is 1♠ forcing in this situation? Almost forcing? Or not forcing at all?

This hand has 9HCP. In a system that adds a point for a doubleton, which I believe is GIB's system, it has 11TP. That was the precise problem in the hand I posted. I figured I could bid game if partner had total points adding to 11: I needed either high cards or distribution points to take care of my losers. But to repeat, my reason for posting isn't to pore over this particular hand, but rather to ask whether GIB has a bid in its repertoire for an 11-point hand in this situation, and if not, whether it might be added. I believe GIB evaluated this hand as 11 and I'm guessing it bid the hand as 9 because it didn't have an 11 available.

Is this a generally accepted guideline, or merely a GIB tendency? My understanding is that you're promising 5 when you overcall, and partner should be able to rely on that promise. Am I mistaken regarding the nature of this rule? Is it something weaker, like normally expect 5 cards? We aren't talking here about some extraordinarily strong four-carder that might play as strong as a normal five-carder, so I don't see why it would make sense to put partner on a path that could lead to an unmakeable game.

My hand: ♠Qxx ♥Qxxx ♦xx ♣Kxxx The bidding: 1♦ - 1♥ - 1♠ - ??? I understand that opener has not limited his hand, so it's still possible we have enough combined strength for game. But is opener's rebid a forcing bid? I've had good luck passing in situations like this, where the bidding indicates a misfit that would probably play poorly in game even if opener has extra strength. Yet I've also sat at a table where one of my opponents blew his top when his partner passed in this situation. Is a pass permitted? If so is it unwise?

My main point here isn't that the wrong contract was reached because of GIB's bid (although I believe it was). The point is that holding 11 total points GIB made a bid described as limited to 9 total points. Regardless of whether you like 4♥ as the final contract with this particular collection of cards, GIB should make a bid that accurately describes the hand. I'm aware GIB's bids are often inaccurate in various respects but posted this because I thought it might demonstrate a gap in GIB's bid repertoire that could be corrected.

Well there's a point of view I hadn't considered. To me the bid isn't creative, it's simply wrong. I can't see the benefit of misleading partner this way. What's more, the fact that GIB made this bid at every table indicates it was due to a bug rather than the artificial intelligence feature that relies on random deals. In any event, I'm pretty sure GIB doesn't think in terms of what bid might have lead-directing value. Of course my opinion is likely colored by the fact that the bid led me into an unmakeable contract.

It isn't a matter of knowing where the aces are, just a matter of accurately bidding the hand. 3♥ is an underbid, and when you're vulnerable you want to bid game if there's a reasonable (37.5%+) chance of making. Anyway, 3♥ wasn't the contract. The contract was 3♠ for the opponents, making an overtrick, while those who plunged ahead despite GIB's underbid made 4♥. I'm not complaining (this was just a practice session anyway), just pointing out a place where it might be possible to improve GIB's bidding, which as we all know is otherwise flawless. :)

Handviewer link North's 3♥ bid shows a maximum of 9 total points, leading me as south to conclude it was unwise to bid game. Despite the great trump suit I wasn't able to imagine a north hand worth 9 points or less that would take care of all those losers. It turns out 4♥ can be made, because north's hand is actually worth 11. A bid of 2♠ by north would be more accurate, showing a limit raise or better. Is this bid (cue-bidding an implied suit) outside GIB's repertoire? If so, should it be added?

Haven't run into this, but it raises the same issue. It's usually but not always correct to return partner's lead. Putting either of these statements in a profile tells a prospective pickup partner that you won't credit him or her with the capacity for intelligent thought. In so doing you discourage good players from accepting you as a partner. Players so weak that they might benefit from such advice may not even bother to check your profile or remember to follow your rule. I can understand the frustration that might lead someone to put something like this in a profile but ultimately it's self-defeating.

There are times when we're pretty much forced to make a bid that incorrectly describes a hand, but this is not one of them. GIB overcalls, promising 5 cards in the suit when holding 4 . . . and did this at every table where it had the opportunity. I can only guess that GIB has a bug that makes it appear necessary to bid in this situation, when in fact pass is mandatory. Handviewer link

So it makes sense to use a profile that implicitly assumes partner is a lousy player?

