Chamaco

Off by 1 total trick is far within the tolerance used by most law followers: that's where judgement comes in. This seems to converge more and more towards ZAR evaluation concept ? ZAR accounts for length and shortness as well as for fitting honors.

North doesn't quite have 44 in the unbid suits! I corrected it while you were posting :) but still think that the non minimum opener justifies the action. As I said, in 1NT forcing auction opps are stealing more often than not, and it is MP. The idea of double is NOT to hope that S has such a good hand, it is to compete for the partscore. It is risky, but so is Matchpoint play, IMO. At IMPS, I'd pass.

Agree with Richard. Just treat it as a preempt, an use the same tactics you have agreed with your pard, according to vulnerability and whether or not pard is a passed hand. In an undiscussed partnership, I'd play that opposite a passed hand, anything goes.

I think after pass-pass-1S-pass 1NT*-pass-2H-? (*=forcing) here North should double. 1NT forcing auctions are tricky (they often are stealing), and the t/o double promises the unbid suits. At IMPS, I would agree with North's decision. But at MP, where the partscore battle is where the blood flows, to me it is a clear case for prebalancing. Sure, Qx in H and QJxx in spades are not nice to have, but it's MP and we must anticipate South balancing problem, because: 1. we (North) have the hcp power to take action to compete; pard more often than not will not have the power t take action; 2. we have some shape to compete; although not ideal (3 card clubs holding), it is compensatd by the non-minimum hcp (close to a 1NT opening). South, without shape and without hcp, will probably passout. 3. VERY often, 1NT forcing auctions are tricky: opps are stealing. On the minus side of competing is the alarming holding in opps suit, but it is matchpoints, and after a 1NT forcing bid, there is the concrete risk that if we pass, 2H will passout: and letting them play an undoubled partscore at 2 level will seldom be a good bargain. Sure, sometimes it happens to be the best shot, but bridge is a game of %, and on %, pushing for partscore pays off more often than not.

Hi Mauro ! Where can we find a description of "Multireverse" ? Tx in advance, Alain I made a short english translation but right now I have it at my home PC (accessible only next weekend). I emailed it to Ben and to Gerben, perhaps they can post it here before I get back home this weekend, otherwise just wait for a few days. :-)

East's 2nd round sandwich t/o double should promise more or less east's hand: it guarantees 44 in unbid and a sound opener. Hence, with West's hand I would not bid 2S: the hand is too distributional. I would be torn between a jump to 3 and 4 spades, and after that I'd respect any decision by pard, who will be better placed once we describe the distributional nature of our hand. The failure to make a jumpbid was probably considered an underbid by west, and I suppose he used his final double as "card-showing" (= "pard, even if I made a minimum respose to your t/o double, I am not broke"), but it was a poor decision. Nonetheless, East, knowing pard had a minimum hand (he passed throughout and responded a minimum up-the-line bid to his t/o double) should see as an obvious fact that his pard will hardly contribute more than 1 trick, and should retreat to 3 spades. I do not like assigning blame. However, I'd say 75% west - 25 east (for his finall pass of pard's double).

Try using "Multireverse", e.g. first "reverse suit" is used as artificial reverse. Responder can relay to ask hand type or make a weak bid (suit rebid or 2NT Ingberman).

Non avevo afferrato le motivazioni principali di questa scelta, ora ho capito. Condivido in pieno l'atteggiamento di Beky: la disponibilità ed il buonsenso sono sempre il modo migliore per affrontare queste cose. Tra l'altro, è anche un segno di intelligenza: personalmente sono molto piu' invogliato a partecipare a tornei in cui i TD si mostrano disponibili (ma che sanno - come Beky in questo caso- prendere comunque decisioni ferme qualora necessario), piuttosto che a quelli in cui certi TD - in occasione delle contestazioni - si comportano come "ducetti", trattando i giocatori dall'alto in basso come se non capissero nulla.

Whereagles, if you want to play all 2-level bid "weakish" you may consider play "Fantunes" system, which opens naturally at the 1 level any 14+ hand, and is forcing, using a 2nd round relay to discriminate minimum openers, reverses and battleships. Of course 2 level bid cannot be too weak, e.g. more or less 8-13 hcp. 1NT opener (even with 5cM) is 12-14, and all 15+ balanced openers will open 1C. The system sacrifices wild weak 2s, but is solid and aggressive at the same time: - natural 1-level bids with huge hands avoid the usual problem of artificial 1C and 2C openers; in fact, now opps will be wary to overcall preemptively a 1C opener which has a high % of being balanced and to penalize; - "weak 2s" are not-so-weak, and puts responder in a similar situations as when pard opens a weak NT: if opps gets frisky because they feel they are stolen, responder may double them safely, in the knowledge that opener will contribute something.

