VM1973

I personally believe that one should never preempt if they would be embarrassed by their partner being on lead and starting K from Kx in the preempt suit. So that rules out pretty much all J10xxxxx hands. This one is close... I can see arguments on both sides and I don't know what the right call is.

[hv=pc=n&s=sat876h32dJ76ck96&w=s54hakjtdk543c842&n=sj93h9865daq108ct7&e=skq2hq74dt2caqj53&d=e&v=e&b=6&a=1n(12-14)p2cp2dp3nppp]399|300[/hv] South leads the ♠7,4,J,K. Next comes the ♥7,3,A,5. Then comes the ♣2,7,J,K. Our perceptive South, noting the missing ♥4 decides his partner must be starting the famous Smith Echo to announce the original holding of QJ3 in the North. Confidently our South leads ♠6 but the declarer chalks up +630 with 2 spades, 4 clubs, and 4 hearts. Meanwhile in the closed room 3NT is beaten 5 tricks (4 diamonds, 4 spades, and the club K). How much is 1130, some 15 IMPs? Sometimes you get the bear... sometimes the bear gets you.

It's funny how I agree with you and then you disagree with me. Of course, signaling low might not work either as it might seem to be low, but just be a singleton. On the other hand, at IMPs, the defense will take whatever risks are necessary to set the contract. At matchpoints it might make a difference because they will worry that extra overtricks will mean a zero.

I'll bid 1♠. Double is pointless. Good arguments could be made for 4♠ though, but personally if I were going to do that I'd bid 5♠.

He might have also bid 4♠ holding: ♠108654 ♥K8732 ♦A ♣97 Or he might be holding: ♠10865 ♥K8732 ♦AK ♣97 Or the minors might have been reversed and I might have held: ♠KQJ97 ♥4 ♦8654 ♣AK5 ...and I'd be down 1 in 4♠. OR I might be up against an inspired defense. I once kibbitzed a game where the opening lead was a diamond... ruffed. After a long thought a diamond was returned and ruffed. That might happen to me. ----------------------------- I still think that holding more than an ace above an opening bid, I should have taken further action.

I basically agree with gnasher. North knows what's going on since he knows A) South didn't overcall 1NT on a 4-bagger and B) He didn't underlead 3 honors. So the closed hand is marked with 2 honors. It shouldn't be the AJ because South should have led K from KQ9xx so it must be either KJ or QJ. When North plays the 6 and the closed hand wins with the J the hand becomes clear. North is marked with the 7 and surely he wouldn't have played low from ♠76 so he must have 3 and South will know to cash the ♠A.

I've given it a lot of thought and I've decided that I am to blame. With Zar Points his hand reevaluates to 27 ZPs in support of spades as he gets 2 points for each spade beyond the 8-card fit (with a void). I was wrong to assume he couldn't have 26+ ZPs. As I had more than an ace more than I had shown, it was up to me to take further action.

Actually I figured that for a pass he could have as much as 25 ZPs. Since I held 36 ZPs that adds up to 61, which isn't enough for a small slam... so I passed.

[hv=lin=pn|VM1973,scarrosc,avci_mem,ATALIVA|st||md|2S79JQKHAD4568C5KA,SAH459JD27TQC68JQ,S34568TH2378KDC79,|rh||ah|Board 40|sv|o|mb|p|mb|p|mb|p|mb|1S|mb|p|mb|4S|mb|p|mb|p|mb|p|pg||pc|CQ|pc|C7|pc|C2|pc|CA|pg||pc|HA|pc|H4|pc|H2|pc|H6|pg||pc|SK|pc|SA|pc|S3|pc|S2|pg||pc|CJ|pc|C9|pc|C3|pc|CK|pg||pc|D4|pc|D2|pc|S4|pc|D3|pg||pc|HK|pc|HT|pc|C5|pc|H5|pg||pc|H3|pc|HQ|pc|S7|pc|H9|pg||pc|D5|pc|D7|pc|S5|pc|D9|pg||pc|H7|pc|C4|mc|12|]400|300[/hv] Assess blame for the failure to reach 6.

I'm not certain. As I said, I've written a letter and I'm still looking forward to a response. Temporarily I'm just deducting a point for the shapes he says are badly evaluated and adding a point for 4-4-4-1 and seeing how I feel about it.

