Chamaco

Hi all ! Yet another question for a Precision 1D sequence. Right now we play that the following uncontested sequence shows a natural 6D5oM (or better) by opener, with a maximum of 12 hcp (13+ hcp with 65 or better are opened with conventional "strong" 2-suited openers): 1D...1M 3oM Sample hand: QTxxx-void-AKxxxx-xx The question is: do you have simple suggestions for responder for slam investigation, enabling him to set trumps, check for side controls and ask keycards ? Yes I know, I might use "Multireverse" (cheapest reverse, in this case, 2oM), to show several hand types, including this 65, enabling responder to investigate at a lower level, but right now tis would put my pard's memory under too much strain. :(

Playing natural 1NT overcalls, I'll settle for 1NT. I often treat 4441 with stiff honor as a balanced hand. Overcalling 1S can work occasionally but it has 2 flaws: - steals 1 card - underbids the strength of the hand On the other hand I would double only if I am playing Power Doubles or if I am playing 1NT Raptor (and this is one of the cases where I'd regret playing Raptor..)

Agree. A file format conversion utility would do the job, preprocessing the data for any other word processing editor.

I think even using Zar points and some commonsense one can without any problems reevaluate by at least 3/4 Zar points the hand due to the supported tens and nines. That makes it a full Zar opening

Does it mean that you would open 1D with x-Qxx-Kxx-AQJxxx ? If using 2C as Multi and 2D as strong 3suiter increases the (already bad -IMO) "nebulousness" of 1D, that means that, in order to eliminate strong 4441 (low frequency) from 1C opener, we increase the indetermination (and the vulnerability to interference) of the 1D opener(high frequency). I suspect this should not be good neither at MP not at IMPS.... Moreover, having to chose which handtypes I'd remove from strong club, I would rather pick the 16-18 2 suiters (those are the most vulnerable to preemption).

I don't know, but I am weird :P If I were you I'd ask it to a beginner ;)

I hope not to be talking nonsense but I am pretty sure that the probability of KQ being in the same hand is not even close to 50%: I think that KQ together, without other distributional info, is about 25%. The a priori probability of holding each honor in one hand being 50% , and the probability of holding both is the product of these probabilities, making it close to 25%. These numbers change once we know the exact shape and/or if we have info about the expected strong hand. === EDIT Alright I saw the mistake in my reasoning. My calculation was accounting for KQ *in a specific hand*. If it does not matter which hand holds KQ, the probability doubles and gets close to 50%. Good, I learned something :-)

LOL, sorry Richard, please do not be pissed off, but looking at the bidding systems you play, I would have thought the other way around !! :P Sorry I could not restrain myself ;)

Oops, did not read the previous posts including yours. Alright, that might be Justin's game tries :rolleyes:

Ditto. At previous bidding round, bid directly the number of diamonds you are wiling to go up to, and then let pard decide, passing throughout.

I think 25% is an overstatement, the combined chances of ♦KQ being together and/or an endplay should be < than 50% (I'll gladly leave to the math junkies the task figure out the correct number). As Roland pointed out, having the ♦9 (or even the 8, in some cases) would increase a lot the chances of success of an elimination and throw in.

I think your patner have certainly seem a lot of reckless bids/plays "justified" by the MP form of scoring. I think that recklessness is not the name of game even at MP, although occasionaly it scores well. Nonetheless, calculated risk pays off at Mp pairs. The point is: are we able to calculate which risk is worth being taken ? The anwer to your question lies all in here. Players who are capable to sniff the danger and sniff when taking a risk, are Matchpoints winners. This includes good hand evaluation skills, great card play in every hand, and table presence. Do we have that ? I wish I had it. Another way I might try to interpret (very personally) the words of your pard would be: "He who masters the Tam Game technique, may stretch to deviate in MP gamnes. But if you even do not master the straightforward IMPS techniques, better play normal" There is a point in what some pople ay: if you play normal in some boards you'll lose, but - in long MP tourneys - you'll save mental energy and avoid bad blunders that will give a few zeroes and destroy pard's trust

Happy birthday Justin ! I hardly think you need greetings in the bridge field, as you seem pretty much on your way towards starship, so I wish you a great party night (and of course having a great time the rest of the year too!). Enjoy !

They are not forced to bid 1NT with any hand, but whenever they do they bid 1NT. Mixed strategy.

Hi all, at a recent tourney I opened 1C and opps overcalled 1NT (they were white vs red) showing 13 cards. Question 1 Is it legal ? I thought the "13 cards" 1 spade overcall had been banned, and I wonder whether this applies similarly to 1NT overcall Question 2 Assuming this overcall is allowed, what is your suggested defense ? What to do with flat 5-7 hands ? What to do with huge hands by responder ? I thought of using transfer bids, minimum strength 5-7, unlimited: X = clubs 2C/D/H/S= transfer (2S = xfer to NT) 2NT and higher = 2 suiters Penalty oriented hands will pass (if 1NT is passed out, opener is forced to reopen) Opener accepts the step only if minimum, superaccepts bidding his suit if max

