Creeksider

Traveler I notice on this hand GIB opened 1NT 13 times and 1H 3 times, holding five hearts and 16 HCP. I played this hand before seeing the change and produced a bottom score by leading hearts based on the assumption partner must have at least six of them.

Does not distinguish whether doubleton is in the other major? It seems this would make it common for GIB to open 1NT with a 5-card major, indicating GIB's CC should be updated with that box checked. Also, the description of the CC still says 1NT denies a 5-card major.

GIB will now open 1NT with five of a major. It would be interesting to learn what criteria GIB uses in choosing between opening 1NT or 1M, if that information is available.

Handviewer link Handviewer link In both of these deals I believe the bid of 2♠ is correct, but the description of the bid is incorrect. Holding 4-4 in the majors, and having enough strength to reverse as responder, GIB bids up the line. The problem is that the description indicates that the 2♠ bid promises five hearts, which can lead to problems -- like the doomed 6♥ contract in the second deal, when slam in NT is cold.

Thanks for the responses. I posted here rather than the GIB forum because I was trying to figure out the proper way to bid a hand like East's rather than raise an issue as to whether GIB did something wrong.

GIB's hand has neither the shape nor the point count indicated in the popup description for the 2♠ bid. Is this a problem with the bid? Or maybe just a problem with the description of the bid? Relying on that description I pass because GIB is saying it has 8 total points, at least three of which must be distribution points. Handviewer link

GIB's card says it plays 2/1 game forcing. I thought this would apply to all 2/1 bids, but apparently it doesn't apply when 2♣ is bid over 1♦: Handviewer link I was surprised to see only 11 points required for the 2/1 bid from an unpassed hand, and was thinking that's too light for a game forcing bid. Sure enough, GIB passed at 3♣. The only book I've read on 2/1 so far (Grant & Rodwell) indicates game force applies to all 2/1 bids, including 2♣ over 1♦. I understand there are variations, such as game forcing except when suit is rebid. GIB's convention card indicates it does not use this approach, and just says 2/1 is game forcing. What gives?

Just curious: how are deals generated and selected for general use, and for tourneys? I assume they're just randomly generated for MBC, RBC and non-tournament robot play. What about tourneys? Is there a process to select more challenging hands, or weed out flat ones?

Relevant to jack's point on the trade-off in making a bid that may help opponents, when playing with robots I always seem to get a defensive lead in the game-try suit. This could be coincidence (small sample), but it could suggest a strategy of making a game try bid in a suit you'd like to encourage LHO to lead. Suppose you know you have enough for game, but instead of going straight from 2♠ to 4♠ you bid 3♦, holding AQ doubleton in that suit, when your card says your 3♦ bid is a LSGT. You're hoping to get a free finesse on a diamond lead. I assume that's fair enough in a robot tourney (assuming GIB can be expected to lead against the LSGT bid), but I don't know if it's proper in regular competition. Seems like it should be okay if not a matter of undisclosed partnership agreement. Then again, suppose your CC discloses this strategy: it indicates that this bid is normally LSGT but sometimes used deceptively. Just by putting that on your card, you make it harder for opponents to take advantage of the information you reveal when making the LSGT bid.

I know what would happen if I did that: on the very next deal I would find myself holding a weird hand that made me want to do the same thing. I can just imagine the scene that would follow.

I'm more than a little vague on the subject of game tries: when to use them, how to respond, and how to interpret partner's response. This comes up fairly often playing with GIB, where some bids are labeled "LSGT" and others appear to be game tries without that label, with GIB saying they show 2-11 8421 HCP. The basic auction might be 1S - 2S 3D We've agreed on a suit and need to agree on a level. I believe the general concept is that opener has diamond losers but also an intermediate honor that could be valuable if responder also has intermediate value. One hand might have Qxx and the other KJx, each one separately looking like possibly three losers, but working together to produce only one. So the 3♦ bid is trying to find that kind of fit, if I understand correctly. But what exactly is responder supposed to do? a. Bid 4♠ with helpful diamonds, regardless of point count, otherwise bid 3♠ b. Bid 4♠ only with helpful diamonds AND top of range, otherwise bid 3♠ c. Something else? I'm even more confused when they come up in slam tries. Any hints on how to think about this, with bots or human partners?

This is just a bit of an oddity; it looks like a setup rather than a result you could ever get from a random deal. Handviewer link My 4♠ is based on knowledge that my partner is very new to the game and hasn't learned even the basics of bidding. I'd rather go down in 4 than miss game playing in 2 or 3. Turns out she was a little light in the trump department for her 2♠ bid. This is in the relaxed room, BTW. When dummy comes down and I see that we have a 4-2 fit in trumps I figure we're dead. You might survive that holding with a lot of HCP firepower, but we had just 23 between us. What's more, although I didn't know it at the time, the outstanding trumps broke 5-2. At first glance I was thinking I might go down 2 if I was lucky. A spade lead would have set the contract, but after the club lead we get a club, three diamonds (had to have them break and needed the Q onside), and six separate tricks with the six trumps. The play of the hand isn't especially remarkable; the only lesson is don't give up when you see a disappointing dummy.