Sorry about that. I should have been more specific. Of course the whole point may be moot considering that it's not impossible that the opponents may enter the auction.

If you have a system for asking your partner if he has the ♦8 then I am truly in awe of your prowess.

Well you start with 2♣ and your partner should show his controls over that. In this case we're assuming he shows 2 controls (for those kings you mentioned). Then you bid 3♦ and follow that up with 4♥ Kickback for aces. He bids 4♠ (0,3) and you bid 5♥ and he bids 5♠ showing that he has the ♠K and you bid 6♣ which asks about the ♣K and he bids 6♦ which says no, he doesn't have it and you pass.

I don't see why throwing in an extra few words to set someone off in the right direction if they decide to Google what I've said is somehow insulting. As for the scientific method, it's based on a logical fallacy and nothing can be demonstrated empirically because it runs into an infinite regress problem. So the existence or lack of empirical evidence is completely irrelevant and frankly I'm surprised that you would mention it... unless you simply meant to be insulting and didn't have the stones to say it straight out.

I had assumed we were speaking about NT contracts. Suddenly now I find reference to shapes 5-4-2-2 and 6-4-3-0. Do you often bid NT with those while counting your 0.4 for tens? Somehow I doubt it. As for Tysen's investigations, I refer you to http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/topic/2542-zar-points-useful-or-waste-of-energy/page__p__17560#entry17560 in which it was suggested that ZPs misevaluate 5-3-3-2 and 5-4-2-2 hands, among others. I've already written to ask for more information but in any event the solution could be quite simple, for example: Subtract 1 point for 5-3-3-2, 6-3-2-2, 5-4-2-2, and add 1 point for 4-4-4-1. Surely this will improve the performance of ZPs if tysen's research is correct. As for the idea that 2.846 points per trick is off, somehow I think that's unlikely as using those figures results in 25.6 HCPs for 9 tricks in 3NT, which is not far off from the people who figure 25 or 26 points. In case you've lost my train of thought, I should mention that I'm simply talking about NT, not 6-4-3-0 shapes. And yes, to answer your question, I do think that those who use 4-3-2-1 to evaluate their hands for strictly no trump purposes do not include points for shortness.

Ask for aces, then ask for kings and if you have a good system it will let you know exactly which kings you have not just the total number.

You're right that bridge will never be scientific and considering that science is empirical and inductive that is a good thing. If you understood much about scientific philosophy, you'd realize that what I propose is falsificationism, which is an invention of Karl Popper in which theories are advanced and attempts are made to falsify them. As such, this method is logically consistent and avoids all the problems that plague induction. First let me propose that we examine these two hands: ♠Kx ♥Kxx ♦Kxx ♣AJ10xx ♠QJxxxx ♥xx ♦AJ10x ♣Qx Let us suppose that due to an auction best forgotten South is declaring 4♠ and the defense starts with three hearts, the 3rd ruffed. East wins the ♠A and returns a spade and you're left to make the rest of the tricks. How do you proceed? The percentage play for picking up the rest of the tricks is to cash ♦AK catering for the possibility that the ♦Q will drop and fall back on the club finesse. HOWEVER if you are using double dummy declarer play the declarer will magically know the right way to finesse against ♦Q. Needless to say this is patently unfair. Now this doesn't mean that such evaluations are completely useless - rather that you must be careful how you apply them. I don't personally think that you can look at such a database and say "A 10 should be worth 0.4" because 10s are worth a lot more when you can look at your opponents' hands and know if you should hook the 10. Accordingly an 0.4 would be the maximum amount a 10 would be worth and its real value would be lower. Additionally, let's look at this perfect hand: ♠AKQJ ♥AKQ ♦AKQ ♣AKQ 37 HCPs = 13 tricks so a trick is, on average, 2.846 HCPs. Even if we generously assume that 10s are worth 0.4 points that still means you need more than 7 tens to make a one trick difference... and there are only four 10s in the pack. I also couldn't help noticing that the post said: "Interestingly, queens got a weight of 0.8 rather than the traditional 1.0...." In what system do queens traditionally have a weight of 1.0? Is he really implying that a queen is worth only twice as much as a ten? Or did he misspeak and mean the Jack? And if that's true, why did he continue, "It could be argued that DD-simulation understimates the values of queens because declarer often has to guess how to catch the queen: Kings can only be finesed in one way (except for sec Kings, throw-ins etc)."