On similar question on another thread you doubled with x, xx, AKxx, AKQxxx. Now you are doubling with AKQ2 void A5 AQ87542. If you convert both hands to 5 clubs over 4 hearts, how will partner know how much to play you for? One is a 5-loser hand; this is a 2-loser hand. WinstonM Agree with Winston: this is the reason why with the original hand of this post (AKQ2 - void - A5 - AQ87542) I like using cuebid + new suit (assuming the cue is not for a 2-suiter), to show a greater playing strength than double + new suit (which I would instead use holding a 4 loser hand like the one of the other post, namely:x, xx, AKxx, AKQxxx).

I played the same, Jxxx, was offside :) My question to this topic was exactly that one, if I had been correct to play off AK of C. Now for the second problem: How do you handle the ♥ combination for min no. of losers, knowing that: 1- the only side entry in dummy ( club Q) will free the club J trick for east ? 2- clubs were split 1-4 offside ? basically it boils down to how to play Q854 KT7 when you are forced to play from hand and should use the side dummy entry only for cashing the final tricks (otherwise u risk freeing the club Jack)

My action would depend from the agreements with p. Can he bid a negative free bid ? Do we use 1NT/2C as transfers ? How light can his negative doubles be ? Etc etc. All in all, I am up for 1NT: if we are taught to balance 1NT with 11 hcp (some people even less) when bidding goes 1H-pass-pass-?, I believe it will be hardly wrong to rebid on this hand.

[hv=d=e&v=e&n=st72hq854dt4cqt8x&s=skqxhkt7dak8cak53]133|200|Scoring: MP Contract = 3NT by South, unrevealing auction (no suit was mentioned). Lead = 2♦ = Attitude lead, does not say anything of count [/hv] I put the T of ♦ from dummy and RHO covers with the Q. I cannot draw too many deep inferences from the lead because opps are in the beginner range. What is the best plan ?

Assolutamente d'accordo con TriTri. Limitare la chat aperta di BBO è una limitazione solo alle persone che vogliono chiacchierare in amicizia e non costituisce afatto una limitazione a chi intende barare: infatti i bari possono tranquilamente servirsi di MSN, ICQ, Yahoo o quant'altro.

A question here to the posters. Assume that cuebid is not Michaels, therefore you have a chance between a. cuebidding followed by clubs b. double followed by clubs What difference in meaning do you assume is "standard" ? E.g.: to make it clear I will say that, till reading this thread, I assumed that: a. double + new suit = more or less 4 loser hand b. cue + new suit = more or less 3 losers hand If my thinking was true, doubling here would ahve the advantage that responder is better placed to evaluate the strength of our unbalanced hand (cue + new suit wd be an overbid here) Thanks! :lol:

So why not take any doubt away and explain it as "suggestion to play"??? :rolleyes: I really don't see the difficulty, only lazyness... When your pard makes a penalty double, it's the same: if asked by opps, most times you'll just say "penalty". But this does not mean you can never overrule removing the dbl: sure, perhaps you may explain it better as "suggestion to penalize", but how often do you say "suggestion to penalize" vs simply "penalty"? The situation is exactly the same to the "to play" bids. Perhaps everyone is lazy in different situations :D

At this web page, one of the authors (dunno if they wrote it together) says: http://web.telia.com/~u40127101/lott.html "One reason why the Law has been so popular is because it is so simple to use. But simplicity is one thing, accuracy another. In the statistics section you will learn (if you didn't know it already) that at the table the Law predicts accurately no more than 35-37% of the time. " Then at this other web page they talk of statistics and things look quite different: http://web.telia.com/~u40127101/stat.html "In preparing for our book, we did a lot of statistics by looking at thousands of hands in many different ways. But before us, Matthew Ginsberg had done a large study published in The Bridge World (May 1996). He had let his double dummy engine (the same that he has based his very strong computer program GIB on) analyze almost 450,000 deals in order to see how accurate the Law of Total Tricks really was. The result of his study showed these things: the average difference between total tricks and total trumps is 0.05 the average error per deal is 0.75 total tricks equals total trumps on 40% of the deals on 46.9% of the deals there is a difference of one (up or down) on 13.1% of the deals there is a difference of at least two (up or down) ........................................ So, for practical purposes, to say that "The Law of Total Tricks" is right on 40% of the deals is a little too high. 35-37% will be closer to the mark. Or, put differently, slightly more often than every third deal. " So, the trick is using in the first sentence "In the statistics section you will learn (if you didn't know it already) that at the table the Law predicts accurately no more than 35-37% of the time." So, the key is the term they use, "ACCURATELY", which is not accurate :-) They should use the term *EXACTLY*. If they want to introduce "accuracy", they should give a +/- range. Otherwise it is just a way to play with number to make it appear the Law works less often than it does... :rolleyes: Indeed, from the same number they quote, it appears that on those deals the LOTT predicts the number of total tricks within a +/- 1 total trick about 83-86% of the hands, not a bad percentage indeed...