More than once recently in pickup games I've found myself with a partner whose profile says he or she doesn't like trump leads. What's the deal with that? Is there an epidemic of inappropriate trump leads? Some advance in bridge thinking that makes all trump leads incorrect? Some joke I'm not getting?

barmar is correct, although if you look at the travelers you see that usually 15 out of the 16 tables had a breather sitting south. After posting I realized aggressive bidding isn't necessarily the reason results are skewed toward declaring as south and to a lesser degree as north. As I get to the end of a session I usually glance at the hand I'm going to leave on the table and If I see a strong one I'll likely decide to play one more because it's a likely opportunity to practice declarer play. I'm not trying to affect the statistics, but this probably happens just enough to produce the anomaly I noted.

Yes, this is a good hand shape for garbage Stayman, although with a 7 count I'd probably figure my partner would be okay 1NT. I posted this mainly because responses to 1NT are pretty well defined and a jump to 3NT on this hand shouldn't be within the realm of bids GIB even considers making.

Add three for a ♣ singleton when raising a 1NT opener? I must be reading the wrong books. Anyway, since when does GIB count 3 for a singleton, even in a suit contract? I'm not unhappy with the result (I made the contract) but this is the first time I've ever seen a bid like this from GIB and I wondered if it was a bug.

With just seven HCP, opposite an opening 1NT, at several tables GIB responded 3NT. At some other tables the bid was 2♣. Isn't this an automatic pass? Handviewer link

Yes, I misspoke there. When I'm declarer it's me vs. other South declarers (assuming others reach the same contract).

I practice a lot with GIB and and it occurred to me to wonder how my IMP scores as declarer would compare with scores when defending. I copied results from over 2,000 hands into a spreadsheet and broke them down according to which seat was declarer. My first surprise was to find that I'm declarer 29% of the time, and North 26% of the time. I rarely deviate from GIB's CC and I'm not conscious of bidding more aggressively than GIB. I had assumed the percentages would be about 25% all around but only 45% of the contracts go to opponents. Overall I average about +.82 IMPs for this sample. When North is declarer it's just the brothers GIB playing each other so my positive here (+1.05 IMPs) is purely based on bidding (padded, of course, by many generous gifts from novice players who don't know GIB's system). When I play the cards the average is +1.43, with presumably about the same bidding advantage plus, I like to think, a boost from better declarer play than GIB produces on the faster (i.e weaker) setting). As might be expected, I show better scores when defending against East than when West is declarer: the most important defensive choice is opening lead, and it doesn't require a high level of skill to outperform GIB in that category. On opening lead I'm +.47, but when my partner makes the opening lead my average is a paltry +.11. I'm not sure if this reflects a paucity of opportunities to affect the outcome from this position or a lack of skill (or attention span) on my part when filling this role. If it's the former, I'm spending way too much time thinking about how to play these hands, and if the latter, way too little time. Overall I'm +1.25 when NS play and +.28 when EW play. Perhaps this indicates I need to be bidding a bit more aggressively in some situations but it may simply be the case that skill matters more when you have cards to play.

Right, I was forgetting X here is essentially a multi bid, working either for a good hand with specified shape or a strong hand with no specified shape. The description offered by GIB is just for the former, and this happens to be the latter. But it seems like the second bid is wrong . . . or if correct, it is wrongly described.

At every table, the bidding starts with 1♦ and GIB doubles with a description indicating a takeout double, short in diamonds. Also, the description for the subsequent bid says "at best partial stop in diamonds," while the actual holding in that suit is KJTxx Handviewer link

Top this We've all seen hands where a novice tries repeatedly to make natural bids that his partner interprets as transfers or cue bids, leading to an absurd contract. The thing that's amusing here is that this one leads to slam in a suit with a 4-1 fit -- and it makes. I don't recall ever seeing a slam made with defenders holding eight trumps.

I'm thinking this was produced by a bug: Handviewer link