jogs

5♦. I thought i would be the only conservative player. 2=2 in the majors is very negative. Would not be shocked if 5♦ failed.

I pass 4H. Partner has wasted values in spades. Opponents would have bid 4S with their 9 or 10 spades with the AKQJ in that suit.

You need to develop table feel. If your partner had her sound overcall, what were opponents' bidding with?? Your LHO did open 1S. Your RHO did 3S. They had to have something for their calls.

I'm with you. They probably have more HCP than us. Pass, lead a club and hope you beat it. What was the vulnerability and form of the game?

It's still legal to psych, isn't it? What difference does it make, whether he psyched or not?

Bridge is a probabilistic game. Chess is deterministic. Does Nash equilibriums even exists for probabilistic games? Is there a Nash equilibrium for hold'em? The two person game has been 'solved' and the favorite still loses quite often.

The OP did include psyching as an advance strategy. I disagree. Bluffing is the essence of poker. Psyching has no place in bridge. In poker every player on the table is an opponent. In bridge the player across is in theory your partner. Also bridge is a full disclosure game, poker is not. It is much easier to field a psyche by partner than one by the opponents. Two major reasons for this. You know your partner much better than you know the opponents. Every time the auction is 'impossible' because you hold too many cards AND both opponents are having BIT, you know your partner psyched.

I think the entire theory of bidding against interference after a strong 1C opening is wrong. Instead of bidding mostly by point count, bids should show shape or pattern first. 1C - (1S) - 2C. Show the clubs. 5+ HCP and no upper limit. 1C - (1S) - X. 5+ HCP; no upper limit. T/O is of spades. Didn't like the second double either. What's wrong with 3D? On your auction no one showed a suit until the 4 level. How can you know about the double minor suit fit when no one is willing to bid a suit?

There's a math function in Excel called hypgeomdist. Choose 13 cards of one suit among 26 cards of the partnership. Sample s(uccesses) is number of successes. 13 in this case. Number_sample is the size of the sample. 26 cards for partnership. Population s(uccesses) is number of possible successes within the population. 13 cards in a suit. Number pop is the population size 52 cards in a deck. Then multiple that number by 4, since there are 4 suits in a deck. That's the chance of one pair holding all 13 cards in one suit for one board.

Hadn't occurred to me to do the math on it. Didn't realize the chance of it not happening was so high. Just ran it through Excel. I got 3.779% chance of never for 50k hands. 0.143% chance of never for 100k hands.

If they haven't shaded their bids, your side can only have 22 HCP. Why would you need an invitational bid?

I made a tough calculation which says a partnership should hold all 13 cards in one suit about once every 15,000 boards. If this is true anyone who has played over 50,000 boards should have had the partnership hold 13 cards in one suit at least once. I was wondering if there is anyone who has played over 50,000 boards who has never held all 13 cards(for partnership) in one suit? Some of the online players playing 500 hands a week are playing over 25,000 hands a year. Thanks, jogs ps. My partnership has held all 13 cards in one suit before.

I'm probably the only one with some sympathy for Carl's position. Still if you're the best team in the world you should be familiar with every system and convention on the mid chart. You should have your own defenses for all mid chart conventions. When you fight in MMA you can't demand the certain moves can't be made against you because you don't know how to counter them. Because of this strange full disclosure rule I agree with Carl on super chart systems. They should be posted online 168 hours(1 week) before the event.

That's the way world health care should be addressed.

If you need to find the relevant question by definition there wasn't full disclosure.

Why should pairs be required to prepare defenses in advance for auctions which are unlikely to occur? During the hand after the alert, pairs should be allowed to discuss the meanings of their defenses. All exotic bids are allowed. But they all face harsh battlefield conditions. If the exotic bids are as theoretically superior as their practitioners claim, they would still net positive results. Pairs would still be required to prepare for all bids under A-E on the convention card.

The solution for this is to allow opponents to discuss their defenses at the table during the play. This way newer methods will be introduced under unfavorable conditions. Win on merit rather than surprise.

This is the problem. It would set bridge back to the 1930's. Online allows fuller disclosure of methods. Pairs playing complex and artificial methods should be required to fill out a convention booklet. It should be in outline form. They would be able to transmit to pertinent section to their opponent's screen. Programmers should make it easy for players to transmit sections of their convention booklet. Type in a keyword to transmit a section.

The convention cards of the six partnerships were mostly conventions, treatment, and style for uncontested auctions. In the boards played 60-70% were contested auctions. Either these partnerships were just winging it or most of the contested bids were undisclosed partnership understandings. From the high percentage of bidding misjudgments on contested auctions they were probably winging it badly.

Didn't work for me. Needed to be member of USBF to view. Thx, was able to view these.

Congratulations to the Bathurst Team. Are the hand histories to these matches posted on BBO?

I agree with your friends. If we can make 2H, 3C making -110 isn't earning us many matchpoints. What we don't want is 3C-2 +100 for below average.

I would agree with you, if the suits were spades/hearts or the hand were stronger. This game rewards the majors. Nobody cares about the minors. 3♦ isn't even clear with 2/4 in hearts/diamonds.

You should be rebidding 2♥ yourself. Partner's 2♥ call was marginal. Your 4♥ call was terrible. I would have passed 2♥.

PASS. Suspect both 5D and 5S goes down. No singleton is bad for our offense. Two doubletons in the side suits increases the chances of pard also having at least two in each minor. Looks like an unlucky hand for both sides.