I'm pretty sure his name was Zod.

As I asked before, can you link me to something supporting your position? I guess the answer is no. So I link you to http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.bridge/msg/0fe90fb84687c5e9 According to this link the average error rating of systems are: HCPs: 1.23 Bergen: 1.08 HCPs plus 3-2-1 distribution: 1.07 ZP: 1.05 BUM RAP +321: 1.03 Binky Points: 0.99 Accordingly I conclude that the simple 4-3-2-1 system is bad, ZPs are superior and Evolved Binky Points may be the best of all, though I'm not sure yet as I still haven't found a coherent description of how the system works.

Let's assume that you normally play 20-21 HCPs for a 2NT opener and that with 22+ you open 2♣. Now if you decide to start playing ZPs but don't really adjust the HCP requirements then what is a partner going to expect out of your hand? Personally when my partner opens a 2NT I expect either 4-4-3-2 or 5-3-3-2 as these are the most common hand shapes. Of course he might be 4-3-3-3 or maybe even off-shape. So 4-4-3-2 is 10 distributional points (Zar System) and 5-3-3-2 is 11 whereas 4-3-3-3 is only 8 so I'm going to say that, on average your partner can count on you for 10 distributional points and 26 points in high cards (as in the ZP system AKQJ = 13 whereas in the Work system it's 10) so 36 ZPs on average. Accordingly with no prior agreement other than "Let's play Zar Points!" if you open 2NT your partner will expect you to have between 26+8=34 (4-3-3-3) and 27.3+11=38,3 (5-3-3-2) so not only do I think it's not crazy to suggest a 2NT opener with this hand, I think that without prior agreement that it would be considered maxed for the range.

In that I certainly agree! The situations are definitely NOT the same... in this case your partner is a passed hand and your opponents are showing strength whereas in the other circumstances your partner's strength was unknown as your opponents were passing.

I can't understand anyone's bidding. North surely has enough to go to 6 on his own and South's pass over 5♣ is similarly eye-popping. In other threads we've found out that people will preempt to 4♠ holding AKQ10xxx x x xxxx so under that reasoning surely the West hand is worth a 5♠ (or even 6♠) call and East's decision to pass his partner's preempt holding 4-card support is astounding.

I agree with the 6♣ bidders.

Well the West hand, while technically an opening bid, really is quite ugly. It would be much nicer if the ♥AQ were in spades. The South hand is definitely not an opening bid. I was one of the 3 people that voted for a 1♣ opener with East as I consider it to be too strong for a 3♣ opening. I had planned to rebid 3♣ over the (anticipated) 1♠ call but I was again wondering what I should do if partner responded 1♥ as you do have nice heart support, but partner might be just bidding up with line on ♥9xxx

Surely after 1♥-1♠ the next bid must be 3♦ not 2NT. The problem with this hand is most slams happen by first showing strength, second finding the fit, and third checking on controls. On this hand you're likely to spend too much time trying to find a fit that isn't there to have enough room to check on controls. I would say this hand definitely cannot be bid to slam if you use LTC, MLTC or HCPs. Both LTC and MLTC require you to have an established 8-card or better fit before you start counting losers (or half-losers) and you only have a combined 28 HCPs so that doesn't put you into the slam zone, either. Assuming that you've decided to play Zar Points (ZPs) or Binky Points (which I know little about) you might agree on a NT structure like this: 26-28 ZPs 1m-rebid 1NT (equivalent 12-14 HCPs) 29-31 ZPs open 1NT (equivalent 15-17 HCPs) 32-35 ZPs 1m-rebid 2NT (equivalent 18-20 HCPs) 38-40 ZPs open 2NT (equivalent 21-23 HCPs) As you can see from the table the opener's 38 ZPs would entitle him (under this theoretical system, which I've never used, don't say is best, and invented just Saturday) the hand does qualify for an opening 2NT bid, which is more attractive considering the heart suit is Jack-empty-fifth. If that happened, the responder would add up his ZPs, figure out they're in the slam range and check on controls but you still need Voidwood or some other exclusion Blackwood system otherwise you're likely to stop because of uncertainty about controls. Even so, I think that a good number of people even with the above ZP agreement might still readily open it 1♥ with plans to rebid 3♦.