Handviewer link We're taught to bid four-card suits up the line. If you end up bidding both suits you have a reverse, and that normally implies not only strength but also that the first suit bid was longer. This hand illustrates the issue, with GIB explaining the 2♠ bid as implying that responder has at least five hearts, when in fact responder had only two. Did GIB bid incorrectly here? Or is it merely a case where the explanation is incorrect in saying this type of reverse implies five hearts?

We all understand that players will sometimes out of ignorance pass when forced to bid. The more interesting question is whether someone may knowingly pass when the agreed system requires a bid. One situation where you might want to do this is when you realize you made an error in a previous bid. You miscounted your points and made a bid that heads your partnership toward an unmakeable contract. The only was to get off that train without further damage is to pass when forced to bid. That wasn't the case in the deal that prompted this discussion. It was reasonably clear that responder (an expert player) concluded that a further bid was unwise even though forced. Setting aside the question whether this could ever be a sound judgment, is it in any way improper? Would opponents have reason to complain, supposing for example that defenders were unable to defeat the contract, but would have been able to defeat the contract that would have resulted if defender had not passed? Here's what I found relevant to this topic in the Laws of Duplicate Bridge: A player may deviate from his side’s announced understandings always, provided that his partner has no more reason to be aware of the deviation than have the opponents. The Laws go on to point out that repeated deviations may lead to partnership understandings, which must be disclosed. In the situation I described, responder's pass appeared to be a knowing deviation from announced (or presumed) understandings. Opener had no reason to be aware of the deviation, either by agreement or by experience with responder (not his usual partner). It appears to me that the action was legally correct with no alert required.

Thanks for the responses. It's interesting that a basic rule that makes its way into a document as brief as the SAYC system booklet would go unmentioned in books on SAYC bidding, including the one in the ACBL series. I guess it's time for moi to study the SAYC system booklet more thoroughly, and not assume I'll get the full story from books about the system. FWIW, responder was clearly a knowledgeable player, and this was not a case involving partnership agreement on this point. It seems likely that he looked at his hand and concluded that continued bidding was more likely to place the partnership in an unplayable contract than it was to produce a makeable game. As blackshoe points out, in the absence of partnership agreement on this point it is within the rules of the game to pass a forcing bid based on this type of judgment, although one does so at his peril. As for the result, declarer made 2♦ -- with four overtricks, making his partner's bid look very bad indeed. Declarer, not known for being gentle with malfeasant partners, voiced no complaint, however, and that was probably fair. There was no way to improve the contract: 3NT was not makeable, and 5♦ (much less 6) was not biddable.

At a table with many kibbers, the SAYC (not 2/1) bidding went as follows: P - 1♥ - P - 2♣ P - 2♦ - P - P(!?) One of the kibbers stated emphatically that the 2♣ bidder was forced to bid again, and that this was so clearly forcing that anyone who does not treat it as forcing should alert that fact. This would be a moot point in 2/1, of course, but the bidders were not playing 2/1 and the question was whether the 2♣ bidder was forced to bid again. I had never seen this situation described as a forcing bid, and could not find any such indication in the basic texts I have on SAYC (Standard Bidding with SAYC; Bidding in the 21st Century). Was that final pass a clear violation, regardless of what cards the bidder was holding? From what I can make out, opener would normally expect a second bid from responder, as they have at least 22 points between them (12 to open and 10 to respond at the 2 level), and opener's second bid leaves open the possibility of a combined 25 or more. Yet responder could be looking at a hand that appears unsuitable for no trump. Lacking a major suit fit, the partnership would need something like 29 points for a minor suit game, and that may seem implausible if responder had a minimum 2♣ bid, given opener's failure to jump on the second bid. In that case, a pass here might seem preferable to the alternatives. I don't see how one's approach to this bid would be alertable except in the sense that if this is indeed normally considered a forcing situation, and you wish to retain the option to pass based on a judgment call, you would "alert" your partner to this bidding preference prior to play. But what about the underlying premise? Is this a case for the bidding police? Or is responder's pass within the realm of possible options?

Handviewer link This is different from the situation I described earlier for passing a strong hand, so I suspect it's a distinct bug. Holding 10 HCP opposite a 2NT opener, GIB passes. Did this at most but not all tables.

GIB won't bid 2♣ here because it requires 14+ total points for that bid.

Impossible hand I ran into two "ïmpossibles" in the bidding of this hand. First, it's impossible to respond to the forcing 1NT bid within GIB's system. Although GIB's CC says a rebid of 2♥ does not promise 6 cards in the suit, the popup description says it does, when the bid follows a forcing 1NT response. Bidding either of the minors promises three in the suit, and any other bid promises more strength than this hand possesses (2♠ would be a reverse). Facing this situation I sometimes rebid the hearts anyway, but weakness in that suit led me to feel that a bid of 2♣ had less potential for disaster. GIB's next bid is described as "impossible spade." The 1NT bid denies a 4-card spade suit, so this bid can't have its normal meaning. The description says it shows at least 4-card support in clubs and at least 10 points -- similar to cue bidding an opponent's suit. As far as I can tell this convention is not documented on GIB's convention card and I wonder if it should be. I was concerned that GIB would force us into a club contract but we landed in a workable 3NT, so all's well that ends well.