You can do both, showing doubleton or good side suit according to the situation The idea is the same of Kokish 2-way game tries: - first step (e.g. 1NT-2D*-2S or 1NT-2H*-2NT) to promise undisclosed WEAK doubleton (never show Hx doubleton or better) - higher bids show side 4+ bagger WITH CONCENTRATION (never show Hxxx suit or worse): e.g: 1NT-2D* -2NT = good spades (2S wd be concealed dbltn) - 3m = good suit e.g: 1NT-2H* - 3x = good suit (2NT wd be concealed dbltn)

And how do you show 15-18 bal without proper stoper in opp. suit? 1) How often do you open 1nt? 2) How often do you have 15-18pc bal on defence? 3) How often do you have 15-18pc bal with a stoper on defence? 4) How often do you get doubled after such an overcall? IMHO natural 1nt overcall is not worth it. And if such a hand really comes I can always double or pass. As I said, I think it's a frequency - magnitude issue. there are indeed close games that are hard to bid without the 1NT overcall. Similarly, there are hands where overcalling 1NT is caught under big penalties. I think a lot of the personal evaluations are due to everyones "biased" views of the previous experiences; it's like for active or passive opening leads: - there are people who only remember the times where underleading a tenace blows a trick, but they tend to forget/dismiss the times where underleading a tenace would have defeatd the contract. - on the other hands, there are people who will remember the times where a pasive lead lost the tempo to defeat the contract but they tend to forget the times where a passive lead would have been best. I suppose this depends on one's own personality: we want to remember what we like best :) A similar thing will happen for such cases as natural vs 1NT overcall: - some people will tend to remember the missed game but not the severe penalties where 1NT overcall was busted, nor the times where the availability of Raptor would hav allowed a good sacrifice or a good game or a partscore. - some other will tend to remember the times when bidding Raptor will make it easier to bid sghapely hands, but forget the times when they get stolen blind by frisky opps.

Hi Roland ! Of course I think your task (coordinating so many people) is indeed a big burden, and the fact that we are indeed privileged of the possibility of realtime enjoying such beautiful matches speaks by itself: we should be thankful of this opportunity provided by volunteers :-) On my behalf, I can only identify areas where I *wish* there were improvements. I do not expect or require anything, as I said, I know the task is hard. And I know that there are plenty of people who will have ideas/wishes different from mine :-) Still, as always, improvements are always possible. Keep up the good job and thank you :)

I found surprising to see anyone would try a pass here... How many defensive tricks are we providing to pard ? I would guess at most 2. How many defensive tricks does pard provides for his double ? If he has a normal double, he will (hopefully) provide 2-3 tricks. So are we going to risk to colect only 5 defensive tricks ? Or walking on a tight rope to fdefeat the contract by 1 doubled ? I gues that from my choice not to defend doubled, everybody (who still did not knw that) will finally discover I am a bad defender :angry:

My policy with 74 so far has been to bid Raptor and later rebid my minor, to show "extra shape". Not sure how it would work vs serious opponents, though.

Want to echo this. The commentators do a great job and aren't paid, but if someone could tell them that these type of things are annoying to A LOT of people (especially how many cokes one will receive) I think it would be quite constructive. But again, they do a great job and aren't perfect. This is meant as constructive criticism. I'd like to strongly agree with the view expressed by Peter and Justin. Over 1 year ago I posted something along the same lines, of course from the perspective of a much weaker player, like myself: http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?sho...3490&hl=vugraph See also this thread: http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?sho...6310&hl=vugraph

I would overbid to slam, I am just unsure how to deliver the "pick a slam" message: what are 5S and 5NT supposed to mean here ? Alright, rereading this post I can see that "pick a slam" is somewhat foolish (no support for diamnds): nevertheless, I'd like to know, from the theoretical standpoint, which bid would be "pick a slam" in such a sequence :-)

Ciao Erasmo, ti assicuro che io non c'entro niente con tornei (o gestione tornei) di qualunque tipo, quindi spero che non prenderai il mio intervento come se fosse "di parte"(se hai letto i miei interventi in passato avrai notato che se qualcosa "mi puzza di bruciato", non ho peli sulla lingua). Ho avuto modo di chattare con Uday, il quale mi ha detto che il numero di TD si era assolutamente saturato, e avevano dovuto "dare un taglio" indiscriminato, a TD di qualunque associazione. Da notare che parecchi di questi TD erano inattivi da mesi, quindi il tentativo era quello di "dare una ripulita" nei confrnti di TD ormai superflui Parecchi TD hanno immediatamente rifatto domanda. Credo che dietro a questo episodio non si debba vedere chissà quale complotto, ma il semplice sintomo del fatto che BBO si sta allargando cosi' tanto che , per gestire in maniera decente il server, è necessaria una regolamentazione un po' + rigida. ciao Mauro

The hand is barely an opener, but everypship has its own standard, so if you open ultralight, I guess it's ok. I only think that after opps bid and raise hearts, a free bid of 3C is a no-no. With your hand I'd have Xed and raised to 5 clubs.

Needless to say, I can't talk of mastering any part of the game. But I can tell you what pushed me towards the game of bridge, which is exactly what I like most right now, and very likely what I'll like in 20 years fromnow. I started to play bridhe because it was a partnership game: I was intrigued by the idea of a cooperation with another mind, and being enriched by a partnership with a different "entity". So, still now, the part I like of bridge are the parts that involve partnership: so everything that involves agreements between partners (bidding and defense). the more agreements we have, the better.