This hand should not be evaluated in hcp but in losers (4 losers) or if you prefer in playing tricks (8 playing tricks). It has strong slam potential, and is better suited to play in a suit (no slow tricks, good controls). To show a 4-loser hand I will double then show my suit. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In case the cuebid is not used as Michaels, then, holding a 3-loser hand (stronger), I'd cuebid and then show my suit. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My main worry with the given hand is to keep the bidding open for both 3NT AND 5/6m investigation.

I ordered the book too (not here yet). I really hope their approach is MORE scientific than their way to QUOTE other people's data. Any scientist knows that a rule holds true +/- some error. So, to say that "the law is right only 37% of hands" is a tricky way (because it means *exactly right*) : using the same Ginsberg's data (those quoted in the book advertisment, and in the web page), one could as well say "in 86% of the hands the law approximates total trick by a max deviation of 1 total trick" ...

Like other posters, I think that even those who intend "to play" bids, (including 2NT or whatever) , allow opener to bid on if he has a special hand, with substantial extras in shape or hcp. Of course this does not aply when opener opens 1NT (and any other well-defined hands, where obviously one side has finished describing and the other places the contract) Another example: 1S:4S "to play", which may come from: 1. a distributional yarborough xxxxx-x-xxx-xxxx 2. a much better hand such ATxxx- QJT - Jxx- xx 3. anything else Whatever hand responder may have, opener is allowed to bid if he's got a battleship. "To play" does not bar pard from bidding on, it is a suggestion to play there. Of course I agree with all the posters who say one should include other info such as "invitational", "nonforcing" and negative inferencedrawn from failure to bid something lse (e.g. the failure to bid Jacoby 2NT forcing raise to a major or to support with a mixed or limit raise using, say, Bergen raises or whatever you use)

IMO, it is not fully appropriate when: 1. partner can see your request of explanation; he get UI from when you decide or not whether to ask explanations; Concealed asking is never unethical. 2. you are trying to force opps to be superprecise in their explanation. I mean, a questons such as "is it invitational?" "is it forcing?", is ok, but asking "hcp range?" is too much: often such questions are use to nail down the bidder if he he is deviating from a normal model hand.

From what I could read on this site, their claim that the LOTT works only in 35-37% of the deals is based on an adjustment of Matthew Ginsberg's statistical analysis. According to Ginsberg: - total tricks = total trumps in 40% of the deals (adjusted to 35-37 by the authors) - total tricks-trumps difference is exactly +/- 1 trick in 46% of the deals - total tricks-trumps difference is +/- 2 or more in 13 % of the deals. So, authors' claim that LOTT works in 35-37 % of the cases is a a little "trick" :) , maybe to advertise the book. Actually, anyone using the Law, accepts a +/- 1 total trick deviation, which is also included in the undetermination of the knowledge of how many trumps the opponents actually hold. On average, a +/-1 *total* trick, is 0.5 trick for each side, so that's where common sense, adjustments, hand evaluation and "feeling" come into play. If we accept a +/- 1 total trick deviation, Ginsberg's stats reveal that LOTT approximates by *at worse* +/-1 TOTAL trick about 86% of the hands (or 83% using Lawrence & Wirgren adjustment) , which is quite a high percentage, IMO.

I think the "to play" issue is tricky. Of course one should disclose to opps the same info that partner has. On the other hand: 1) opps asking the meaning of unalerted bids is somewhat unethical (if done when the pard can see): it is like telling to p that you have a hand based on which these info matter to you. 2) every time it has occurred to me, opps only wanted me to be so specific that they could nail me down if my hand did not comply PERFECTLY to all the features of the hand. Example sequences: 1D-pass- I responded 2NT (mean as invitational in NT). Opps asked my p and she said "invitational to 3NT". Then opps asked "with or without 4cM" ? Pard said "without". I played 3NT holding a 4333 with 4 H, and made the contract because they misdefended, assuming I held only 3 H, then they called the director to ask for an adjustment (and they got it). Now, regardless of whether the adjustment was right or wrong, this shows the attitude of most people who insist to ask a super -accurate description of your bid: they want you to commit to guarantee/exclude certain features so they can call the TD if your hand does not fit 100% with them. :)

Agree on your evaluation of the situiation, Winston: but I simply think that our hand is so good that it needs MUCH less than x -Axxxx - Qxxx - Kxx to make 6C. So, cuebid and then bid clubs would show a hand even stronger than a direct leap to 5C, and is IMO a better call here :-)

No... all partner needs is an opening hand with heart shortness.... Yes, that's why I pass, trusting p to reopen. Defnding doubled them has many ways to win, and only way to lose is when we have slam NV and set them undoubled by 3 tricks only. Even in this case, we win vs all those who will not bid it.