This is a question of etiquette/expectations/ethics. In a pickup game in the MBC or RBC, it's typical to start playing without more knowledge of partner's bidding than can be gleaned from a quick glance at partner's profile. Then you find yourself in a situation where a gross misunderstanding is possible. For example, 2♦ in response to a 1NT opener: transfer or natural? Or which version of Blackwood are you using? Some players will convey this information in chat to the table so that partner and opponents know what's intended. That makes sense to me: it seems pointless to play impossible contracts merely because new partners haven't taken the time to agree on some fundamentals. On occasions when I've seen people use this practice I've not seen any objections from opponents. On the other hand, I've seen situations where people seemed to be abusing the practice. For example, someone might be in a situation where it would be convenient to treat a bid as natural even though the bid would normally be conventional -- and solve the problem by making the bid and announcing it as natural. I'd be interested in comments on what explanations if any should be acceptable in these pickup games. My tentative take is that this mode of communication should be acceptable for any issues that would necessarily be part of a basic partnership agreement, so that people can start playing without the unreasonable delay that would be required to resolve these issues. What do you think?

Vugraph tourneys would be more entertaining for many of the spectators if commentators would offer a little background on the tourney and the players. Certainly we appreciate analysis of the bidding and play of the hand, but some context would make it less dry and fill the time when someone ponders a bid for several minutes. Ideally this would be not just in the beginning, but from time to time during the match as the composition of the viewing audience changes. Take a tip from sports announcers and have a list of comments that can be fed out to the audience during the course of the competition. A few examples: For those who are just joining us, this is the semifinal round of the whatever tournament, being held in City, Country. This is a blank level tournament with the winners being awarded the prestigious whatever. The team playing EW at this table are from Somewhere. They're new to this level of tournament play and are using precision bidding. They're holding their own against the more experienced NS team from Somewhere Else who use 2/1. The winner of this match will take on Someone in the finals. I'm not suggesting this type of verbiage should displace analysis, only that it could be offered during otherwise dull moments and would give viewers a better idea what's going on and greater incentive to continue watching.

VVV is right, I hadn't noticed that GIB's CC checks the box indicating 4SF is forcing to game, not just for one round.

Handviewer link I'd be interested in comments on how to bid this hand, which produced a good result but presented a dilemma on each bid. For the first bid I can show strength and diamond support by bidding 2♦, but this would deny a four-card major. I the first priority was to bid the strong 4-card heart suit. I can't jump shift (only 4 hearts) but 1♥ is forcing and I figure I'll have a chance to show strength and diamond support later. When North comes back with 1♠, though, I don't have a good bid in diamonds. I don't want to go straight to five as this may miss a slam, or straight to six as this may go down, and anything less than five would not be forcing. The only bid I can find that allows me to explore further without risk of partner passing is 2♣, fourth suit forcing. I still haven't shown diamond support but at least have shown strength. When partner comes back with 3♣, however, I'm at a loss for how to proceed. Partner still doesn't know I have diamonds, but I'm not sure I can make a forcing bid in that suit. Meanwhile I know nothing about the strength of partner's hand, which could be a minimum (should make game in diamonds but could go down in slam) or strong enough for six or even seven diamonds. I couldn't think of a way to keep the bidding going for further transfer of information and finally settled on Blackwood, knowing it would be misinterpreted as clubs, but hoping I'd be able to use the response to land in the correct contract: partner almost certainly has at least 1 keycard, so a response of 5♣ would suggest we're good for 7♦, a response of 5♦ would indicate we belong in that contract and I could pass, while I could bid 6♦ over any other response. I've intentionally misused Blackwood but in a way that gets the correct result. Was there a better way to bid this hand?

This is a minor issue but I thought I'd point it out in case someone wants to correct it. GIB's pop-up description of certain bids that are forcing only when made by a hand that has not previously passed shows them as forcing also when made by a passed hand. For example, a 1NT response to a 1♥ or 1♠ opening is correctly shown as forcing when made by an unpassed hand but incorrectly shown as forcing when responder is a passed hand. Similarly, a raise to 2 in a minor (inverted minor raise) is forcing to 2NT by an unpassed hand but not if responder is a passed hand, and here again the description shows it as forcing in both cases. GIB doesn't necessarily treat these bids as forcing -- I've seen the robot pass as opener after 1♣ - 2♣ -- so this may be an issue only for the descriptions, not the actual bidding behavior.

Ah, I should have known that. Is there a way to study this CC while not playing in the tourney? Is it the same as GIB's CC?